For Puerto Rico, what Monica Puig is to tennis or how much Jasmine Camacho-Quinn means for track and field, Adriana Diaz is that athlete for table tennis.
It is no mean feat for a small Caribbean island with a population of just 32 lakh to have a top athlete in table tennis, a sport dominated by Asian giants like China, Japan and Korea.
It all started when Bladimir Diaz and his brother Eladio Afanador started the Aguilas de la Montana Table Tennis Club in Utuado, a town in the centre of the island, around the year 2000. The project helped in the sport’s development in the region and unsurprisingly, the biggest success came from Bladimir’s family in the form of his four daughters – Gabriela, Melanie, Adriana and Fabiola.
“We all grew with the sport. My parents played it. One of the best childhood memories that I have is playing table tennis with my sisters for hours. It really helped me develop as a professional table tennis player,” World No. 16 Diaz told Sportstar on the sidelines of the WTT Star Contender in Chennai.
“Also, being the third sister, I was very competitive. I always wanted to beat my big sister. That also helped me to have a little bit of character in the matches,” she added.
Training in China
In Diaz’s case, another factor which made a huge contribution to her growth was travelling with her father to China every year since she was eight years old for training. “I won’t say I know Mandarin but I can understand it,” she revealed.
Diaz, who featured in the Chinese Super League as part of an invitational side of players from other nations in 2020-21, saw the sport’s tradition and culture first hand and realised why China is the best. “The most important thing is that they are a big team. They have so many people behind them. For example, in my case, I’m here (in Chennai) with only my coach. They travel with physios and a lot of people who know about this sport and they’re all helping to get to the top,” she said.
“They keep coming. If someone’s retired, there’s one 10-year-old little girl already winning. So, it’s just never ending.”
The Olympic dream
Diaz herself also achieved major things at a very young age. She created history by becoming the first-ever Puerto Rican female paddler to qualify for the Olympics (Rio de Janeiro, 2016) when she was 15.
“I didn’t know how crazy it was. I was like a little kid just playing what she loved,” remembered Diaz. Five years later, in Tokyo, she and her cousin Brian Afanador – also a table tennis player – were the flag bearers during the Opening Ceremony.
At last year’s Paris Olympics, Diaz was seeded sixth but suffered a heartbreaking defeat in her round of 16 match against North Korea’s Pyon Song Gyong. “The Olympics are the most important event in sports. I lost leading 3-0 but I’m really happy with what I did in Paris because just being capable of reaching quarterfinals at the Olympics is huge and I was very close to it. I’m just happy that I had that opportunity. Of course, I would have loved to take the match. It just wasn’t possible. I hope maybe at the next Olympics I could just go further,” said Diaz, a two-time Pan American Games singles gold medallist.
Diaz was Puig’s roommate when she upset the then World No. 2 Angelique Kerber in the women’s singles final at the Rio Olympics to clinch Puerto Rico’s first-ever gold medal in any sport at the quadrennial showpiece. She hopes to emulate Puig soon.
Doing her bit for the environment
Apart from being a three-time Olympian, the 24-year-old is also an entrepreneur. She, along with her sisters, co-founded Pretty-Ugly, a company which sells eco-friendly notebooks made of sugar cane with biodegradable and compostable covers. She was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 Local 2023 list for Puerto Rico for this. She was also appointed as one of the first Table Tennis Planet Ambassadors by the International Table Tennis Federation in 2024 to promote environmental conservation and sustainability in the sporting ecosystem.
“We produced notebooks free of plastic just to help the environment and get some money for charity. Right now, the company is only based in Puerto Rico. At first, we wanted to just start with local kids, trying to help the country and then, maybe in the future we can expand,” said Diaz.
Puerto Rican flair
Being from Puerto Rico, it is no surprise that Diaz is a huge fan of rap music and likes to listen to Bad Bunny before her matches. “In Puerto Rico, it is majorly party culture. We like to dance and listen to music. Bad Bunny is one of the best rappers and singers in the world,” she revealed.
On the court, Diaz shows a certain flair and does not shy away from trying audacious “no look” shots. World Table Tennis (WTT) has multiple compilations of Diaz and her trick shots on its YouTube channel.
“I like to do that because I like people to enjoy the matches. Sometimes, my coaches are not happy with what I do because I make them nervous. But at the same time, if there are people watching my matches, I’m going to try to do something cool so they can just enjoy the match. That’s just my game and it’s always going to be like that,” stated Diaz.
Quest for success
Diaz’s wait for her maiden WTT singles title continued after a 0-3 (3-11, 9-11, 10-12) loss to unseeded Korean Kim Nayeong in the round of 16 in Chennai.
However, she is already looking forward to the two big events – the World Cup and the World Championships – in the next two months. “Every event is important but World Championships and World Cup are even more important because in those events, you really want to stand out. You really want to take it. You really want to win,” she said.