Tip of the Week
Do You Have a Quadruple Threat Receive?
Franchise-Based Professional US Table Tennis League
If you want to be a world-class player in the US, then the first thing you have to do after high school (after years of training!) is to get out of the US. It's almost impossible to reach a world-class level unless, at that stage, you spend a few years training and competing against the best in the world, and that means going overseas to play on a team. Most top US players who do this do so in the German leagues, where they both compete regularly against other top players (and gain experience against different styles), and train daily, usually two sessions per day, with the members of their team, along with extensive physical training and serve practice. Most top US players, from past champions Dan Seemiller, Eric Boggan, Sean O'Neill, and Jim Butler, to current US #1 Kanak Jha and other current US players (including Lily Zhang, Nicholas Tio, Wue Yue, and Kai Zarehbin, who were all overseas in leagues when the pandemic began), all developed extensively in European leagues. (The complication, of course, is that this is also the time that many stop training seriously and go to college. But some continue their training and go to college later, after their professional career is over.)
But wouldn't it be great if, someday, top players didn't have to do this because of a Professional US League? Yeah, easier said than done. Where do you get the money? Without money, there's no "professional," and you end up with just top recreational players while the pros go overseas.
Years ago I put together a draft of how to do this. This past weekend I updated it a little, though I still list it as "VERY ROUGH DRAFT." Here's it is:
Photo by Donna Sakai
