Tip of the Week
What to Do in the "Big Points."

BREAKING NEWS - 2021 US Nationals Preliminary Rounds to Play RR Format, Masks Not Required
Here's the news item that went up Tuesday night. Deadline to enter the US Nationals is in one week, June 15. Note the changes in starting days and times listed at the end. (At the time this went up, there were only 328 entries. I'll write more about this next week.)

US Junior Team Trials - Under 19 and Under 15
I spent last week at the US Junior Trials at the ICC Table Tennis Center in Milpitas, CA, in the Bay area, June 3-6. Here are complete results, care of TTLive. (Besides the Trials, for boys and girls, they also had separate events for Under 17 and a combined Under 11/Under 13.) Here is the USATT graphic showing the members and names of the players making the four teams. A total of 101 players competed in 516 matches. (The rating results are already up.)

Special thanks for the event goes to USATT, ICC, to the staff who put it together: High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, Tournament Director Gao Jun, Referee Yelena Karshtedt, Josh Dyke (who did the streaming and helped with results), Umpires Steve Lee and Sophie Chen, Tiffany Lam and Purvi Soni (who helped at the control desk), and the many scorekeepers, many of them players in the tournament - I don't have a complete listing, but email me of others you know or of any corrections: Sid & Nandan Naresh (who would come 1-2 in the Under 19 Trials, with Nandan winning the Under 15 Trials), Nicole Deng, James Zhang, Winston Wu, Isabella Xu, and others.

I arrived along with most of the Maryland Table Tennis Center contingent on Tuesday night after a 2800-mile flight (about six hours). On Wednesday, we had two training sessions. Since they were running a training camp at ICC and using all the tables, we had arranged in advance to train at nearby Table Tennis America. The second session was at ICC. Throughout out stay, we ate a lot of Chinese food for lunch and dinner; one of our players, Mu Du, who "lives" for McDonalds, lamented at the lack of McDonalds cuisine, saying, "This is a slight disaster." Then the action began on Thursday morning!!! Since the six boys from MDTTC were all in the Under 15 event, that was their primary focus, but the Under 19 event was a great training and a warmup for them.

The MDTTC players were Stanley Hsu (12, 2313), Ryan Lee (14, 2216), Mu Du (13, 2139), Nicole Deng (15, 2125), James Zhang (14, 2091), William Wu (15, 2061), and Winston Wu (11, 2018). The coaches were Wang Qingliang, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Wang Cheng, and Larry Hodges (me!). Including parents, we had 17 in our group.  

Stanley Hsu, 12, rated 2313 coming in, had a nice tournament, making the Under 15 team as the youngest member - all the others are 14 or 15, except for Daniel Tran, who turns 14 in July. Stanley finished fifth, which actually makes him the #6 player on the team - see explanation below. But he had a weird tournament. He lost deuce in the fifth in Under 19 to Kai Zarehbin (2420), and beat a number of others in the 2250-2350 range, and mostly played like a 2400 player. Against Under 15 #1 Nandan Naresh (2442), he was up 10-8 in the fourth and missed a pair of forehands or it would have gone into the fifth. But the truly weird match was against Keenan Zhou (way, Way, WAY underrated at 2091 - more accurately rated afterwards at 2254). Stanley wins the first 11-5 and goes up 9-0 in the second . . . and lets up. As I later told Stanley, that was the worst thing that could happen - because right then, at the same time, as Stanley started to let up, Keenan, having nothing to lose, started to play really well. Stanley had to take a timeout to win that game, 11-8. Keenan continued to pour it on while Stanley struggled to regain his focus, with Keenan winning the third, 11-4. At this point, Stanley had outscored Keenan 20-5 at the start, but been outscored 19-6 since! In the fourth, Stanley goes up 7-3 and is coasting, but in this streaky match, Keenan wins eight in a row. In the fifth, at 4-4, in this (did I say streaky? Make that SUPER-streaky) match, Keenan wins seven in a row to win. The final scores, -5,-8,4,7,4, don't really tell the tale. (Keenan would also go on to make the team, finishing seventh.) Later I would discuss with Stanley the idea that, when you are in the lead, your thinking needs to be, "Take it!," not "Let's be careful."

Each team will (usually) have eight players. The winner of the age event at the upcoming US Nationals will get the #1 spot. The Trials here are for spots 2-8. What that means is that whoever finishes first here is #2 on the team; second place is #3; and seventh place is #8. Since all four Trials had a Final Eight, it means that whoever finishes eighth is #9, and so technically isn't on the team - yet. If any of those eight players wins at the Nationals - and the odds are extremely high that that will happen - then that player moves up to the #1 spot, and all those who finished behind that player move up a spot - meaning the number eight finisher moves from #9 to #8, and becomes an official member of the team.

Here are some photos taken by Lingda Hsu, Stanley Hsu's mom. L-R: Stanley's Under 15 Team trophy (it weighs a ton!); most of the Maryland players and coaches; the US Under 15 Boys' Team; Stanley; Stanley and me; Stanley with Coach Wang Qingliang and me; Coach Wang and Stanley; MDTTC players Stanley Hsu, James Zhang, and Mu Du; and three more pictures of Stanley with Coach Wang.

Alas, it's not all roses for MDTTC. Nicole Deng I believe had at least one match point before losing 15-13 in the fifth against Kayla Goodwin - if she wins that match, she's in the Final Eight and almost for certain on the National Team. James Zhang was up 10-8 match point on Ryan Wu (2266) in the match to make the Final 12. But they'll have many more chances, including the Under 17 Trials in ten days, where Nicole is currently seeded #5. 

I did have one serious gripe about the Trials - the rules said there would be no geographic separation. This has been an ongoing issue for me - I think it's silly not to do so. And this time, it seriously affected our team, which seemingly flew 3000 miles to play each other! In Under 15, we had six players in the nine groups of four - and three of them were in the same group, as the top three seeds! (And sure enough, one of our players was knocked out of the event by another of our players in an upset win.) In Under 19, we also had six players in the eleven groups of four - and two groups had two of our players! In Under 17, we only had three players in the initial six groups, and two of them were together! (That event was later redrawn, with the MDTTC players in separate groups.) The groups were done legally, strictly by the "snake" method, and it just so happened that it kept putting MDTTC players together.

I sent an email to the USATT High Performance Director and High Performance Committee on Thursday night, asking that they use geographic separation at the upcoming Trials in NY (Under 17, 13, 11). After a number of messages, it was agreed, and we won't have to deal with this again. Players from the same club or family will be separated in preliminary groups. They will also play first in subsequent rounds, which I agree with. I don't want some kid to be in the position where, after he's clinched his spot on the team or is no longer in contention, he plays a teammate who needs to win to make the team. That kid could be under pressure to dump that match to his teammate.

On Saturday, since most of our players were done, we headed back over to Table Tennis America for a joint training session of six of our players and about a zillion of theirs. MDTTC Coach Wang Qingliang was the guest head coach for the session, which I and the other MDTTC coaches also assisted in. On Sunday afternoon, after the Trials were done, we headed over for a tour of the new 888 Training center, which opens in the next two weeks. It'll be huge, with about 40 tables. Our kids ended up playing fun matches with some of the locals, including an improvised Brazilian Teams (players take turns at the table playing one game that starts at deuce, stay up until you lose), and then, for about half an hour, we played with smart phones, kindles, driver's licenses, a roll of tape, and whatever items we could dig up! (You can chop pretty well with a kindle.)

Most of our contingent left on a red-eye flight at midnight on Sunday, landing at 8:06AM at Dulles Airport. I got home at 9:45AM. And now we start training for the US Junior Trials for Under 17, 13, and 11, to be held at the Westchester TTC in NY in ten days, June 18-20 - and we have an even larger contingent going! I even bought up and donated to our club all the leftover Nittaku Premiums from the Trials (47 of them, 36 new) for our kids to train with, since they'll be using those at the NT Trials.

USATT Board Meeting and Minutes
There was a USATT board meeting on Zoom last night. I attended most of it. Nothing ground-shattering happened, and I only took a few notes. Here was the agenda:

• CEO Report. [I missed the start, but there was mention of four bids for the next US Open.]
• [High Performance Director Report - came next but wasn't on the agenda. Sean spoke about various past and upcoming events.]

• Update re: Proposed Amendments to the Bylaws Update re: Athletes Advisory Council – First and Second Athletes – Third and Fourth Athletes [Lots of discussion on this, but the two main points: they will all be elected, no more appointments; and the elections will take place after the Olympics, so as not to interfere with players training for that.]
• Consideration for Approval of Proposed Committee Assignments and Chairs: (including new Chairs for Juniors Committee – Diversity, Equity Inclusion Committee – Tournament Committee) (including new members on Nominating and Governance Committee – Tournament Committee). [There was also talk of creating a committee to oversee the abuse of USATT intellectual property - specifically, distributors and manufacturers who use the USATT logo without authorization.]
• Consideration of Issues Related to Officiating and Tournaments

I also noticed that the minutes for the April USATT board meeting are up - see the USATT Minutes Page.

New from Samson Dubina

• Tactical Choooing?!? - 5 things to consider...
• The Mental Timeout - One of the Most Neglected Aspects of Table Tennis!

3rd Ball Attack From The Backhand
Here's the video (1:58) by Rachid El Boubou

The Secret of My hand Switch - the Most Difficult Shot in Table Tennis
Here's the video (4:29) from Timo Boll.

Importance of Practicing the Basic Fundamentals
Here's the video (29 sec) from Eli Baraty.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

• The first ball of table tennis. Play and Stay. Understanding of the game (1:33)
• 5 secrets of the Chinese system in the forehand topspin before the backswing (1:36)
• Three models of schools, from biomechanics (4:58)

New from Seth Pech
Here are his latest expert commentaries.

• Seth Pech vs Mishel Levinski Barbara Wurster Memorial Open 2021 (10:50)
• Seth Pech Vs Gal Alguetti Barbara Wurster Memorial Open 2021 (8:55)

New from Ti Long

• Secret of Yoshimura's Serve and teaches how to Serve (9:30)
• Secret of Fan Zhendong's Forehand Pendulum technique (4:39)

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

• Childhood Photos of Professional Players
• Modern Table Tennis Tactics for Left-Handed Players
• Xu Chenhao Illegal Serve (study case)

Videos (some overlap with the above)

• Ma Long vs Xu Xin (best view angle) (4:59)
• Ding Ning's activities after her retirement (8:41)
• 05 levels of table tennis tricks shots (1:45)
• Main Rivals of China in Tokyo Olympics (2:53)
• Childhood photo challenge for Chinese National Team (2:50)
• Modern tactics for left handed players (12:55)
• What did Chinese coaches say? (eng sub) (11:37)
• Unique playing style with Japanese grip (5:09)
• Guess who are they? (9:40)
• "Snake" at Chinese Trial, feat. Adam Bobrow (4:54)

New from Edges and Nets

• Mattias Falck Interview
• Power Ranking the Olympic Singles Gold Medal Contenders

ITTF High Performance & Development Webinar 48 - Para Table Tennis Coaching
Here's the ITTF Webinar (94 min).

USATT News

• USATT Weekly Pongcast Ep6 - Tournament Sanctioning Software for USATT Clubs (39:14). "Mark Thompson and Sean O'Neill are joined by National Sanctioning Coordinator Larry Thoman and SportFirst Developer Tej Singh to talk about tournament sanctioning software for USATT clubs."
• USATT Launches Tournament Sanctioning Web App by Mark Thompson
• USATT Lifts Requirement to Submit Covid-19 Related Documents for Tournament Sanction and League Approval, by Mark Thompson
• Juan Liu Wins the May Westchester Open by Will Shortz
• 2021 Junior Pan Am Games Team Trials: Sarah Jalli vs. Tiffany Ke (36:43)

New from Steve Hopkins

• Borussia Dusseldorf Dominant Again
• 2021 U19 and U15 US National Teams
• WAB Club Feature: Orange County Table Tennis Academy
• USATT’s T2 Challenge (Season 2): Wei Dianren Wins – Catch Up on All the Videos
• Interview with Samson Dubina: Meet Rachel Wang (1:52)

Lily Yip Table Tennis Center
Here's the video (6:05) by Jimmy Butler on his visit.

A Holiday From Holidays
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Meet Navin P. Kumar: Movie Actor & USA Table Tennis Athlete & Motivational Speaker
Here's the article from Shout Out LA. He's one of my students!

What Is Table Tennis?
Here's the slideshow, created by Hina Sheikh, daughter of Coach Aabid. (Click on icons on left one at a time, or click on "Present" for slideshow. There are 18 slides.)

Jan-Ove Waldner Talks About Ma Long, Fan Zendong, and World Table Tennis Championships
Here's the video (4:57).

ITTF News
They are back to their pre-pandemic activity, so rather than my link to all of their news items, why not browse over their news page?

The Factors Behind China's Olympic Table Tennis Dominance Ahead of Tokyo 2020
Here's the article from Nation.

Top Indian Table Tennis Players Prefer to Train Individually
Here's the article from the Business Standard.

Timo Boll vs Shang Kun | MT-FINAL | German League 2021
Here's the video (10:11).  

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Top 50 Incredible Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (9:14)!

