Tip of the Week
The Flat Smash That Isn't.

USATT League Ratings as Initial USATT Ratings
Below is a proposal I made a few days ago to the USATT Tournament Committee about using USATT League ratings as initial ratings for tournament. I think it's self-explanatory. Note that both regular USATT ratings (i.e. tournament ratings) and league ratings are in the USATT database, and both are in each player's profile when you look up their rating in the USATT ratings page. In the August Open I ran recently we had three "unrated" players who had league ratings that could have been used - but instead, we had to treat them as unrated players, so they could only play in the preliminaries of rating events.

Dear USATT Tournament Committee,

The USATT League is rather widespread, with (I'm told) more rated matches every month than...

Tip of the Week
Never Think About Winning or Losing While Playing - Excise the Thought and Play Well!

How's Your Backhand Attack?
I've never had a strong backhand attack, relying instead on consistency and a strong forehand. It worked when I was younger and fast enough to cover much of the table with my forehand - though I'd have been better if I'd a better backhand attack - but now that I'm an eensy, wheensy, tiny bit older (um, 58), that doesn't work anymore. I can and do a backhand loop, but during my playing career it was more of a variation I'd throw at players. I actually developed my backhand loop more as a coach so I could demonstrate it. In practice, I actually have a pretty good backhand loop against backspin now.

Back in the days when I was developing a common slogan was, "One gun is as good as two." This meant that if you developed your forehand and footwork, having a strong backhand attack wasn't necessary. In fact, during those years there were a lot of style confrontations as one-winged...

Tip of the Week
Make Up-and-Coming Players Your Rivals - and Stay With Them!

USATT Board Teleconference
The teleconference started at 7PM and went until about 8:20 or so. (I'm on the USATT board of directors.) Ignoring formalities, there were three main segments.

1) USATT High Performance Director Jörg Bitzigeio gave a High Performance Update, which mostly covered recent USATT training camps and ranking tournaments. As I've noted before, the level and depth of play among our up-and-coming juniors is easily the best in modern history, i.e. since the hardbat era. (My club is helping - we had three of the four semifinalists in Under 10 Boys at the recent USA Nationals, and two of them - including the winner - is off today for two weeks training and competing in France, which finishes with the European Mini-Championships, Aug. 24-26. Here's the info page, but alas, it's in French.)

2) A long discussion of our upcoming in-person meeting in Colorado Springs, Sept...

Tip of the Week
Training the Subconscious.

Top Ten Surprising Thing About Top Table Tennis Players
Top table tennis players can often seem a different species than the rest of us. After all, they have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men! Here are ten things about top players that might surprise you.

1. Away from the table they aren't that much different from other people. Really! It's only when they are training, and how intense they often are during training, that sets them apart. Bother them while they are training and you might get a slightly irritated "What do you want?" look. So wait until they are off the table and you'll find them 100% normal. Or at least close!
2. They get their touch on short balls not by just hitting the ball lightly, but by grazing the ball. The grazing motion not only puts backspin on the ball, but makes the ball bounce off the racket more slowly, making it easy to drop the ball short.
3. Their favorite serve is often no-spin! More specifically, half-...