Bold Local Sam Harnett became a ping-pong fan at age six, when an uncle introduced him to the game in a musty basement during a family reunion. He was hooked, but he didn't really learn proper playing technique until recently, while writing his story for The Bold Italic. In "Long Shot," Sam meets up with Lewis Loyi Wei, a 70-year-old Chinese table tennis master who once gave the Chinese national team a special tutorial on his wicked serve. After Sam's lesson, he finds a fancy new paddle and gets some practice against a relentless ball machine at AMDTrading Corp., before finally finding a perfect match against a real-life opponent in a basement of the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.