Finding The What Happened Guy
Here's the video (12:57) from Adam Bobrow!

One of These Shirts Should Be Yours!
So . . . which are you?

• Ping-Pong Ninja
• World's Okayest Ping Ponger

Cat Playing Ping Pong !!
Here's the latest (51 sec)!

***
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Tip of the Week
How to Play the Attacker/Blocker with Dead Rubber.

Have a Happy Memorial Day
But remember who are being memorialized. 

Recovering from Injuries - an Opportunity!!!
Recently, a top junior hurt his wrist and so his table tennis play became limited - he couldn't loop forehand or backhand without aggravating the wrist, which made things tricky, since he's a two-winged looper. But I pointed out to him and his dad (via Facebook) that this is really an opportunity! This is what I posted.

He definitely should see a sports medicine doctor and/or therapist, and take time to let the wrist heal. But that doesn't mean taking a break from training. It means he'll finally have time to really focus on the aspects that don't involve the movements that hurt his wrist. He can get himself into top-notch physical shape; work on his pushing (short and long); forehand flipping (less wrist needed than backhand flip); work on his blocking; do footwork drills where the opponent is looping and he's blocking; shadow-practice; and if the motion doesn't hurt the wrist, work on his serves. He should experiment and list all the table tennis moves he can do that don't hurt the wrist, and work on those - but be absolutely certain to avoid those that do. (It could also be a time to have a little fun and practice chopping and lobbing.) It's not lost time; it's an opportunity!!!

Weekend Coaching
On Saturday I went to the club and just got to sit around and watch. Why? They were having the Elite League, so I came in to watch our top juniors play, since I'll be coaching them this next week at the Junior Trials. (See segment below.) I had a few tips for them in helping them prepare, but mostly took notes, especially on serve and receive.

On Sunday, in our Group 3 Session (players up to 1200), I was mostly a walk-around coach. It's been an amazing year, watching these players improve - and a number of the Group 3 players from a year ago are now in Group 2. I worked extensively with one promising player who still tends to use too much arm instead of body on looping, but he picked up on it quick, after some extensive shadow-practice. (See segment below on Muscle Memory and Saturation Training.)

In the Group 2 session (players up to 2000), I spent half as a walk-around coach, and half as a practice partner. For the latter, I did two drills with each player as they rotated to my table. Either they'd serve short backspin, I'd push back deep anywhere, they loop (forehand or backhand), and we play out the point; or they serve short backspin, and I had to either drop it short or flip, they attack, and then play out the point.

For the Group 4 session, we now have seven kids in the 6-8 age group. We did a lot of serve practice, lots of footwork drills, lots of shadow practice, and then target practice games - and lots of toy frogs and cups were smacked with pong-pong missiles. (This session runs at the same time as the Group 1 session - juniors up to 2350 - but nearly all of the advanced ones started out in the beginning group sessions, where I helped develop their foundation, and still coach them at tournaments, on serves, and on sports psychology. They regularly come by to watch, nostalgically missing the simple days where the primary goal was to knock over a stack of cups.)

US Under 19 and 15 Team Trials
I'll be coaching at the US Team Trials for Under 19 and Under 15 this next week, to be held at the ICC Table Tennis Center in Milpitas, CA. (They also have Under 13 and Under 17 events.) We have seven junior players from MDTTC going (ages 12-14, ranging from an even 2000 up to 2313), along with five coaches, four of them MDTTC coaches (myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Wang Qingliang) plus Wang Cheng. We have a training camp at MDTTC today (Monday) along with a USATT info Zoom meeting at 3PM, then on Tuesday, nearly the entire contingent (including parents) fly out of Dulles at 6:35PM. On Wednesday, we train at ICC. Then the Trials begin - four consecutive days, Thur-Sun, June 3-6. Here are some helpful links.

• Player listing
• Draws and Results
• Entry Form
• Updated Format and Schedule Info

Butterfly Bio
Here's my new Butterfly Bio! Regarding my Butterfly sponsorship, I'm often in this tricky position in that I'm sponsored by Butterfly, but my club switched to JOOLA a few years ago. They also sponsor our junior team. I have a long relationship with the owners of both. I was a one-time practice partner with both Bowie Martins (Sr. and Jr.), way back in 1979-81, and have been sponsored by them semi-continuously since that time. On the other hand, I was one of Richard Lee's coaches/practice partners when he was winning nearly every age group (singles and doubles) at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals back in the 1990s, and he now owns JOOLA (worldwide, not just in the US) - and as noted, they now sponsor my club and the junior program I coach at. So I'm always walking a tightrope!

USA Nationals Entries
As I write this the morning of May 31, there are only 242 entries to the upcoming US Nationals. The deadline is June 15, so they have 15 more days. As I've blogged about in the past, I think there would have been a huge turnout if they had run a "normal" Nationals instead of all single elimination - there's a huge hunger out there for a US Nationals and/or US Open, since we haven't had one since 2019. Essentially everyone over age 13 or so who wants to would be vaccinated before the tournament. The reason they went single elimination, according to the USATT CEO at the April board meeting, had nothing to do with the pandemic, saying "The reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." 

Historically, the lowest entries we've ever had were the 335 at the 1986 US Nationals in Pittsburgh. That year was an aberration - the next lowest were the 502 at the 2011 Nationals in Milwaukee. This year, of course, is in the usual Las Vegas, where the norm is usually over 700 more. So, as the entries come in, we'll see if they can top those "magic" numbers of 335 (maybe) and 502 (highly unlikely).

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
Here's the review by Samson Dubina! Here's where you can buy it from Amazon (read the reviews) or Butterfly. (I didn't know about this until I saw it on his page this morning as I put this blog together.)

Top 35 Table Tennis Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2021
Here's the listing from feedspot.com. I'm not sure if I should say, "Yes, I'm #11" or "What, I'm only #11???" Of course, this is a mixing of actual blogs, and websites with news items, which are different things.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Fundraiser
NCTTA is coordinating a National Fundraiser where all donations are doubled (thanks to a generous NCTTA Alum). Can you help them reach their goal of $200,000?

Muscle Memory Application to Tennis
Here's the article, which also applies to table tennis. It's similar to my tip, Saturation Training.

Quick Tip - How to Start After a Break
Here's the video (1:56) from Timo Boll (world #11, formerly world #1). "I hope many of you are currently returning to the halls to play table tennis. In the video you will find some short tips how to start again after a longer break."

New from Samson Dubina

• TT Tactics for Thinkers (see separate segment above)
• US National Team Trials
• Choosing a Coach
• Playing in High Altitudes

New from Eli Baraty

• Developing good placement
• Elevating your footwork!

New from Ti Long

• Ti Long Revealing Ovtcharov's Secret Tomahawk Serve (4:30)
• Ti Long's strangest Tomahawk Serve in the world (34 sec)
• World Stars use Single Step in table tennis match | Footwork | Part 2 | (4:21)

New Drills from Huijing Wang

• Table Tennis Exercises At Home (1:31)
• Backhand, Middle, Forehand, Middle (26 sec)

Transition From Underspin To Topspin
Here's the video (2:37) from Yu Di.

Stroke Chemistry & Footwork
Here's the video (1:48) from Gabriel Perez.

Seth Pech vs Jeremy Hazin Akron Barbara Wurster Memorial Open
Here's the video (7:13) with Seth's expert commentary.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

• What is biomechanics? How is it applied? (4:18)
• 5 kinematic indicators between continents (2:03)

How To Assemble Your Own Table Tennis Racket
Here's the video (2:09).

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

• Bad Manner Serve in Table Tennis - Study Case
• Tokyo Olympics Will Be the Hardest Olympics Ever
• Lots more videos! Many are from the Chinese Olympic Trials.

USATT News

• USATT Board of Directors Seeks Applications for Vacancy on Tournament Committee. "The Board requests that applications be submitted by June 6, 2021, but the nomination period will be open until the committee position is filled."

• USATT National Team Set with Dramatic Performances at the Adult Team Trials in Fort Worth, TX
• USATT Team Set for 2021 Junior Pan Am Games

New from Steve Hopkins

• Fan Tops Xu Xin, Manyu Surprises in China Simulation
• Dusseldorf VII: Anton Answers the Kall
• China’s Olympic Simulation: Ma Long Falls Again
• WAB Club Feature: Texas Table Tennis Training Center
• A Look at the ITTF Calendar
• Germany’s Stumper Wins WTT Youth Tunis
• Junior Pan Am Games Roster
• US Team Trials: Sharon Alguetti Finishes 10-0

Photos by Grant Bergmann in Fort Worth, TX

• 2021 US National Men's and Women's Team Trials
• 2021 Junior Pan Am Games Team Trials photos

Welcome to 888 (Triple Eight) Table Tennis
Here's the article by 888 TTC Director and former USATT High Performance Director Jörg Bitzigeio: "A new International training center in the Bay Area."

One Size Fits All Table Tennis
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

My Table Tennis Experience in Poland
Here's the article by Patryk Zyworonek (US #2 12 and Under, rated 2196)

Table Tennis Pins and Coins
Alexander Klimoff of Russia sent me the links to his table tennis pins and table tennis coins collections. Nice collections!

New from Edges and Nets

• Fan Zhendong and Wang Manyu Win Second Leg of China Olympic Scrimmage
• Out-of-Sorts Ma Long Upset by Xu Chenhao in Chinese Olympic Scrimage Quarterfinals

ITTF News

• Volkava reaches the last 16 in Tunis
• Fatimo Bello retains title as Rilwan Akanbi defies the odds
• Stumper prevails as boys’ action wraps up in Tunis
• Turkey’s Dursun stands proud on opening day in Tunis
• TableTennisUnited supporting paralympic athletes
• Tunisia home for first Youth Star Contender tournament
• Gold in Sydney, Alvaro Valera ready for Tokyo
• Quadri Aruna once again supports Nigerian players
• Table tennis the salvation in the shadows of banditry
• Emmanuel Kolibadis hands over reins of office
• News page, video page ("World Table Tennis"), world rankings, and home page.

Gionis Panagiotis vs Jakub Dyjas | MT-FINAL | 2021 Polish Super League
Here's the video (7:49) of this nice chopper vs. attacker match.

INSANE Table Tennis Shot After Shot
Here's the video (24 sec) - Ding Ning vs. Zhu Yuling.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

'The Butterfly Lady' of Paralympic Table Tennis
Here's the article and video (3:26) from CNN.

3-Year-Old Playing with a Table Tennis Robot
Here's the video (31 sec)! Just think, she has five more years of training before she's eight, a typical age many start playing.

Ping Pong is Life
Here's the simple shirt at Amazon!

Impossible Ping Pong Trickshot
Here's the video (8:13) from XOLAY!

Frozen Ping Pong Ball Challenge
Here's the video (5:17) from Pongfinity!

Crazy Cat Playing Table Tennis
Here's the new cat video (14 sec)!

Poochpong - Me And My Poddle Ping-Pong Play Time !!
Here's the new dog video (24 sec)!

Funniest Ping Pong Game Ever
Here's video (1:44) of this golden oldie! I ran this ten years ago when I first started this blog, but now a new generation gets to see it. Here's a new version (1:46) with sharper images.

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Tip of the Week
Inside-Out Backhands.

Olympian Lily Zhang at MDTTC
On Sunday, May 24 (yesterday), at 5PM, Olympian and 5-time (and current) US National Women's Singles Champion Lily Zhang visited the Maryland Table Tennis Center to give a talk, answer questions, do a demonstration and exhibition, and signed autographs. It was arranged by Richard Lee (owner of JOOLA and part-owner of MDTTC). The event went off great, with about 100 spectators. Here are pictures:

• Group picture - Lily, Wang, and MDTTC juniors
• Lily signing autographs
• Lily vs. Wang Qingliang

After a short talk, Lily took questions from the audience, and there were many! I even asked one - "Since you are about to play a chopper/looper in an exhibition, in general, how would you advise players on how to play a chopper?" She answered that playing choppers was not her strength, but that the key was patience. After the Q&A, she and MDTTC Coach Wang Qingliang did an exhibition, best two out of three to 11. It was spectacular!!! Wang won game one, 11-8; Lily game two, 11-9. They started the third game at deuce. Lily won the first point to have match point, but Wang won, 13-11. (But remember, this was an exhibition. But they really went at it - some points featured Lily attacking and Wang chopping, others had Wang ripping forehands while Lily blocked, plus a few counterlooping rallies.)

Afterwards, there was a LONG line for autographs. Everyone got a free autographed paddle and table tennis keychain. Lily personalized each autograph. She also spoke at length with each player, asking them about their table tennis, how long they've played, who their coach was, and so on. She was extremely gracious and made a lot of new fans! (There might be a video up soon - if so, I'll post it here.)

Weekend Coaching
I ran or helped run three group sessions. In the first (Group 3, players up to about 1200), they sent players to me, three at a time. I put one on the robot, one on ball pickup, and did multiball with the other - with the focus on forehand and backhand looping against backspin. Each got about four minutes, rotating. So I fed nothing but backspin for about an hour, side to side. If a player had trouble on one side, then we'd focus on that. Once I was done with a group of three, three others rotated in. I think we are going to run more sessions this way, where three are sent to me for multiball, while the rest do drills run by Lidney Castro. Also assisting, as always, was practice partner Mu Du (just turned 13, rated 2139).

