In 2015, before she cracked the International Table Tennis Federation's top 100, Egypt's Dina Meshref considered quitting the sport. Now, at the age of 24, she's Africa's champion, and ranked 43 in the world.
The Egyptian, who has held African titles from the age of 15 all the way to senior level, is the only African player in the top 50. Or top 100. Or even the top 130. She competed for Egypt at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, and won the Mediterranean Games title this year.
Now, she has her eye on the World Cup, and even further ahead to Tokyo 2020. Meshref will be competing at the ITTF Women's World Cup, her sixth such appearance, in China from 28 September, where she will aim to go past the round of 16 for the first time.
But first, she must vanquish the Chinese players who have dominated the sport since its Olympic debut in 1988, and who take up five of the top six women's rankings.
"On an international level, all opponents are of very high level, so it's quite challenging to compete against those very good players," Meshref tells KweséESPN.
"You need to be very well prepared and in your best form in order to be able to win a match in a big global event.
"After seeing the list of players participating this year, I think it's going to be tough. I hope to make a new record in the World Cup and come among the last eight.
"I want to improve my ranking and become among the top twenty players in the world, and I hope I can perform well in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics."
As for why the Far East dominates the game, Meshref's thoughts are straightforward: "African players need to work harder and train for longer hours, as the top Europeans and Asians do.
"We also need to try to be more professional athletes, in terms of working on all aspects and not just the table tennis. We should definitely consider nutrition, psychology, and physical fitness."
Meshref is not only a table tennis player but a student as well, studying at the American University in Cairo, and finding a balance between her academics and training has taken some effort.
"Going to training daily and having to work very hard on table tennis and on physical fitness is not easy, especially during my years of study," she says.
"Balancing between both studying and training was not so easy. I also have to sacrifice leisure time and some of the social life.
"Nevertheless, learning how to manage my time and finding that hard work and sacrifices pay off have helped me a lot in building a strong personality and made me stronger and stronger as time passes by."
That strength was needed three years ago, when she was struggling to crack the top 100, and considered retiring her paddle. But her family's history in the sport, with her aunts and great aunt all formidable players [her great aunt, Ines El-Darwish, was the first ever African women's champion, in 1962], she was motivated to keep going.
"I had doubts, there were ups and downs, and at times I thought about giving up," she says.
"[But] My parents, who had a lot of experience in the game, encouraged me to keep training and continue fighting.
"I was waiting for that moment where I won my first [senior] trophy ever [at the 2016 Africa Top 16 Cup]. Of course, it took me a lot of effort and years of training to get there."
Now, with the senior African title and the 2018 Africa Top 16 Cup in her rather full trophy cabinet, that hard work is paying off. Whether she'll be able to add to it in Chengdu remains to be seen, but she's by far the continent's best hope.