Summers Henderson was co-editor of this 82-minute documentary, along with director and editor Sara Newens and director and co-editor Mina T. Son. "Top Spin" profiles three young athletes who are among the very best in their sport, even at 15 and 16 years old. The film tells their individual stories while also serving as an introduction for the viewer to the world of competitive table tennis. One of the editing tasks Summers worked on was looking through hundreds of hours of competition footage -- which had up to seven camera angles on each match -- to find the key points that told the story.
The two additional scenes included here were edited by Summers to create extras for the DVD release.
"Top Spin" premiered at DOC NYC and screened at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Boston, and CAAMFest in San Francisco, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. It also screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Best Editing of a Documentary Feature. It was theatrically released by First Run Features.
From the Los Angeles Times review: The documentary "Top Spin" grips, exhilarates and breaks hearts like the 1994 film "Hoop Dreams."
From the Variety review: The film doesn’t so much avoid clichés as brush off any sentimental excess, briskly maintaining narrative flow.