Next up was Group 2 (players up to about 2000). I acted as a practice partner for this one, with players rotating to my table every five minutes or so. Lots of footwork drills!!!

Next up was the Lily Zhang event - see above!

Next up was Group Four, which is five girls, all ages 7-8, plus a 6-year-old boy who joined the session and may be permanent. All six of them had been there for the Lily Zhang exhibition and all six had gotten autographs, and were still in awe!!! Helping out as a practice partner was Kurtus Hsu. The focus for the session was forehands down the line, which always give beginning kids trouble - unless taught otherwise, they almost always want to tilt their racket back with their wrist and just pat the ball rather than stroke it. (Key: rotate shoulders back, contact ball a little later, in front of right leg for righties.) They also each had a turn with Kurtus, where they had a competition to see who could get the most forehands or backhands (their choice) in a row - the winner got 98, while most of the rest got at least 30.

USATT Hall of Fame Program Book
I spent much of last week putting together the 2021 USATT Hall of Fame Program Book. (Actually, it's for those selected for induction in 2020, but postponed because of the pandemic.) The induction will take place on Thursday, July 8, at the US Nationals. Here's info on the induction banquette and the five honorees - David Sakai (Lifetime Achievement Award) and Hall of Fame inductees Sebastian DeFrancesco (athlete), Pam Fontaine (athlete), Christian Lillieroos (contributor) and Roman Tinyszin (contributor).

This is the eleventh year in a row (starting in 2009) I've done the program book, which I do for free, other than a ticket to the banquet. (Technically, I get paid $100, but I donate that to the Hall of Fame Boosters.) This year's was the most difficult to put together since the first time. First, for years I've been doing it in Pagemaker, using the previous year's as a template. (I used Pagemaker to do all 71 issues of USATT Magazine when I was editor.) But not only has Pagemaker been phased out, but it's so out of date it doesn't even run on my new computer. Plus, no one else can make changes to the program when I did it in Pagemaker. So I had to redo it from scratch in Word. Second, the profiles for the inductees were very long, and so I had to do a lot of cutting and consolidating - which is tricky and tedious. But it got done!

2021 National Team & 2021 Pan Am Junior Games Team Trials
They are going on right now, May 21-26 in Fort Worth, TX. A number of videos and live play are on the USATT Facebook page. Here's the info flyer. Men's and Women's Trials are first, ending today, with the Pan Am Junior Games Trials starting today. (Kanak Jha and Lily zhang made the team automatically as the #1 players by their world ranking and so didn't need to try out. A number of other top players didn't try out, including Xin Zhou, Yijun Feng, Juan Liu, and Wu Yue.)

Breaking News - here's the top four finishers in Men's and Women's:

• Men's: 1st Sharon Alguetti; 2nd Nikhil Kumar; 3rd: Jishan Liang; 4th Dan Liu.
• Women's: 1st Amy Wang; 2nd Sarah Jalli; 3rd Huijing Wang; 4th Tiffany Ke.

Here's a graphic from USATT showing the Men's and Women's National Team - 8 men, 8 women. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

The National Under 19 and Under 15 Team Trials will be held at ICC in Milpitas, CA, June 3-6, and the National Under 11, 13, and 17 Team Trials will be held at the Westchester TTC in Pleasantville, NY, June 18-21. Info is at the top under USATT Events at Omnipong. I'll be coaching at both of these events.

Kanak Jha vs Benedikt Duda | FINAL | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters V
Here's the video (9:23).

USATT Announces Updated Policy and Protocol for 2021 US Nationals
Here's the USATT news item. Spectators will now be allowed.

Help NCTTC Raise $200,000 to Strengthen College Table Tennis in North America!
Here's the GoFundMe fundraiser.

New from Timo Boll

• My 3 Killer Serves (3:34)
• The toughest drill - 1:1, but only forehand (2:04)
• Delayed Short Receive - This shot can change everything (3:59)

Managing Sports Aggression: Four Tips for Athletes
Here's the article by Dora Kurimay.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
He has many new items on his Video and Articles pages.

Forehand Loop From Underspin
Here's the article and video (1:26) from Jabdiel Torres, narration by Brian Pace.

Tips on Reading Service Spin
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

How to Learn & Play the Forehand Flick
Here's the video (7:33) from Dublin TTC. (Note - flick and flip are the same thing.)

New from Eli Baraty

• Short touch multiball drill
• Forehand counter topspin
• Backhand on the move
• Shakehand grip for effective multiball pushes (feed)

New from Ti Long

• How does Ti Long Table Tennis compete internationally? (9:15)
• Single Step Technique (P1) | Footwork (4:27)

New from Samson Dubina

• Table Tennis Breakfast
• Barbara Wurster Memorial Open
• Meet Rachel Wang (1:51)

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

• Table tennis tips. Training at home. Basic footwork exercise (1:34)
• Table Tennis tips with a vision of biomechanics. Upper limb plyometry (1:52)
• Table tennis tricks. artificial intelligence. (2:44)
• Table tennis tricks. teaching BASIC FOOT WORK (2:24)
• Table Tennis Tips . Remote training from home. The table (3:52)
• Table tennis tricks. teaching backhand topspin (50 sec)

Table Tennis Exercises At Home
Here's the video (90 seconds) from Huijing Wang.

New from the ITTF

• ITTF Foundation is Looking for a Programme Coordinator
• Full house for Mexico as play draws to a close 
• Olympic table tennis teams confirmed for Tokyo
• Jaime Galeano amongst star performers on penultimate day in San José
• ITTF Foundation Quarterly Update April 2021
• Mexicans make intentions clear in team capacity
• Magdieva and Kaufmann bag final day honours in Vila Real
• ITTF launches 2021 Participation Program
• News page, video page ("World Table Tennis"), world rankings, and home page.

New from Steve Hopkins

• Age is Just a Number: Lifetime Sports
• WAB Club Feature: PowerStroke Table Tennis Club
• Duda Wins Makes it Two in a Row in Dusseldorf
• See You in Tokyo: ITTF Announces Teams Confirmed
• Ovtcharov and Gazprom’s Championship Pipeline

Tremendous, Terrific, Tournament Time
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

$5000 Barbara Wurster Memorial Open Recap
Here's the article by Jabdiel Torres.

Goodbye Ding Ning - She's Retiring
Here's the new video (9:16) that highlights her career, from inMotion Table Tennis.

China Table Tennis Facing 'Unprecedented Threat' at Olympics
Here's the article from Yahoo Sports. "China have won 28 of 32 table tennis gold medals awarded at the Olympics, but their supremacy could face its biggest test yet in Tokyo this summer." "Home advantage for fierce rivals Japan, inconsistent form among China's top players and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic suggest the world's most populous country might not have it all their own way when the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics start in just over two months."

Four-Year-Old Talent in Chengdu Practices Table Tennis Blindfolded
Here's the article and video (2:22) from ecns.cn - but the key thing to note here isn't when he does the blindfold thing, but that he's playing on a raised platform, allowing him to start at a much younger age than most kids, who usually aren't tall enough to play on a normal-sized table until they are at least five or six years old.

Catching Up with Michael Godfreys: Swinging for the Games
Here's the article from Pro Rodeo, on this former pro bronc and bull rider's journey to wheelchair table tennis.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Stashka - Dreams in One Ball
Here's the table tennis music video (3:23).

My Lucky Ping-Pong Shirt (Do Not Wash)
Here's where you can buy this at Amazon!

Funny Table Tennis Fight Anime Style VFX
Here's the video (2:45)!

Actin'Funny
These are somewhat funny as three kids battle it out in what is the very definition of basement ping pong.

• Ping Pong Battle 1 (13:53)
• Ping Pong Battle 2 (15:46)

Jan-Ove Waldner Imitates Liu Guoliang
Here's the video (20 sec). I'm guessing some will find his facial expressions offensive, but the movements are dead-on, with only a bit of exaggeration. Waldner and Liu were huge rivals in the 1990s, and Liu is now the head coach for China.

Kangaroo Pong
There is a serious shortage of kangaroo table tennis pictures or videos. This is all I could find. I'm very disappointed.

• Kangaroo & Joey vs Dog art print
• Kangaroo Ping-Pong Hero
• Kangaroo on Australian TTA Ping
• Kangaroo table tennis sponge
• Kangaroo paddle (six to choose from!)
• Polkaroo Plays Table Tennis. (Polkaroo is a polka-dotted kangaroo from the Canadian children's program Poka Dot Door.)
• Captain Kangaroo gets doused with ping-pong balls (video)

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Patient Decisiveness.

The Subconscious and Table Tennis
One of the hardest things to convince up-and-coming players to do is to just let go, and let their training take over. What that really means is letting your subconscious do what it was trained to do.

Your brain has about 90 billion neurons. On average, each connects to 7,000 others, for a total of roughly 70 trillion connections. Nearly all of that is your subconscious. If I say, "Who was the first US president?", those neurons immediately cough up George Washington. When you tie your shoe, you don't consciously think about each movement - the movements are stored in your subconscious, ready to be brought up on command by your conscious mind.

Similarly, every time you train at table tennis, those neurons are making connections as they learn what they are supposed to do. Once they learn, they are pretty good doing it, as long as you don't interfere. Who is the "you"? That's the conscious mind, which doesn't have all these neurons that instantly do things the way they are taught. Once you bring the conscious mind into it, you start a fight as your conscious mind tries to take control of a process it isn't well trained at, while the subconscious is trying to do what it is well trained at. Here are some examples.

When I teach the forehand, I'll often set up a filled water bottle on the far side of the table. Then I'll systematically grab balls and, from across the table, smack ball after ball into it, almost never missing, the whole time giving a lecture on the stroke. The key thing is that I can only do this if I do not aim at the water bottle - at least not consciously. All I have to do is decide to hit the bottle, and watch it, and the subconscious takes over - and it's really good! I get all the credit, when all I (the conscious me) is doing is watching the bottle and trying hard to do nothing, while the subconscious, which is smacking the bottle over and over, gets no credit. I almost feel guilty! The key I try to get across to students is that you first learn the stroke, which means training the subconscious. And then you let go, and let it take over.

Another example is my serve. For 45 years I've had this habit as I'm about to serve of pulling my racket arm back and then forward. If I don't do that, I lose most of the control and precision on my serves. But as soon as I bring my arm back and forward, the subconscious part of my brain that has learned to serve lights up, and the rest is easy - I decide what serve to do, visualize what I want it to  do, and then just watch it happen.

I used to play tennis. Because of table tennis, I have very good placement. If I see an opening, my subconscious jumps on it, and I smack the ball there. But I made a bad discovery - when I go to the net to volley, whatever part of my subconscious that controls this doesn't turn on! It was frustrating for at time - I felt like an amateur. Then I made good discovery - when I do a swinging volley, that part of my subconscious immediately turned on, and once again I had great placement! What I realized is that, after all these decades of table tennis, it was my backswing on any given shot that alerted my subconscious that I was about to hit a shot, and could it please find the best spot to aim for? Normally, when volleying in tennis, you don't backswing - you often don't have time, and it's harder to control. But for me, except on pure reflex volleys, I started to use swinging volleys all the time, which drove my coaches crazy, but worked for me.

Many years ago I learned about the power of the subconscious in a completely non-table tennis way. Circa 1983, the famous math puzzlist Martin Gardner posed a challenge to college math students in the US - five different math problems where you had to find an algorithm that could be put into a computer to solve the problem. If I remember correctly, two were soon solved by students at MIT and Caltech. Three remained unsolved. I believe I was a sophomore math major at University of Maryland when I took a class from Dr. Harold Reiter, a visiting professor from University of North Carolina. (I was so active in local table tennis I didn't apply for any other colleges than U of M, five minutes' drive from my parent's house where I grew up.) He told the class that if anyone wanted, they could join a research group that was trying to solve the remaining Gardner problems. He promised three things: 1) You will learn a lot about math research; 2) there was roughly a 0% chance of us solving the problem; and 3) if anyone solved any of the problems, they'd get an automatic A for the course.

I signed up and spent a lot of time going over one of the problems. Nothing really came to mind. Then, one night (or rather morning), at 2AM, I literally sat up in bed - the entire solution had just popped into my head! I had no idea where it came from; when questioned about it, I was unable to explain the step-by-step process that got to the solution. I just know that at 8AM, when Dr. Reiter came in, I was at his office door, probably slurring my words and talking 500 mph, yelling, "I solved it! I solved it!" (I had a printout from the computer with the solution from my algorithm.) I got the automatic A. The article with the solution (by myself and Dr. Reiter) was published a few years later (these things take time!) in a math journal, the Spring, 1986 issue of Mathematics and Computer Science Education. (The article was titled, "Magic Rectangles Revisited," since they had done a previous article on a similar topic.)

Where did the solution come from? While my conscious mind was inputting the needed info to solve the problem, my subconscious had been hard at work. I had no clue until the entire solution just popped into my head! But just as you must training your subconscious in table tennis, I had to first spend a lot of time studying the problem, so the subconcious had what was needed to solve the problem. (Alas, little of this is online - there was no public Internet back then. But I have a copy of the math journal.)

