Courtesy of Tim Boggan

Cheng Yinghua (or just Chen, as his familiars–that is, everybody–at his Gaithersberg Club comfortably call him), is of course, at age 42, our three-time National Champion. Many of us first came to know him–well, know of him–when in 1985, as one of the Top 40 players in the world, he won the Miami Beach U.S. Open by beating in succession players from four different continents: Sweden’s 1984 European Champion Ulf Bengtsson; ‘83 U.S. Open Champ Eric Boggan; Nigeria’s #1, Atanda Musa, who in ‘81, ‘82, and ‘83 had piloted his Skypower team to repeated successes at our U.S. Open Team Championships; and, finally, Chinese Taipei’s 1984 U.S. Open Champion Wen Chia Wu. All, obviously, then, still formidable players. For good measure Chen then paired with World Champion Jiang Jialiang to win the Men’s Doubles over Sweden’s Jan-Ove Waldner and Erik Lindh, 13 and 7–this after, uh, being extended, 19 in the 3rd, in their Team tie with the U.S.’s Danny Seemiller and Eric Boggan.