Michigan senior Ashoo Jain loves his sport just don"t call it ping pong.

"I used to get insulted," Jain said of people erroneously calling table tennis by it"s slang term, "But not anymore. I"ve overcome it."

Ok, maybe he"s loosened his concern with the name, but Jain is dead serious about his sport. In December, he won the U.S. Under-22 National Tournament in Las Vegas.

He now has a rank of 2,445th, good enough for third in the country among under 22-year olds.

"I made No. 1 for both under-16 and under-18 before, so now my goal is to be No. 1 in under-22," Jain said. "The higher your rating the better. When you beat someone (at a tournament), depending on their rating, you gain (or lose) anywhere from one to 50 points."

Jain, who attends about five-to-six major tournaments a year and about 10 smaller ones, also won the National College Championships in April.

Now Jain wants to focus on winning a spot on the national team so he can compete in the World Championships in San Diego Feb. 7-11.

"From what I have heard, I am top-10 seed in the tournament," Jain said. "The top five people make the team."

If all goes well, he can then set his sights on the 2004 Olympics.

"I gave it a thought for the 2000 Olympic tryouts," Jain said. "But I wasn"t a U.S. citizen so I was not allowed to compete."

Last July, the India-born Jain acquired his U.S. citizenship, giving him the opportunity to shoot for American gold.

Jain started playing table tennis when he was 10, but didn"t get seriously into it until taking lessons from past Olympians David Zhuang and Lily Yip at a club in New Jersey.

"I played all sports actually, but none entertained me like this one," Jain said. "Its very complex, and there are always surprises."

Jain believes that most people laughingly pass off his sport for just a recreational activity in the basement or one of those wacky Forrest Gump accomplishments.

"Believe it or not but you have to be in great physical shape to be very good in this game," Jain said. "The ball approaches or sometimes even crosses 100 miles per hour and 7200 rpm."

But that"s the easy part.

"You have 10-15 feet to cover, within a second of time," Jain said. "To get to the ball isn"t that hard either. It"s all the spin that the person (puts on the ball).

"You have to get behind the ball, and counter the spin with a full stroke. And for that, you need to be in really good position all in one second."

Is that intense enough?

"Actually that"s the first remark that people say, when they haven"t seen table tennis before: "Wow, I didn"t realize it was so intense!"" Jain said. "Hey, it"s the second most-popular sport in the world outside of soccer, so there"s something behind the sport."

Jain also holds position as the president of the Michigan Table Tennis Club, which meets three times a week and has about 35 members. Jain encourages new members to join and it even provides some fun exercise.

"I go through three or four shirts full of sweat from playing a couple of hours, so its a good workout," Jain said.