So it's no different than table tennis. Train your subconscious - that's why you do table tennis drills and perhaps work with a coach - and then let it go to work! 

Weekend Coaching
As usual, Sunday was my busy day - I'm at the club from 11AM to 7:30PM. Things started with the Group 3 session, with players up to about 1200 level. I alternated between being a roving coach and being a practice partner for some of the kids. I put a lot of them through the usual footwork drills.

After a quick lunch, that was followed by a session with Navin Kumar. (As mentioned before, I'm retired from private coaching, but made an exception for Navin.) Here are two videos:

• Backhands (30 sec, backhands, a shot off the face, and a forehand smash)
• More Backhands (22 sec, where he blocks with the pips and then switches to inverted to smash)

Next up was a sports psychology session with one of our players, where we focused on specific issues from the recent tournament in Cary, NC, and on specific situations.

Next up was the Group 2 session (players up to about 2000), where I acted as a practice partner for one hour. The first half were lots of footwork drills, where I blocked side to side. The second half was mostly the player serving backspin, I push to a specific spot, they loop, and play out the point. I worked with several players on improving their opening and follow-up loop, including one who too often just rolled the ball, guiding the shot instead of just letting the shot go.

Next up was the weekly circus, or rather, the Group of Five, or rather the five girls, all ages 7-8. Most coaches are terrorized by such a group, but I know the secret - I constantly banter with them, keep it interesting, and that holds their attention. Plus, of course, regular water breaks so they can do selfies. We always do an hour of practice and then 30 minutes of games. For the games, I started off by setting the robot at full speed, both velocity and feed speed, and let them take turns trying to return it. Surprisingly, they all got the hang of it! Then, as always, we finished with cups - they built the usual pyramids, walls, and forts, and then they knocked them down as I fed multiball. One small change - I brought in "Draggy the Dragon" a stuffed dragon that's about the size of a toaster. Besides using it for target practice while on the robot, they built a fort around him with the cups. At the end, after all the cups had been knocked down and all that was left was Draggy, I stuck a ping-pong ball - a nuclear bomb - under one of his arms and gave them sixty seconds to knock it off before it exploded. Took them 42 seconds, so we were saved from desolation by 18 seconds.

USATT Coaches Meeting
Here's the video (48 min) of the meeting this past Friday. (They meet every Friday at noon eastern time, run by USATT High Performance Director Sean O'Neill - info is posted in advance each week at the USA Table Tennis Coaches Facebook Page.) This week's main topic was "Keeping it fun!" I shared the picture at the top of the MDTTC Group Classes page as an example. I have the kids create huge pyramids and walls of paper cups, and then, as I feed multiball, they take turns knocking it down! (See all those open mouths!) I may do a video later, but I'm a little leery as I'm told I should get permission from all the parents of all the kids in the video, and that's quite a hassle.

California Recall Election
C'mon, people - if there's going to be a recall election and it only takes $4000 and 75 signatures to get on the ballot, we need someone to run on a Table Tennis Platform! The publicity from that stunt would be well worth the $4000!

The Lost Legend And Secret Legacy Of Table Tennis Master Rong Guotuan
Here's the article. Rong Guotuan was the 1959 World Men's Singles Champion - China's first world table tennis champion - and coach of the 1965 Chinese Women's Team that won the Worlds for the first time. But it ended in tragedy during the Cultural Revolution, ending with his suicide. His story is featured in one chapter of my 100-page table tennis fantasy novel, The Spirit of Pong. (You can read the first two chapters - 17 pages - for free.)

USATT Weekly Pongcast Ep 5
Here's the video (13:43) where USATT COO Mark Thompson and HPD Sean O'Neill talk RQT, Hall of Fame Cup, and more.

Para Table Tennis Coaching
Here's the ITTF info page and registration page. It takes place at 7AM Eastern time (yes, 4AM Pacific time) on Tuesday, May 19 - that's tomorrow. "Join us for our webinar on “Para Table Tennis Coaching”. We will be joined by panelists Alois Rosario (AUS), Gorazd Vecko (ENG) and Ela Madejska (GER)."

New from Brian Pace

• Two Point Footwork With Aditya Godhwani (2:02)
• Stroke Chemistry & Footwork Video with Li Juan (1:50)
• Twiddle When Serving With Derek May (3:14)
• We’re Talking About Practice Partner (4:48)

New from Samson Dubina

• Beat the Pick-Hitter!
• New Interviews (12 min) - Daniel Gonzalez and Gal Alguetti and Rachel Wang
• Rehearsal - includes quotes from famed sports psychologist Lanny Bassham
• 10 Ways to Perfect Your Serve
• Tournament Videos! - Barbara Wurster Memorial Open
• 4 Tips to Improve Your Performance - Play Better in Tournaments NOW (3:34)
• Pitfalls of Anticipation (2:08)

Have You Discovered the Benefits of Mindfulness Techniques Yet?
Here's the article by Dora Kurimay.

Half-Long Ball - Effective Backhand and Forehand Topspin Off a Backspin Ball
Here's the video (42 sec) from Eli Baraty.

Serve Position in Table Tennis
Here's the video (2:46) with Truls Moregard (SWE, world #102, #18 in 2019) from PingPonged TV.

Seth Pech vs Martin Jezo 2021 Presper Financial Architects Open Quarterfinals
Here's the video (7:50) with point-by-point analysis from Seth.

Defensive Specialist – Drill #4
Here's the video (1:37) from Rachel Yang.

USATT 1300 Table Tennis VOD Review - Feeding Your Opponent!
Here's the video (34 min) from Louis Levene as he coaches a 1300 player, with commentary.

New from Ti Long

• Read Spin of Forehand Pendulum Serve (6:57)
• Short Touch technique by Long Pimples (Part 1) (3:11)

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

• 24 Spins on the ball (4:31)
• Forehand topspin on both sides: A comparison (2:42)

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
(Some of the videos are repeats from the articles.)

• Zhou Qihao Amazing Feeling and Spinny Serve
• Personal Information about Zhou Qihao
• Zhang Jike Comes Back During March 2021
• Who Will Play in Tokyo Olympics 2021 for China Team
• China Table Tennis Team Selection for Tokyo
• Lin Shidong, "The Little Fan Zhendong"
• Top Funniest Moments in Table Tennis
• Liu Shiwen's performance is not good (40:35)
• Chinese Official Announcement for the Tokyo Olympics list [Eng Sub] (7:08)
• China Team selection for Tokyo Olympics (9:58)
• Tactical analysis of Zhou Qihao versus Fan Zhendong (22:29)
• Anastasia: Beautiful table tennis player (8:26)
• Zhang Jike vs Zhou Qihao (Emotional Match) (32:00)
• "Lin Shidong" in Semifinal National Youth Championships (12:12)
• Anime Battle in Table Tennis (5:45)
• Top 50 Funniest moments in table tennis (13:20)
• Retired Professional Players in China (1:24)
• It is NOT lucky (14:46)
• Xiao Yiyi Amazing little girl (6:10)

Taking Aim at the Georgia Games
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

My Table Tennis Journey
Here's the article by Aabid Sheikh from Massachusetts.

New from Steve Hopkins

• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Omega leads Alpha – Catch Up On All 11 Videos
• WAB Club Feature: California Table Tennis
• Team China Announced: Fan, Xu, Ma
• WTT Youth Contender Vila Real: Romania Makes a Statement

2021 Butterfly Sandhills Open Tournament Summary
Here's the article and video by Tony Murnahan.

New from the ITTF

• China unveils Olympic table tennis team for Tokyo
• Travel Strategies for Table Tennis Players (77 min)
• Welsh elation as magnificent Hursey claims career-first title
• Electric start to Girls’ events as Vidakovic shines
• Rogelio Castro and Alfredo Sanchez surprise quarter-finalists in San José
• El Salvador and Mexico raise opening day eyebrows
• ITTF launches 2021 Participation Program
• Renewing acquaintances, final qualifiers decided in San José
• Romania’s campaign for glory continues
• Tense moments in quest for Cali reservations
• Chirita defies expectations to land U-17 title in Vila Real
• The Right to Dream, TableTennisUnited Fund Supports Children in Uganda
• Final places decided, Guatemala and El Salvador advance
• ITTF High Performance & Development and Stupa Analytics expand cooperation
• Naranjo starts well at inaugural WTT Youth Contender Vila Real
• Cali places reserved, Mexico in command while host nation upsets seeding
• ​News page, video page ("World Table Tennis"), world rankings, and home page.

Final Point in Under 2650 Final
Here's the video (16 sec) between Jishan Liang (far side) and Jeremy Hazin (CAN) from the $5000 Barbara Wurster Memorial Open in Akron, OH this past weekend. Why do the best points so often come at the end of a match?

The Best Table Tennis Rally You'll See All Week
Here's the video (38 sec).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Amateur vs. Semi-Pro
Here's the video (11:35) from Adam Bobrow. "Josiah is way better than most people and in table tennis there are so many levels. When you discover spin the game completely changes."

Funny Table Tennis with Syrian Woman, Loop vs. Block, and Some Multiball
Here's the video (64 sec)!

Zhang Jike VS Ren Jialun on Entertainment Show
Here's the video (9 min) - it's in Chinese but you can pretty much see what's going on.

World's Longest Ping Pong Shot? Pongfinity vs. XOLAY Challenge
Here's the video (4:42)!

Extremely Hard Ping Pong
Here's the video (11:29) from Pongfinity! "We drilled a table full of holes and tried playing a table tennis match on it"!

1 VS 4 Tennis Challenge Blind Fold
Here's the video (7 sec)!

Your Serve
Here's the cartoon! (Choo-choo pong?)

Cheater!
Here's the cartoon!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

 

Tip of the Week
How to Play a Player Who Attacks With Long Pips.

Eastern Regionals in New Jersey
I coached at the Eastern Regional Qualifier this past Saturday at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in Dunellen, New Jersey. As usual, Judy Hugh ran a great tournament, with everything on time in a very nice facility. I've been there many times before, including coaching at a two-week USATT Elite Camp, for a week-long ITTF Coaches Camp, and a number of tournaments.

I went up with Manager/Driver/Dad Ron Klinger (3.5 hour drive), along with Todd Klinger and Christian Funderberg. While there I had a tricky balancing act as I was coaching Todd and Christian, as well as Rachel and Jeremy Ku. One little problem I also faced is that the LYTTC has two floors. This is fine for players, who go to the floor where they play and play their RR. But since I was continuously jumping from match to match, it meant I was going up and down the stairs quite a bit! I ended up hurting my right knee, though it's not too bad. But I was limping a bit on Sunday.

As usual, I could write a book on the tactical and mental aspects of the tournament, but here are some interesting ones. In two matches against opponents with very good forehands the main tactic was simple - return every serve to the extremely wide backhand - or, as I kept reminding the player, WIDER!!! This mostly took out the server's forehand. The key to another match was big breaking serves into the wide backhand. In another, it was deep, dead serves. In another, against a player with long pips, it was patience until you find the right shot. In another, it was to stay at the table. I regularly remind the players never to start a point until they are completely ready. A key part of many matches was deciding the best place to attack, and there are generally seven possibilities:

1. Go after middle
2. Go after wide forehand
3. Go after wide backhand
4. Go after middle and wide forehand
5. Go after middle and wide backhand
6. Go after extreme corners
7. Go after all three spots - wide forehand, wide backhand, middle

Todd, a bit underrated at 1816, had some crazy results. In the Under 2000 round robin, he played players rated about 1860, 1650, and 1600. In all three he won the first two games, often easily. In all three he lost the next two games. He won all three matches in five. He likes to make things exciting. I think this is a first - in 45 years of table tennis, I don't think I've ever seen someone win the first two in all three matches in a preliminary and end up winning all three in five.

Christian learned the value of fighting for every game. In his Under 2000 group, he only lost one match - but he lost it 0-3. When that player lost to another player, it became a three-way tie, and he came in third, with two advancing. That's painful! (Okay, not as painful as a player in a tournament I once ran, who literally lost by, if I remember correctly, 1/65th of a point. He was in a three-way tie that went to points, and he came in third, with two advancing. As I worked out mathematically and showed him, he would have advanced if he'd scored one more point in any of the two key matches - and, in fact, really only needed 1/65th of a point to advance!!! Yeah, every point counts.)

Todd's results weren't my only first. The Klingers took me to a place called Peruvian restaurant and introduced me to Peruvian Chicken and Inca Kola. Both are delicious. I'm now addicted to Inca Kola. (It tastes like a cross between Dr Pepper and Coke, with a touch of some fruity flavor.)

Just before the tournament, Jeremy, age eight, had ten days of fame. He had played his first tournament two weeks before, also run by Judy Hugh. His playing level was probably about 1000 to 1200, and his results showed about that level. However, due to some rating mistake, he came out listed as 1601!!! Result - for ten days, he was #1 in the US in Under Nine and #2 in Under Ten! For the rest of his life he can claim he was the top ranked eight-year-old in the US. Alas, a few days before the tournament his rating was adjusted to a more realistic 1200. But he'll be back to 1601 within a year - just watch!

