Table tennis: Star guiding Bay students

Kadia Keller-Rice is passing on her table tennis skills to Western Bay students. Photo / Joel Ford

Bay of Plenty school kids be warned - Sport Bay of Plenty Coach Force and KiwiSport facilitator Kadia Keller-Rice is coming for you.

A couple of hours spent hitting and chatting with the energetic educator is enough to know her years spent playing and coaching Europe's elite have only increased her passion for the game she is charged to promote at dozens of the region's schools.

She counts chance meetings with Roger Federer and Martina Hingis as highlights of more than a decade spent coaching and playing professionally throughout Europe, though being hustled into the Lindt chocolate company's businesshouse team in exchange for vast sums and varieties of chocolates rates as an honourable mention.

"I couldn't believe that I saw him live - I was thrilled to see him practising," she said of the man known as the Fed Express.

"The guy he was practising against was a Czech guy - his dad used to be my dentist in Switzerland. He was a junior Wimbledon champion. I remember him when he was little, Martina Hingis' mum used to coach him and Martina at almost the same time.

"All these years later I went back and realised it was him playing. Federer was coming up to the net and was volleying and the other guy was just firing at him. I was thinking that he was going to get hit and sure enough, Federer was holding his ground and then got hit."

The Swiss superstar signed autographs and chatted with Keller-Rice, whose husband was the former coach of the Swiss national table tennis team.

The former national representative proved she is still competitive by claiming a fistful of medals at last week's nationals despite having reduced her training to the odd hit at Memorial Hall.

Four medals against younger, high-class opposition from Bulgaria, Korea, China and the Czech Republic represented a fine return given her severely limited build-up.

It has been a big year for both Keller-Rice and the sport. Her Coach Force role with Sport Bay of Plenty began in July after funding came through for her KiwiSport position at the beginning of the year.

The New Zealand Youth Games will feature table tennis in early December, and with the sport being added to AIMS Games next year it's poised to continue its creep into classrooms, school halls and garages across the Bay.

Keller-Rice thanked Bay of Plenty secondary school teachers for their support for her lunchtime programmes and said she was looking forward to turning her focus to Rotorua during the next school term.

Kadia Keller-Rice
*Multiple former New Zealand table tennis age group singles, doubles, mixed champion.
*New Zealand 30+ women's singles and doubles champion in 2010.
*Three-time NZ representative at the World Open Table Tennis Championships (1981, 1985, 1999) and two-time participant in Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships.
*Former head table tennis coach in Switzerland and assistant coach to the English national team.
*Holds the highest Swiss Tennis teaching diploma and has been a head tennis coach in Switzerland and Italy.
*Travels to Bay of Plenty secondary schools to promote the game and trains coaches throughout the region.
*Has posted victories over players ranked number three and seven in the world at racketlon (a combined four-sport event including racquet sports tennis, table tennis, squash and badminton).

2013 NZ Open Table Tennis Championships results:
Over 30s women's doubles winner
Over 30s women's singles runner-up
Bronze in open mixed doubles
Bronze in open women's doubles