Illegal Hidden Serves

As I've blogged a number of times, cheating is rampant in our sport when it comes to serving. At the higher levels, over half of matches involve a player hiding his serve, i.e. cheating. Here's what I wrote about this two days ago, after the U.S. Open:

"Once again I came away from a major tournament disgusted at all the cheating – in particular, players hiding serves. Why do they do it? Because it helps them win and they get away with it. They may fool the umpires, who aren't sure if the serve is hidden (which is synonymous with saying the serve is illegal, but that's the least enforced rule in table tennis), but they don't fool coaches and experienced players, who know who the cheaters are. It's common at the world-class level, of course, but that was also true of, say, steroids. Does that mean we should copy those who cheat? I have no objection to someone hiding their serve if their opponent does it first and the umpire doesn't call it. It's the ones who do it first, with the sole intent of winning by cheating, that disgusts me. A player I coached lost two matches because of this cheating – learning to return them is going to become a major part of his training. (Note that few players hide the serve every time. The norm is to use border-line serves early on, to numb the umpire to such serves, and pull out the hidden ones several times a game and at key points at the end. I have video and still pictures showing many of these players hiding their serve.)"

Forehand Pendulum Serves

There are four primary reasons the forehand pendulum serve is by far the most popular serve among top players.

First, it's easy to hide contact (illegally) – I've blogged about this a number of times, and won't go into that here. (The solution? As I've proposed, require that the ball be visible throughout the serve to the opponent – as is currently required – and the entire net and its upward extension. The net posts are considered part of the net.)

Second, it's very easy to produce great spin and variation with the serve.

Third, every generation of up-and-coming players copies the previous generation of top players, and since the forehand pendulum serve was the most popular serve among the previous generation, the new generation copies it.

Fourth, it allows players the option of doing a reverse pendulum serve, which gives the opposite sidespin. You can also do this sidespin with other serving motions, such as backhand or tomahawk serves, but when you do that you are pretty much announcing to your opponent which type of sidespin you will be using. (You can, of course, develop reverse backhand and reverse tomahawk serves, but they are trickier and few do this.) It's probably easier to set up for a forehand pendulum serve and be ready to serve with either type of sidespin than with any other serving motion.

Tip of the Week

Change, and the Definition of Insanity. (Originally I was going to skip this week, but this Tip just jumped into my head, and so I wrote it.)

US Open

As usual, it was a busy week at the US Open, July 6-11 in Las Vegas. I spent my time coaching MDTTC players, but can't go into details on that – opponents might be reading this! Here's a rundown.

US Open

I just got back on Sunday from the US Open, and my todo list is now roughly one googol long. I was up nearly all night working on various table tennis projects, and this morning things keep coming up. (Plus I have to leave to coach shortly.) So this'll be a short blog, except for the links below, which are the best of the best from the last twelve days since my last blog before the US Open. (I'll start up with Tips of the Week again next Monday. I changed my mind - I'll have a new one tomorrow morning.) I'll blog about the US Open a bit tomorrow. Here are results, and here's a US Open Review, and here's USATT coverage:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6

100 Days of Table Tennis

Here's the new book by Samson Dubina. (Disclosure: I edited the book for him and did the forward.) Here's where you can buy it on Amazon. I'll likely blog about this more extensively later when I have time. 

Last Blog Until Tuesday, July 14 (after U.S. Open)

I'm off to the U.S. Open this Sunday, where I'll be coaching and maybe vacationing when I have time. As usual, I don't blog when I'm at major tournaments, so this'll be my last blog until afterwards.

I urge you to browse over the links in yesterday's blog (Thursday, July 2), if you haven't already. Why? I was sick all last week, and so didn't blog from Friday until Thursday – meaning yesterday's blog was packed with links to coaching articles and other items. But it is today's blog that'll be the front page for the next eleven days, and so it'll be seen and read by far more people. (My Friday blogs, which are read Fri-Sun, typically get twice as many reads as my other blogs.) Yesterday's blog had four coaching articles (by Han Xiao, Richard McAfee, Ben Larcombe, and Samson Dubina), plus seven coaching videos (including four "Ask the Coach" from PingSkills), so you don't want to miss those.

2015 US Open – Links

Here are a few – you can follow the action from afar! The Open is in Las Vegas, July 6-11.

Our (okay, My) Long National Nightmare is Over

I jumped the gun yesterday in trying to coach all day at the MDTTC camp. When I went in I was still tired, and my voice still slightly hoarse. When I came out I was tired ^100^th power, and my voice was back to a croaking whisper. Note to self: After spending four days lying in bed feverishly sick, it's not good to go straight to six hours of coaching. (As noted previously, I had a suspiciously simple-sounding sinus infection, but that came off as bad or worse than the flu.) 

I've been on the following medications. They are:

• Antibiotics: Amoxicillan and Clavulanate Potassium Tablets
• Guaifenesin AC Syrup (for cough)
• Eye drops: Gentamicin Opth Solution
• NightQuil. I was taking DayQuil as well but the doctor said it wouldn't really help, but thought the NightQuil would.
• Lots and lots of liquids, on doctor's orders.

Today I'm only doing the afternoon session, 3-6PM. This works out well as it gave me plenty of time to do the blog and other things. (Next on list of things I've put off that need to get done: MDTTC July Newsletter. Also a few zillion unread emails.) Overall, the kids in my group are more advanced than normal – all of them are able to play points, and so we were able to play a lot of Brazilian Teams yesterday. (Many kids simply aren't ready for that, and so we do more target practice games.) Only one is actually new; I've worked with the rest before.