Weekend Coaching
I returned from coaching at the Eastern Regionals a few minutes after midnight on Saturday night (so technically Sunday morning). Then I was back at the club on Sunday from 11AM to 7:30PM.

First was the Group Three session of our junior program, 90 minutes, with 11 kids, which I run with Lidney Castro. I spent the first third rotating the kids around, where I'd hit with one (footwork drills), another one would be on the robot, and another picking up balls. The second third was similar, but now we went into multiball, mostly working on looping. The last third was up-down tables, where they played games with various rules, such as only serve to the backhand or only serve backspin. This allows them to hone their skills in rallies that start this way, both for the server and receiver.

Next up was a one-hour session with Navin Kumar. He'd has to miss several sessions recently for various medical reasons.

• Forehands (33 sec)
• Footwork (33 sec)
• Smashing lobs (18 sec)

Next up was a 50-minute sports psychology and serving session with Kurtus & Stanley Hsu. This was our second meeting. We went over some of what we'd covered previously, and some of their matches at their recent tournaments. Then we went into various other techniques.

Next up was the Group Two session of our junior program, 90 minutes. I acted as a practice partner for much of this session, blocking for others in various drills. I also did some roving coaching.

Last session was the Group Four session of our junior program, 90 minutes. This one has five girls, all ages 7-8, and all intensely improving at table tennis and all intensively insane. We always have a lot of fun in this session. We started with a number of ball-bouncing drills - I keep challenging them to more advanced versions - and then we went to serve practice. Then we did a couple of circuits where they rotate between me, the robot, and ball pickup. As usual at the end, they do not run, they sprint to where we keep the plastic cups so they can create large walls and pyramids, and then knock them down as I feed multiball. I've been having them do it with their forehands; next week I'm going to challenge them to do it with their backhands.  

USATT Coaches Meeting
As usual, we had our Friday Zoom meeting at noon eastern time. Here's the video (59 min). Alas, I had to leave at 12:25 to go coach at the Eastern Regional Championships in New Jersey, so only made the first half. The primary discussion this week was the use of table tennis robots in coaching.

I pointed out that many years ago I wrote about the three Holy Grails of table tennis robots: 1) Robots that could allow you to do standard table tennis drills, such as side-to-side footwork; 2) Robots that could mimic standard rallies, such as a backspin ball followed by perhaps two quick topspins, to pre-set or random locations; and 3) Robots that hit the ball out to you with an actual table tennis racket, mimicking real table tennis strokes, so that you could practice reacting to a ball hit as it is actually done in a game. Modern smart robots now do the first two. There are robots I think in China that can do the third, though in a somewhat primitive way, but they are not yet on the market that I know of, at least in the US or at an affordable price.

The other problem with modern table tennis robots is that you seem to have two choices. You can get an inexpensive one that basically hits the ball to you with topspin or backspin to one spot (or perhaps can move side to side, shooting out balls to essentially random locations), but have very simple controls; or you can get a modern smart robot that can do almost anything, but takes a while to learn. When we got the latter at my club, we found ourselves spending way too much time explaining how to use it for new players. The simple ones are limited, but you can explain their use in about 30 seconds. What's needed is a hybrid that is a smart robot, but with a "Beginner" mode that you can switch to can be explained in at most 60 seconds. The latter would only hit to one spot with one spin, with hopefully at least one built-in side-to-side drill.

US Hall of Famer Errol Resek Loses Cancer Battle
Here's the USATT article. He was both a Hall of Famer and one of the last surviving members of the 1971 US Ping-Pong Diplomacy Team that went to China. I didn't really know him that well. However, I had a memorable first meeting with him. I think it was in 1977, when I was 17 and rated only about 1700, that I first met him when I had to play him at the New Jersey Open at Westfield. In the very first point of the match, I served short to his forehand. He reached in to flip crosscourt, and I moved to cover my wide forehand. Just before he hit the ball, he tilted his wrist back and flipped it down the line to my backhand instead, acing me with just a medium-speed shot. I was practically open-mouthed - I'd never seen that shot before. I lost the match (of course), but immediately began working on that shot, with the result that I developed a really good forehand flip - either aggressively crosscourt, or deceptively down the line, as he had done. (It also taught me the value of deception and placement.) That one shot of his practically changed my table tennis career, both in sponge and in hardbat, where I'd later use that shot to win lots of titles, especially doubles where I could flip in winner after winner. All because of that one memorable shot he did in the first point we ever played.

New from Samson Dubina

• Reflection and Response by Frank Yin (student of Samson's)
• Rehearsal
• 4 Tips to Improve Your Performance
• 400 Coaching Articles

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

• Will Xu Xin play in Tokyo Olympics? (5:43)
• Will Xu Xin Play in This Tokyo's Olympics? (article)
• Ma Lin vs Amateur (5:38)
• Best Points of 2021 Chinese Trials Mock Olympics (12:23)
• Ma Long analyzed his game (3:49)
• Zhang Jike has fun with fans in a park (3:18)
• Fan Zhendong explained why he lost (3:35)
• Zhou Qihao defeated Fan Zhendong and won the men's singles championship (2:10)
• Hou Yingchao warmup techniques (10:21)
• Award Ceremony of WTT Chinese Trial 2021 (3:29)
• (Final) Fan Zhendong vs Zhou Qihao (60 min)
• (Final) Chen Meng vs Sun Yingsha (61 min)

New from Eli Baraty

• Stepping into the forehand table tennis topspin (44 sec)
• Your side of the table tennis table (36 sec)

New from Ti Long

• Golden key of the Chinese Forehand Topspin technique (4:30)
• How to READ SPIN of Non-Spinning and Heavy Backspin Serve (4:02)

Seth Pech vs Sid Naresh $10,000 Invitational
Here's the video (6:15) with Seth's excellent point-by-point analysis.

7 Tips to Get Back into Your Table Tennis Groove
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

The Backhand Loop Against Underspin
Here's the video (72 sec), from Pingispågarna, in Swedish but with English subtitles.

How to Be Fast in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:36). "You want to be faster at the table? Take a listen to Marie Migot from France. She is one of the fastest players on the world tour!"

Getting All Your Table Tennis Ducks In A Row
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Chinese Olympic Trials
Here are videos of all the big matches, from ttlondon2012. Here's coverage by Edges and Nets.

Champion of the 2021 Chinese Trials! | BEST OF ZHOU Qihao
Here's the video (10:18).

Ma Long and Hou Yingchao Interview After Facing Each Other
Here's the video (1:22), in Chinese but with English subtitles. Here's video (5:34) of their match at the Chinese Olympic Trials. Ma is the reigning world champion; Hou is just another of hordes of unranked Chinese super-players.

Automated Table Tennis Video Editing
Here's BetterPlay.ai. "This service allows you to automatically edit your TT videos to cut the time between points. You upload video of a table tennis match and it will create a video with all the time between points taken out (you can choose how many seconds before and after the serve). The AI works very well already and is able to handle many types of angles, play levels and video quality. WTT and some of the most prominent YouTubers are already using it. This can be an invaluable tool for coaching, as it can help you and your coach analyze matches a lot more efficiently. It's currently a free service anyone can use it and the more it's used the better it gets."

Ping-Pong Playing Robot Proves AI-Driven Machines Can Sense Human Emotion
Here's the article from TechRepublic. "Today on BMF we are checking out some Table Tennis Oculus Quest gameplay with Eleven Table Tennis VR on the Oculus Quest."

How a Ping-Pong Game Helped End the Cold War
Here's the article from Upworthy.com.

New from Steve Hopkins

• 2021 Chinese Trials: Videos of the Upsets (as World No.1, 2, and 3 All Fall)
• WAB Featured Club: Boston Table Tennis Center
• Who’s the Next No. 1: Looking Past the Olympics
• China’s Olympic “Trials”: Qihao Tops Zhendong in Xingtong
• China’s Olympic “Trials”: Surprises in Xingtong

New from USA Table Tennis

• USATT Weekly Pongcast EP4 - Sean O'Neill is Joined by Mitch Seidenfeld (38:57)
• USATT Launches the Hall of Fame Cup
• April Westchester Little Open Finals Match - Jimmy Butler vs. Mishel Levinski (24:15)
• Registration Deadline for the 2021 US National Team Trials is TODAY - Monday, May 10
• USATT News Page

New from the ITTF

• Road to Tokyo: The story so far
• All to play for at Costa Rica trilogy
• Tested four-step recipe tastes success in Argentina
• Day One to World Number One: supporting tomorrow’s champions
• TV Tokyo commits to WTT with new broadcast deal
• World Table Tennis Day inspires girls in Nepal
• News page, video page ("World Table Tennis"), world rankings, and home page.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

World Championship Videos from the 1950s
Günther Angenendt put up links to a number of them all last week on his Facebook page. They are in German, but you might find them interesting if you are of the historically-minded.

365 Days of Training
Here's the video (14 sec) from Kanak Jha about the upcoming Olympics and Stupa Analytics.

Now THIS Is Table Tennis On The Oculus Quest | Eleven Table Tennis VR
Here's the video (10:40)!

Ping Pong Paddle Used by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump Sells for More Than $25,000
Here's the article and video (38 sec). But now, due to my investigative journalism, the truth is coming out - Forrest Gump is a Cheater!!! The article has a picture of the racket. Here is a closeup. Notice that the label at the bottom of the sponge has been cut off? Yes, Forrest Cheats!!! From the ITTF Handbook:

3.2.1.3 Any ordinary pimpled rubber or sandwich rubber covering the racket shall be currently authorised by the ITTF and shall be attached to the blade so that the ITTF logo, the ITTF number (when present), the supplier and brand names are clearly visible nearest the handle.

Table Tennis Rollercoaster | Ping Pong Trick Shots
Here's the video (5:20) from XOLAY!

Pongfinity Extras
Here's the video (2:40)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Team Lineup Strategies.

Weekend Coaching
On Sundays, I did sports psychology sessions with four of our junior players. The sessions range from 45-60 minutes, which usually include up to ten minutes of serve practice at the end. Two of them were first timers; the other two were follow-ups. I generally meet with each of them three times, and then after that play it by ear, but perhaps review sessions before major tournaments. I am running into "session creep" - I keep thinking of more examples and other things to add to the sessions, and so they get longer. So I'm going to move some of those to follow-up sessions.

One of my group sessions on Sundays is a group of five girls, all 7-8 years old, that meet for 90 minutes every Sunday at 5:30PM. They are improving fast! I think all are also signed up for private coaching, but it is the group sessions that they really look forward to. The first hour is practice, then we do 30 minutes of games. But I keep the practice part fun. For example, I usually rotate them around, and often have two taking turns on the robot. For that, I put Froggy on the table as a target, and warn them to NEVER hit the poor frog. Of course, they take great joy then in pelting it. I also have a ping-pong ball with a picture of a cat on it, and sometimes I'll balance that on Froggy's head, and warn them not to hurt poor Kitty, with the expected result. I regularly bring in different targets for them. (Meanwhile, they are developing their forehand technique, consistency, and accuracy.) For serve practice, I no longer have to bring out the two serving low devices - they clamor for them, and bring them out themselves. One is the serving bar (here set high for beginners, but usually set much lower) created by John Olsen. The other was the TT-Serve created and sold by Samson Dubina. I challenge them to serve under the bar/serving net and hit a target, and they take to the challenge - while developing low, accurate serves.

Their favorite game is always "Cups" - they build pyramids and walls of paper cups, often building a "fort" around Froggy, and then, while I feed multiball (usually two shots each, taking turns), they knock it down! Another game I introduced them to is the Serving Game. If there are five, then four of them stand on one end of the table, without their rackets. I put a paper cup in front of each, about a foot from the edge - but they can't touch that. The fifth player gets to do ten serves, where they serve fast and deep. If they can serve so the other four can't catch the ball (so the ball hits the floor), they get a point. If the ball hits one of the cups and then the floor, they get three points!

They had another fun thing to do this past Sunday - one of them had a smart phone where she could take pictures of me, and then write doodles and other nasty stuff on my picture. I'm pretty sure I don't have a nose that goes down to my stomach and those tattoos they put on me are fake. Every break they got together for another selfie. Yes, we also did table tennis.

The scary thing is it looks like all five may sign up for our summer camps, and I've already been asked if I could take charge of them. Five little girls, once a week - survivable. Five little girls, 3-6 hours/day? AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (Just kidding - I'll survive. Probably.)  

On a related note, I'm vaccinated! So should you.

USATT Coaches Meeting, Goals, and Sports Psychology
We had our weekly USATT coaches meeting this past Friday at noon eastern time. (These are open to all coaches - info is posted each week on the US Table Tennis Coaches Facebook Page.) Here's the video (59 min). The primary discussion was about sports psychology - specifically on goal setting, recall, rehearsal, and affirmations, plus a few other tangents on related topics. Attending were Larry Hodges (me, a member of the USATT Coaching Committee), Sean O'Neill (USATT High Performance Director), Jasna Rather (USATT Director of Para Programs), Dave Fullen (member of the USATT Coaching Committee), Daniel Rutenberg (member of Para High Performance Committee), Britt Salter, and Samson Dubina.

Regarding goals, it's common for coaches to recommend short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals, and these are important. Note that these goals can be about achieving specific results, but they can also be about attaining various levels of proficiency in specific techniques. (For example, until I was 1900 I was primarily a hitter; my long-term goal at that point was to break 2000 as a looper.) However, I've found I've needed to add a fourth - super-long-term goals. What do these four terms roughly mean?

• Short-term goals: What you want to achieve in the very near future, usually in the next 1-4 weeks.
• Intermediate-term goals: Usually your next major tournament, perhaps 1-6 months away.
• Long-term goals: A major event you are training for that's perhaps a year or more away.
• Super-long-term goals: What you want to be at your peak - an Olympian, National Champion, State Champion, Club Champion, Rating Over 2000, etc.

How do you get good at sports psychology? In my case, it's from:

• 45 years of playing and coaching, and regularly thinking about it.
• Decades of interacting with and discussing it with top players and coaches.
• Numerous sports psychology sessions at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
• Teaching it - it makes you think about it.
• Reading books on the topic. Here are the sports psychology books I've read:
  • Get Your Game Face On Like The Pros!, by Dora Kurimay
  • Get Your Game Face On!, by Dora Kurimay (a shorter, earlier version of the above)
  • Get Your Game Face On Workbook: How to Develop Your Mental Game, by Dora Kurimay
  • My Stories of Mental Toughness On and Off the Table, by Dora Kurimay
  • The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallwey, the classic book on sports psychology
  • Finding Your Zone, by Michael Lardon, a former top table tennis player
  • With Winning in Mind, by Lanny Bassham, another classic
  • Bring Your "A" Game, by Jennifer Etnier, which focuses on sports psychology for kids
  • Winning Ugly, by Brad Gilbert and Steve Jamison
  • Flow in Sports, by Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Mindset: A Mental Guide for Sport, by Jackie Reardon and Hans Dekkers

How To Defeat Your Table Tennis Nemesis
Here's the article by Matt Hetherington.

Gameplay Exercise With Yu Di
Here's the article and video (3:09) from Yu Di.

How To Handle Balls To The Middle
Here's the video (1:47) from Huijing Wang.

New from Ti Long

• Ti Long shows how to easily beat Long Pimple players (Part 1)
• 5 exercises to help you become a World Service Master

New from Samson Dubina

• 3 Types of Tournaments (3:36)
• Nets and Edges
• NEW Videos!
• Dumb Questions

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

• Ma Long Forehand Textbook Skill
• Ma Long forehand textbook technique (6:04)
• Using A.I. in a Table Tennis Match (article and video 8:14)
• Xu Xin vs Lin Shidong (group B) - Chinese Trial 2021 (45:12)
• Chen Meng Liu Shiwen at Chinese Trial (5:03)
• Ma Long vs Xue Fei (group C) - Chinese Trial 2021 (37:02)
• Sun Yingsha training with coach Li Sun (6:35)
• Fan Zhendong training at 2021 Chinese Trial (2:16)
• Skillful beautiful player (Guo Xinyi) (10:53)
• Weird Style with Long Pimple Blocker (2:31)
• What is a good serve? 8:42)
• 2 Master of Penholder (Ma Lin, Xu Xin) (8:12)
• Good Tricky Long Serve (7:36)

Swerve Table Tennis Zoom Fitness: Shadow Play and Reaction Training Sessions
Here's the Facebook info page, and here's video (1:44) of one of their sessions with Stevie Brunskill. They meet each week on Wednesdays at 6:30PM English time, which is 1:30 PM Eastern Time in the US. (The other well-known table tennis aerobics site is Aerobics Table Tennis.)

How to Watch the China Olympic Scrimmage
Here's the article from Edges and Nets. "The China Olympic Scrimmage has begun and will finish on May 7. It likely has major implications for which one of Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong (assuming Ma Long is a lock) play in the Olympic men’s singles event, and who out of Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, and Liu Shiwen play in the women’s singles and team events. May 3 and 4 are the group stages, in which the star players will not play each other."

UPDATE: You can see many of the Chinese Olympic Trials matches here. 

New from Steve Hopkins

• Zimmerduell – A fun interview with Timo Boll and Anton Kallberg (2:29)
• WAB Club Feature: Sunny Culture & Sports Center
• Energy of Omar Assar (11:57)
• Dusseldorf Masters 2021: Assar Wins, Ovtcharov/Jha/Qiu All Upset
• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Ebuen Cruises in Ninth Match
• Dusseldorf Masters 2021: Fourth Event Preview

New from USA Table Tennis

• Sean O'Nell and Adham Sharara Table Tennis Part 2 (17:13). (Here's Part 1 from last week, 31:44.) Adham Sharara was president of the ITTF from 1999-2014.
• USATT Weekly Pongcast Episode 3 - 2021 Regional Qualification Tournaments (16:48) - USATT High Performance Director Sean O'Neill and USATT Chief Operating Officer Mark Thompson.
• Free Butterfly Shirt for Those Who Enter USA Nationals
• USATT News Page

New from the ITTF

• Petra Sörling elected to National Olympic Committee executive board
• ITTF Foundation Annual Activity Report 2020
• First Coach Education Course of 2021 concluded in Malawi
• News page, video page ("World Table Tennis") and home page.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

• Players recall icebreaking 'ping-pong diplomacy' (from shine.cn)
• The Myths and Realities of Ping-Pong Diplomacy (from historytoday.com)

Westchester Table Tennis Club
Here's the video (3:44) - not sure if it's a newscast or promotional, but it's pretty well done.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs Kay Stumper | MS-QF | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters IV
Here's the video (10:23).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Pyramid Pong
Here's the picture of the famed armless Egyptian Ibrahim Hamato playing in front of the Great Pyramids. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) It's almost like the cover of my book, Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt: Seven Weeks Following Tour Guides with Little Flags and Funny Hats, and the Quest for the Elusive Dr Pepper! Yeah, that's me on the colorful camel (named "Michael Jackson"), taking a camel trip around the Great Pyramid - that's not Photoshopped. 

Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Here's the cartoon!

Unluckiest Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (4 min)!

Top 10 Pongponita Crazy Shots
Here's the video (5:46)!

Amazing Ping Pong Trick Shots With Ole
Here's the video (3:52) from XOLAY!

Pongfinity Ball With 100 Holes
Here's the video (5 min)!

Non-Table Tennis - Nanogod
The May/June issue of Dark Matter Magazine is out - and it includes my humorous science fiction story, "Nanogod"! What happens when a microscopic nanobot is damaged and becomes an egomaniac, and travels from star to star forcing civilizations to worship it and build huge monuments in its honor - including the Great Pyramids 4600 years ago! And now it's returned to earth! (You have to subscribe to read it. Alas, no table tennis in this one.) "The alien ship landed in early morning sunshine on the grounds of the United Nations Building in New York City, the de facto capital of Earth. It had been nearly forty-six centuries since its last visit, back when the Great Pyramid of Giza had been completed in 2560 BC, accompanied by the unfurling of a "Mission Accomplished" banner made of papyrus. The banner had long been lost to the mists of time. The Great Pyramid had been the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years after its creation. Modern humans erroneously believed it was created as a tomb and monument to the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops. Actually, the Pharaoh only commandeered it after the fact. The true creator had returned."

***
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Tip of the Week
Looping a Push is Not Going for a Shot.

Three Things Table Tennis Can Learn from Nomadland and the Oscars
I'm a movie buff. I sometimes go several years in a row where I see over 100 movies at the theater - yes, two per week, with a Dr Pepper and small popcorn. Before they closed down due to the pandemic, they were my primary source of throwing away hard-earned money.

Last week I saw Nomadland, which won Best Picture at the Oscars last night. My thoughts on this movie? I had always thought that to be the best picture of the year, a movie shouldn't be boring. It shouldn't be nearly two hours of mundane activities, mostly by amateur actors, and all this allowed because it is a "character movie." ("The Trial of the Chicago 7" should have won.) Here are three things the world of table tennis should learn from this.

1. Boring is Good. Nomadland got rave reviews from those who were able to stay awake for the nearly two hours of mundane activities. For now on, table tennis tournaments will be limited to backspin play only, with no expedite. No more smashing, looping, or counter-hitting, no more attack vs. defense, only pushing duels allowed. The ultimate highlights reel will be a two-hour pushing duel.
2. Expertise is Not Needed. The main professional actor in Nomadland was Frances McDormand. There were many supporting actors, but only one of them (David Strathairn) was a professional. The supporting actors even went by their real names. And yet, these amateurs got rave reviews, showing that expertise is not needed. Table tennis should learn from that. From now on, teams at the World Table Tennis Championships can only have one professional. The rest of the team will be chosen from people randomly found in the countryside, with one simple question to filter them out: "Have you ever played table tennis before?" If the answer is yes, they are disqualified. China has the top three men in the world and six of the seven top women, but they will have to choose one of each and send the rest home. USA will send Kanak Jha and Lily Zhang, and the rest of the team will be chosen from some random bar that has no ping-pong table.
3. Tactics Are Not Needed. Nomadland was nearly two hours of random activities. If that's all that's needed to make a great movie, why do we need tactics to play high-level table tennis? Instead, all play will be random, with no thought to any type of strategy.

Weekend Coaching and Sports Psychology
I had two group junior training sessions on Sunday. I did a lot of multiball where I had one player forehand loop while another player blocked the loop, and repeat. Halfway through I had them play out the points, crosscourt only. The bigger highlights of the weekend were two sports psychology sessions with two of our top junior players, where we went over their matches at the Butterfly Invitational last weekend in Cary, NC, and re-enforced some of the sports psychology techniques we'd been working on. As usual, I ended the sessions with serve practice. I'm working with one of them on what I call the three "Holy Grails" of deep serves - big breaking serves to the backhand that spin away from the receiver; fast no-spin at the elbow; and fast down-the-line where you disguise the direction right up until contact.

My "pet" topics in coaching are serve, receive, tactics, and now sports psychology. (I'm also pretty good at teaching the foundation to beginning kids while keeping it fun.) Why is sports psychology so important? If you are just slightly nervous or tense and it throws you off just 1% - well, 1% off in table tennis often means a 100% miss.

I have five more sports psychology sessions this next week with five of our junior players. (I'm now working with eight of them.) I do have to prepare for each session - probably ten minutes outlining what we'll go over. But first sessions are now easy as I know exactly what we'll cover. Follow-up sessions take more preparation. For example, to prep for one of the sessions on Sunday, I watched video of two matches in Cary by one of the players.

I use Dora Kurimay's "Get Your Game Face On Like the Pros" as a text. However, I am planning this week to reread "The Inner Game of Tennis" - the classic book on sport psychology, which uses tennis as an example but is for all sports, and is the most-read and most-recommended book on sports psychology. Soon I will introduce it to some of our junior players.

Periodic Reminder About My Books
Since you, as a table tennis person, is way, Way, WAY above average in intelligence, and of course you read a LOT (you are smart, right?), this is my periodic reminder to support this poor, starving table tennis writer by buying my books!!!

On Tuesday, I'll Be Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank Ma Long Almighty, I Will Be Free at Last!
Yes, tomorrow at 11:45 AM I get the second Pfizer vaccine.

The Original European Table Tennis Union
Q: What ancient Roman first named the European Table Tennis Union?
A: Julius Caesar, who said to Brutus as he was being stabbed to death, "Et tu?"
(You may tar and ping-pong ball me at your leisure. Yeah, I made this up.)

Houston World Championships in November 2021 and Chengdu 2022
Here's an article from Sports Travel Magazine. "The event is currently being planned without spectators and will follow strict COVID-19 protocols for participants. All events will be held at the convention center, with the finals staged in the venue's General Assembly Theater."

Hopefully, they will find a way to allow spectators. Otherwise:

• If you run the Worlds in the US and nobody sees it, was it actually run?
• If you run the Worlds and we see no points, was it pointless?

As noted in my blog last week, since the Worlds in Houston coincide with the Teams in Maryland, and I'm committed to coaching our kids at the latter, I will likely be missing the Worlds this year. However, I'm now planning on attending the 2022 Worlds in Chengdu, China. It hasn't been scheduled yet, but will likely be in April or May of 2022. (I may volunteer to do some writeups.) Immediately afterwards I'm going to take two tours - one of the Shanghai region of China, and then one of Japan. I went to the 2001 Worlds in Osaka, Japan, but basically saw the hotel, the huge gym, and the walk between. I only got to spend a few hours randomly walking the streets of Osaka. In 2005, I attended the Worlds in Shanghai, and again, mostly saw the hotel, gym, and the walk between. Immediately afterwards I took a bullet train to Beijing, where I had a memorable three-day tour of that region (with Tom Nguyen and Alan Williams, arranged by Richard Lee), which included The Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Tiananmen Square. Now I'm hoping to go back and tour the Shanghai region and Japan.

USATT Coaches' Catch-up - 04/23/21
Here's the video (one hour). As always, we met on Friday at noon eastern time. High Performance Director Sean O'Neill questioned me extensively about the sports psychology sessions I'm running at MDTTC, so I spoke at length about that.

Forehand Topspin Fan Zhendong
Here's the video (4:40) from the Performance Biomechanics Table Tennis Academy. "Biomechanics is the science of movement of a living body, including how muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments work together to produce movement. Biomechanics is part of the larger field of kinesiology, specifically focusing on the mechanics of the movement. Today, Today it is a tool, to decipher the best of each table tennis player."