I think the kids were happy to see me back. Actually, I think poor Coach Jeffrey was even happier to see me back, since he'd been the one assigned to take my place with the younger kids. Working with a pack of kids might be fulfilling, but mentally it's a million times harder than working with a 2500 player. Here's a comparison.

Working with a 2500 player:

Blog Returns Tomorrow, and Ding Dong, the Bacteria is Dead!

I'm back!!! Well, sort of. I was pretty sick for four days, but I'm perhaps 90% over it. I'm going to the MDTTC camp to coach this morning - hopefully my energy will be back. I spent yesterday in bed (which is where I've pretty much lived since Friday), and didn't want to get up early this morning, so no blog today. Blog will return to normal tomorrow morning. Alas, I leave for the U.S. Open this Sunday, and I won't be blogging while there, so that means only two blogs until after the Open. 

As hinted at by the head bacterium in yesterday's "blog," I had a serious infection of the sinuses behind and below the eyes. Gunk was pouring out of the corners of my eyes - yeah, sounds disgusting, so guess how much more disgusting if it's coming out of your eyes? There are still big, black bags under my eyes; I really do look like Frankenstein. Hopefully I won't scare any kids this morning. The side effects of the infection were similar to a very bad cold - fever, chills, constant coughing (and coughing up an incredible amount of disgusting green stuff); aching teeth; aching muscles; headaches; laryngitis and a very sore throat; and complete exhaustion, as if I'd been hit by a tsunami. 

Dear Human Readers,

We are the bacteria infecting Larry Hodges’ body. Last Thursday we invaded, using “Pong Blitzkrieg,” where we destroy all enemy forces before us with our tiny paddles and balls. By Friday we had taken over much of his body. He was beaten – fever, chills, coughing up incredible amounts of green stuff (that’s our glorious dead), runny nose (more of our dead), aching muscles and teeth, sore throat, and laryngitis. In fact, there were so many of us that we overran our positions and began to overflow out his eyes – what he called “gunk” was just more of our dead. (Admittedly, a lot of us get killed taking over a body, with all those marauding white blood cells with their super spinny Tenergy sponges that overpowers our hardbats, but we reproduce faster than we get killed and overwhelm the sponge enemy by sheer numbers.)

Our glorious campaign was going so well. And then Larry saw a doctor Monday morning. A DOCTOR!!! How do these quacks look themselves in the mirror, knowing the misery and death they spread among our kind? This mass killer quickly saw that our stronghold was in the sinuses behind and below Larry’s eyes, which we had been trying to keep secret. He gave Larry antibiotics!!! Using these illegal weapons of mass destruction is a crime against bacteriamanity. We appealed to United Bacteria, the worldwide governing body for bacteria, but they wouldn’t intervene – we all know those vermin are secretly funded by Doctors Without Borders and their ilk. The doctor also gave Larry eyedrops, so terror now reigns from the skies on our helpless minions. He also prescribed some other mysterious medication, a secret weapon that attacks the forces holding and torturing Larry’s throat.

No Blog This Morning

I’m pretty sick right now. Not sure if it’s flu, cold, or something else. I’m seeing a doctor this morning. I put my symptoms into an online medical diagnosis page, and according to that here are the top ten most likely diagnoses: Influenza, Tularemia, Sinusitis, Common Cold, Swine Flu, Infectious mononucleosis, Bird Flu, Lemierre's Syndrome, Sars/Coronaviruses, and Babesiosis. Meanwhile, since I did it already, here’s the Tip of the Week.

Tip of the Week

The Feel of a Shot and a Checklist.

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Send us your own coaching news!

MDTTC Camp, Sick & Exhausted, and Media

One of the side effects of coaching kids is you are exposed to every germ known to mankind. Yep, I’ve come down sick. It’s probably just a cold – 100 degree temperature, extremely sore throat, aching teeth, the general sick feeling (every muscle feels like it was hit by a tsunami), and complete exhaustion. The problem is I was exhausted before I came down sick, from coaching every day for over two weeks, including coaching all day (and sometimes night) in our camps Mon-Fri, even longer hours on Sundays, and about two hours on my “rest” day, Saturday. So right now my exhaustion level on the Richter scale is 11.0, enough to win a game while destroying half the planet.

Even after 24 years of coaching at MDTTC I’m never really sure where to draw the line at when I should just stay home, for myself but even more so I don’t get anyone else in the camp sick. But I’m sort of needed – without me the sun might fall out of the sky, right?

Meanwhile, we did a lot of smashing yesterday. I was surprised at how fast some of the new players picked it up. One seven-year-old registered his first backspin serve that came back into the net; he was quite excited. Here’s the serve demonstrated by Ma Lin (1:18) on an apparently hot day.

I was interviewed by a reporter from the University of Maryland Alumni Association for their newsletter, which is doing a feature on fellow alumni Navin Kumar. Also had an email exchange with one of the sports reporters at the Baltimore Sun, who is both going to put the results of the Capital Area League in the paper (see below) and do a special on Han Xiao. Strangely, we’re more local to the Washington Post, but they’ve always been more difficult to get into, except for KidsPost, which has twice featured us.