Learn and Improve the Basic Backspin Serve
Here's the article and video (13:36) from Matt Hetherington.

New from Dora Kurimay

• How Cue Words Can Be the Catalyst for a Comeback …
• Are You a Good Sport? If You Have These Qualities, You Are!

New from Edges and Nets

• Identifying the Magnus Effect in Table Tennis
• Chinese National Team Shares Their Travel Preferences
• World Table Tennis News Roundup – 04/19/21
• Mima Ito Discusses WTT Doha and Tokyo Olympics
• Analyzing Jeon Jihee's Evolving Service Strategy Against Mima Ito
• Liu Shiwen Elbo Injury Update

New from Ti Long

• The "TRỤI" serve is surprisingly effective | FASTEST
• 2 ways to Increase Super Side Spin for the Pendulum serve technique

New from Samson Dubina

• Making Peace with the Edge - Learn to deal with half-long balls
• New Training Videos

Seth Pech vs Hector Berrios 2021 Presper Financial Architects Open
Here's the video (9:17) with Seth's point-by-point analysis.

The Under-Used, Under-Valued "Strawberry" or "Reverse Banana" Shot
Here's the video (63 sec).

5min Basic Table Tennis Shadow Practice
Here's the video (4:10) from Ultimate Table Tennis.

A Different Path to Better Serves
Here's the article by Coach Jon. "I've practiced serves for years. They have gotten better, but not as much as I would have hoped. When I do practice, I almost always gain new insights into serving; but the overall quality (speed and spin) rarely improves. I’ve read about serving and watched videos. Nothing seemed to help. I was just about to concede that there might not be any improvement in my future. But, I may have stumbled onto a different approach that shows real promise."

Eight Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Racket
Here's the article from EmRatThich/PingSunday. I agree with most of these. The only one I'm hesitant about is "Never choose a too-soft rubber," which also says, "If you want to improve fast, choose the hardest rubber that you can manage to hit. The harder you choose, the faster you improve. Chinese kids always play with hard rubbers." My club is full of Chinese coaches and Chinese kids, and few use really hard sponges. Using a softer sponge often makes it easier to learn to loop. I may talk to some of the Chinese coaches about this one.

More from EmRatThich/PingSunday

• Lin Yun Ju backhand technique (12:04)
• Mistakes when choosing first rackets (6:25)
• Prithika (only 16) new hope for Europe (25:06)
• Harimoto Miwa 12 years old (26:30)
• Unique grip in table tennis (Yuna Oshio) (22;27)
• Ma Long personal equipment [Grand Slam] (4:38)
• Tomokazu Harimoto Highest winning rate [Olympics 2021] (23:43)
• Wang Chuqin training [Next generation](10:09)
• Liu Shiwen 1 hour training with coach Ma Lin (58:35)
• Two Amateur Uncles in a Park 2:51)
• Learn Xu Xin's footwork (6:32)
• Amazing Chinese penholder little girl 5:55)
• Top Angry and Intense Moment in Table Tennis (6:46)

Table Tennis Participation Report 2020
Here's the preview.

• In 2019, there were 14,908,000 total Table Tennis participants 
• 4.92% of the total U.S population aged 6 or older played Table Tennis in 2019
• 2.8% of core participants were between the ages of 13 to 17

NCTTA Internships - Available for Summer 2021
Here's the info page. "Wondering how you’re supposed to get experience when you need experience to get an internship? Do you want to gain real-world skills while helping your favorite sport? Or are you perhaps even frustrated with aspects of NCTTA and want to change things? Apply to our one of summer intern roles! We are offering internships in technology, media, marketing, and grassroots."

New from USA Table Tennis

• USATT Weekly Pongcast Ep2 - 2021 National Team Trials (19:08)
• Sean O'Neill and Adham Sharara Talk Table Tennis (31:44)
• 2020 US Olympian Nikhil Kumar Joins the USOPC 2020 Tokyo Games Media Summit (31:16)
• USATT News Page

New from Steve Hopkins

• 2021 Butterfly Invitational write up and photos
• Dusseldorf Masters 2021: Event Three a Real Stumper
• WAB Club Feature: Denver Table Tennis Alliance
• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Catch Up On All 8 Videos

Ping Pong in the Parks?
Here's the article from the Sun Times in Dexter, Michigan. "Dexter residents Jim and Lori Sprague have come up with a fun idea to encourage them to get outside, get moving in a low-impact way, and socialize in a socially distant way. The couple has taken the concept of outdoor Ping Pong that has been successfully implemented in other cities and presented the idea to the Dexter City Council at its April 12 meeting."

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

• History of China-US Ping-Pong Diplomacy from Xinhua.
• A fresh call for "pingpong diplomacy" on the 50th anniversary of the first US-China games from PRI
• Shanghai a Pioneer in China-US Trade Following Ping-Pong Diplomacy from shine.cn.

Turning the Tables: Why the ITTF Believes World Table Tennis Will Revolutionise the Sport
Here's the article from Pro Sports Media. "Despite being played in hotel lobbies, WeWork offices and underground bars around the world, table tennis has until now struggled to gain a regular foothold outside of Asia. But with a new commercial model and revamped event structure in place, the International Table Tennis Federation believes the sport is finally in a position to realise its global potential."

New from the ITTF
They have a of new items, so why not browse their news page, and video page ("World Table Tennis"), along with their home page.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Jorgen Persson's Top Shots - Birthday Showreel
Here's the video (3:48) of the 1991 World Men's Singles Champion.

Table Tennis Star's Alleged Illicit Romance Bouncing All Over Asia
I really don't want this blog to turn into a gossip column about top player romances . . . but, through gritted teeth, here's the article from Japan Today, about Ai Fukuhara and Chiang Hung-chieh.

Crazy Pong - Do You Have This Ball Control?
Here's the video (1:22)!

Fight Club Table Tennis
Here's the video (10:56) from Adam Bobrow! The muscle-bound guy he plays, Jayden Wang, is a body-builder and looks about 2100.

Missed Shots in Table Tennis: Funny & Fail Moments
Here's the video (3:10)!

Kids Consulting TT Book

• Here's the original.
• Here's my update!

Sinking Boat Pong
Here's the cartoon! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) The caption is, "Ricominciare," which apparently means "start over" in Italian. I have no idea what that has to do with the cartoon. Here are my suggested captions:

• "Let! The ball was wet!"
• "The point isn't over until the ball hits the ground!"
• "Better go expedite. The rescue boats are almost here."
• "My stupid coach taught me footwork but never taught me to swim."
• That sinking feeling as the ball goes past you that you've lost the point.

Ping-Pong Shirts from Etsy
You know you want one!

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Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Imagine a Score or Situation.

Butterfly Invitational in Cary, NC
I had a great time this past weekend coaching at the tournament. We had ten juniors and five coaches - but with the huge RR format, there were LOTS of matches, so LOTS of coaching. Here are complete results, care of Omnipong. The tournament gave out about $10,000 in prize money and prizes. AJ Carney did a great job running the event. Sharon Alguetti was the dominant player, winning all three "Opens" - Thursday Open, 1800 & Over, and Division A of the Giant RR. There were 116 players, including four over 2550, seven over 2400, 18 over 2200, and 35 over 2000. 

Our kids from MDTTC played really well - lots of great wins, very few bad losses. Some of them we knew were under-rated, since some hadn't played tournaments in a while, due to Covid. (Others had been playing tournaments somewhat regularly the last few months.) The main worry was that when you don't play tournaments for a while, you lose some of your "tournament toughness" - the ability to adapt to the different playing styles and pressures of playing in a tournament. They were able to overcome this far better than I'd expected.

One early dynamic is that they seemed to lose a lot of five-gamers early on, but then the tide changed, and they seemed to win them all the second half. I'm looking forward to seeing the ratings results - these days, tournaments are often processed on the Monday afterwards, so I'll be refreshing the USATT Tournament Ratings Page every few minutes the rest of today! (Shhh, don't tell the kids. Ratings aren't important, and we try to stress this to our students - but when they all go up, they sure are fun! Plus, they are an indicator that all that training paid off.)

I think the story of the tournament, for our players, may have been sports psychology. One or two are already very strong on this, and did well. But it's a perennial problem for most players, especially junior players. Over the last month I've been doing sports psychology sessions with four of them, and it seems to have helped. I've written about one of them in past blog, Ryan Lin, who responded by playing his best table tennis at an Ohio tournament, and achieved the #1 ranking in the country for 11 and under. (He missed this tournament - he's training in Taiwan.) This time around, it was Ryan Lee, Mu Du, and James Zhuang who had very good tournaments - and I've been doing sports psychology sessions with all three. (Ryan Lee may break the rating system - he went in rated 1986 but with a new attitude, and beat two 2250 players and a bunch of other 2000+ players. He just turned 14.) One aftermath is I'll be doing more sports psychology sessions with our other kids. I may have to double my hourly rate from volunteer to volunteer x 2. (Maybe I'll charge one Dr Pepper per session. Yeah, my one vice.)

US Nationals Update
They opened for entries a little over two weeks ago. Here is the entry list - they currently have 81 paid entries. One new feature in Omnipong - they now have columns for State and Club. I'd emailed Craig Krum at Omnipong two weeks ago about this, and he emailed me yesterday letting me know it was done. I then asked if he could make them sortable by State and Club - and he said he'd guessed I'd be asking about that next, and was already working on it! So we'll likely have that feature added soon.

As I blogged about last week, I'm pretty unhappy with it going all single elimination. I'm pretty certain they would have had a very large turnout otherwise. It'll likely be a rather low turnout instead due to this, and also because they are charging about the same for single elimination events as they did in the past for round robin events, where you play more matches. ($80/event or $250 for up to six events. At the last Nationals in 2019, it was also $80/event or $250 for up to SEVEN events.) There was a lot of discussion of the Nationals at the Cary tournament this past weekend (see segment above) - very little of it positive. A lot of players told me they were planning to go but changed their mind when they saw it was all single elimination and other problems.

Another problem is this one, from the entry form: "Players are permitted to physically enter the playing venue fifteen (15) minutes before their match scheduled time." That's obviously because of Covid, but I sure hope they negotiated like crazy to try to let players come in sooner. If you can only enter 15 minutes in advance, it's unlikely you'll get more than ten minutes to warm up for a match. Yikes! (Make it at least 30 minutes.)

• USATT Weekly Pongcast - Mark Thompson and Sean O'Neill Discuss 2021 USNTTC (13:48, USNTTC = US National Table Tennis Championships.) Lots of interesting stuff here - if you are going to the Nationals, or thinking of going, you should listen to it. Among other things, it mentions that events should finish within two days of their start - so, for example, if you have an event on Sunday, it'll finish by Tuesday. I wish this were on the entry form. I also still wonder why they can't finish by the day after an event starts, since it's all single elimination.
• 2021 USA Nationals Home Page
• Omnipong listing 
• Entry Form
• Player Listing (Alphabetical, by rating, and by event.)
• USATT News Item

World Table Tennis Championships to Be Held in Houston
Here's the ITTF news item, and here's an article from Inside the Games. They will be held Nov. 23-29, 2021. They were awarded to USATT in April, 2019 and were originally scheduled for Houston in June this year before they were postponed.

One problem - this coincides with the Thanksgiving weekend dates for the North American Teams in Washington DC, which are held Nov. 26-28. (Nov. 25 is Thanksgiving.) This means players/spectators have to choose between attending and spectating at the Worlds, or Thanksgiving and playing at the North American Teams. Since I'm committed to coaching our junior players at the Teams (about 30 of them), I will likely miss these Worlds. (I've been to two, in Japan and China.) I may fly out for the first few days of the Worlds and then fly back to Maryland. If I were there the whole time, I'd likely volunteer to do lots of online coverage for USATT as I've done so often in the past, but alas, it looks like that won't happen.

I really wish USATT would learn to communicate. Hopefully, they did everything they could to avoid coinciding with the dates of the Teams. If they had no choice and were forced to do so for some reason, then they should explain that rather than just throw it out there with no explanation. Instead, they are trying to ignore the 800-pound ping-pong ball in the room - that they are running the Worlds at the same time as the largest table tennis tournament in North America. For perspective, the 2019 Teams had 1031 players and 9620 matches; the 2019 Nationals had 721 players and 7260 matches; the 2019 US Open had 684 players and 3743 matches. (All three events were cancelled in 2020 due to Covid.) Since USATT chose not to explain - a long-running problem with issue after issue - instead, I'm hearing repeated conspiracy theories that this was done on purpose. (North American Table Tennis/JOOLA USA ran the US Nationals and US Open for many years, but when USATT CEO Virginia Sung took office in May, 2019, they had a rather inharmonious split.)

Larry Hodges Table Tennis Mask Collection
Here it is! I have nine, and alternate them when at the club. My favorites are the two dinosaur playing table tennis masks.

Help Wanted - USA Table Tennis Coaches
There are two clubs currently looking to hire new coaches.

• Samson Dubina Table Tennis Center - article and video.
• Spartans Table Tennis Club (here's the non-Facebook version) in Santa Clara, CA. Here's their home page.

International Olympian Table Tennis Clinic
Here's the info page (here's the non-Facebook version) for the clinic to be held May 21-23 in Norcross, Georgia, with coaches Matilda Ekholm (Swedish Olympian, world #50) and Yue Wu (2020 USA Women's Table Tennis Team Captain, world #32). You can enter via the Omnipong Tournament page - see listing under Georgia, where you can also see a list of players currently signed up.

Dan Seemiller's "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"
Now's the time to go to the Dan Seemiller Book page and order a signed copy of his new book, "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"! (Or his two previous books, also listed there.) He has a large supply of them now. They are already available on Amazon, but why not get a signed one?

USATT Coaches' Catch-up - 04/16/21
Here's the video (51:35). I had to miss this one - I was in a car going down to North Carolina. I considered joining via cell phone, but I was too busy entertaining the kids with brain teasers. Priorities! The meetings are for all coaches, every Friday at noon eastern time.

New from Samson Dubina

• Nick Snider Interview (2:26)
• Distractions
• Loading and Unloading (article and video 1:41)
• The Cheater

Side To Side Footwork Movement For The Forehand Loop
Here's the video (1:40) of Bella Xu, narration by Brian Pace.

Stroke Chemistry & Footwork
Here's the video (1:50) of Liu Juan, narration by Brian Pace.

Cross Court & Down The Line Attack
Here's the video (1:28) from Crystal Wang.

Rachel Yang – Defensive Specialist – Drill #3 video
Here's the video (67 sec).

How to Super Chop Block with Long Pimples
Here's the video from Ti Long (3:49).

Footwork Drills for Kids
Here's the video (3:22) from InMotion Table Tennis. 

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

• The Strongest Nation in Table Tennis (6:47)
• Xu Xin vs Zhang Jike (56% for Xu Xin) (6:23)
• Xu Xin third ball attack skill (5:26)
• Ma Long serve is fault [Yes or No] (3:47)
• Wang Manyu with Zhang Jike's personal coach (8:42)
• How to deal with illegal serve [Study case] (13:45)
• Coach Ma Lin improved Liu Shiwen pendulum serve (3:55)
• Top 50 Incredible moments in table tennis (9:15)
• Coach Liu Guoliang "Be Unpredictable" (4:04)
• How Chinese kids warm up in table tennis (2:11)
• Ma Long "She Lost Her Job" (23"12_
• 1Hour Training Session of Ma Long Fan Zhendong (73 min)
• Z Form - Very good table tennis tips (8:35)

New from Steve Hopkins

• Dusseldorf Masters 2021: Kallberg and Ovtcharov Win First Two Events
• The World Championships is Coming to Houston
• WAB Club Feature: Tan’s Table Tennis Training Club
• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Ekholm over Levinski (multiple videos)
• PongNow: Connie Sweeris (34:21)

Health Care Access Presents Karaoke - with a Table Tennis Entry
Here's the page. The last entry is "You'll Never Beat Me Again" (2:20) from Nick Flor. Here's where you vote - and vote TT! "I created a table tennis themed karaoke video for a contest held by our local community health care organization, Health Care Access of Phoenixville. It is a fundraiser event, 1 vote is $1. I intend on giving the money back to the organization if I win anything, so I am not in it for any monetary gain. My video is "You'll Never Beat Me Again" sung to the style of "Cry for You" by September. The video is based on my great desire to beat my friend and co-organizer of the Phoenixville Table Tennis Club!  I'm gonna get you Brady!"

Table Tennis Star Returns to Bay Area to Prepare for Tokyo Olympic Games
Here's the article and video (2 min) featuring Kanak Jha.

Top Things to Know about the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021
Here's the info page from Olympic Channel.

The Duel | Zhang Jike vs Hou Yingchao | 2020 Premier League Challenge
Here's the video (10:31). "Zhang Jike comes out of retirement for one match."

Anton Kallberg vs Omar Assar | FINAL | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters
Here's the video (7:59).

Picking Up the Pieces of Public Ping Pong
Here's the article from Coach Jon. "I spent the pandemic anticipating an eventual return to playing at the Atlanta Table Tennis Center. If you are interested in buying their building and starting your own table tennis center, it can be purchased for $1,399,000.00."

U.S. Players Look Back on 50 Years of Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Here's the article from Ecns.cn. (Last week's blog had ten other articles on Ping-Pong Diplomacy.)

How a Few Games of Table Tennis Raised over $60,000 for Individuals Living with a Disability
Here's the article from Her Canberra.

Table Tennis Grand Slam Winner Ding Ning to Enroll in Peking University Master's Program
Here's the article from Xinhua.net.

12-Year-Old Hana Goda: The Rising Star of African Table Tennis 
Here's the article from the Olympic Channel. "Hana Goda is one of Egypt’s youngest stars, a fast-rising talent with many tipping her as the next big thing in African table tennis. The 12-year-old has got game. She is currently ranked first in the ITTF Cadets category, a position she has held since December 2019."

Ping! Springs into Action with Easing of Lockdown
Here's the article from Table Tennis England.

New from the ITTF

• Vladimir Samsonov - Birthday Showreel (5:10)
• Zhang Yining - Inspirational Women in Table Tennis (3:32)
• Petrissa Solja - Inspirational Women in Table Tennis (3:14)
• ITTF High Performance & Development Webinar 44 - Dual Career (53:41)
• Zhang Jike’s birthday went something like this…
• Earlier agony but Rosario visit ends on a bright note Jorge Campos
• Cuba celebrates as Jorge Campos and Daniela Fonseca Carrazana seal Tokyo qualification
• Top two seeded combinations depart at quarter-final hurdle
• Cuban pair in the spotlight as Marcelo Aguirre and Leyla Gomez exit the race
• High tension, Tokyo places booked in dramatic fashion
• New ITTF Table Tennis Youth Ranking announced ahead of inaugural WTT Youth Series Event
• World Rankings
• Home page, news page, and video page ("World Table Tennis").

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Ping-Pong Star Shows Off Skills on Tiny Table
Here's the video (3:11) featuring Zhang Shuo. "A table tennis coach in southern China’s Guangdong province has made a mini table and uses it to show off her skills."

Ping-Pong Around-the Net Challenge
Here's the video (5 min) from Ultimate Ping Pong.

Table Tennis Canada Trick Shot Competition
Here's the info page. "Each Monday starting February 8, 2021, we will be sharing a theme for that week's Table Tennis trick shot." To see each week's theme, go to their Facebook page. This week's

Table Tennis Cartoons
There seem to be a lot of new ones out this week.

• Heimlich Pong
• Fan Pong
• Doctor Pong
• Trampoline Pong
• Policy Pong
• Knight Pong

Lucky Ping Pong Shirt
Here it is!

Bumblebee Pong
Here's the video (54 sec)!

TABLE tennis
Here's the video (6 sec)!

Padel Trick Shots
Here's the video (4 min) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Learn from a Match.

Breaking News - World Table Tennis Championships to Be Held in Houston
Here's the ITTF news item, and here's an article from Inside the Games. They will be held Nov. 23-29, 2021. (I added this Tuesday morning.) They were awarded to USATT in April, 2019 and were originally scheduled for Houston in June this year before they were postponed. One problem - this coincides with the Thanksgiving weekend dates for the North American Teams in Washington DC, which would normally be held Nov. 26-28. (Nov. 25 is Thanksgiving.) 

Weekend Coaching
I squeezed a lot into Sunday, pretty much non-stop from 11AM to 7PM. Two of the group sessions were with beginning-intermediate junior players, where (as always) the focus was on fundamentals, though I always keep it fun. The key to coaching younger beginning kids? F&F: Fun and Fundamentals!

I also had a one-hour session with Navin Kumar. For various reasons, he had to take most of the past month off, so we worked a lot on fundamentals again. Here's video (56 sec) where I'm warming up his forehand block. The next drill? Multiball looping, where I feed (multiball style) forehand loops to all parts of the table, at first side to side, then random.

I also had two 45-minutes sports psychology sessions with two of our top juniors. It was the third session for one, the first for the other. I use Dora Kurimay's Get Your Game Face On Like The Pros! as a reference - she can thank us for seven book sales so far! I have another top junior taking his first session with me this week. (We're getting them all ready for the Butterfly Invitational in North Carolina this weekend - I'll be coaching at it.) 

Student of the Game
Last week I linked to Samson Dubina's Help Wanted Video, Hiring!!!! The Samson Dubina TT Academy is now hiring! (4:58). He had an interesting statement about how he is looking for coaches who can see the game "from the lens of the student." This is similar to a concept I've blogged about before - becoming a student of the game. Here are four levels - where are you on this spectrum?

• Level 1: Student of the Game. Learns all aspects of the game. Classic example - Chinese Men's Team Coach Liu Guoliang, probably the most successful table tennis coach of all time. He was a pips-out penhold hitter/blocker, and yet his coaching is almost entirely with shakehand inverted loopers. But because he was as student of the game, it didn't matter - he simply knows and understands the game. He can see the game from the point of view of a student, not just his own.
• Level 2: Student of Your Game. This type really knows his game. He knows exactly what he needs to do in any given situation, and adjusts his game as needed to opponents. He is a smart player - but he only knows his own game. This type has difficulty coaching others because he only knows his own game. Some elite players have this problem when coaching - they simply cannot understand the game except from their own perspective.
• Level 3: Student of Your Game Limited. This type of player knows his game pretty well, in most situations, and is often good tactically against most players. But against unorthodox styles that he's not familiar with, he doesn't really know what to do. I know of a former 2750 player who was incredible against most players - but there were certain players that he was almost clueless about how to play.
• Level 4: Non-Table Tennis Thinker. May have good strokes, but doesn't really know how to use them. Doesn't really play much tactically and so has difficulty winning or improving.  

Ping-Pong Diplomacy
April 10 was the 50th Anniversary of the start of 1971's Ping-Pong Diplomacy, where the US Table Tennis began its tour of China. (Here's Tim Boggan's book on it - here are his other table tennis history books.) There were articles and videos on this all over the place - here are a few. (Ray Arditi helped compile this.)

• Ping-Pong Diplomacy - 50 Years (April 10, 1971: April 10, 2021) (3:17, Paddle Palace)
• Ping Pong Player Who Helped Bridge U.S.-China Diplomacy in 1971 Says ‘Nobody Should Boycott’ the 2022 Olympics (People Magazine)
• Fifty years ago, a hippie, a dental assistant and a 15-year-old helped open China with ping pong (Washington Post)
• Reflecting on 50th anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy on both sides of the Pacific amid stalemate in ties (Global Times)
• Historical day but Ping Pong Diplomacy as important as ever (ITTF)
• China-US friendly table tennis match celebrates "Ping Pong Diplomacy" (Shine.cn)
• How table tennis changed US-China relations, 50 years on (News Asia)
• The Power of Ping Pong Diplomacy (World Table Tennis)
• 50 Years of Ping Pong Diplomacy (2:15, World Table Tennis)
• Xinhua Commentary | What can we learn from ping-pong diplomacy? (3:02, New China TV)

Rules Changes
There was a discussion on one of the table tennis forums about rules changes. Somehow, my name came up - a well-known table tennis "troll" claimed I was responsible for the Aspect Ratio rule, which (as he knows) is false. (I didn't even know about that rule until after it was announced.) However, someone then mistakenly said that I hadn't been involved in any rule changes - and that too was false, though this time probably an honest mistake. Back in 2013 I blogged about the three rules changes I was involved with, including two that pretty much instigated - here's the blog!

US Nationals
I really, Really, REALLY do not like writing negative things about USATT, an organization I've been with for 45 years. I'm a life member and a member of their Hall of Fame. I'd really like to focus more on things like coaching and promoting the sport, and other interesting stuff - like the segment above about "Student of the Game." But they make it so hard to ignore these problems, and as a table tennis blogger, I'm feel stuck writing about these problems.

SINGLE ELIMINATION. I blogged at length about this in last week's blog, in the segment "USATT Nationals Entry Form and USATT Coaches Meeting." The more I think about it, the more I feel let down by USATT in their decision to go all single elimination this year. I think USATT owes its membership more than this. For most players, it's going to be a pale imitation of past Nationals. (I've been going to Opens and Nationals since my first in 1976, and I've been to every Open and Nationals starting in 1985.)

I gave the explanation in last week's blog on why USATT decided to go all single elimination, as explained to us in the coaches meeting. Here's what I wrote last week:

"Because of the pandemic, it was feared there would be a low turnout at the Nationals. If USATT rented the normal hall, expecting perhaps 800 players, but only got 300, they'd lose a fortune on the tournament. So instead of getting one with room for perhaps 90 tables, they rented one with room for only 45. But then they realized that if they did get a big turnout, they'd be overwhelmed running RR events on just 45 tables, and decided they couldn't risk that - and so went with all single elimination."

However, at the USATT board meeting last Monday, CEO Virginia Sung gave a completely different explanation, saying, "The reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." I sort of fell out of my chair when I heard this. Now I feel even more let down - they are running all single elimination because they can't do the scheduling and handle conflicts, as they've done at every Nationals and Open for many decades? I spent all week debating whether to email for further comment, but what's the point? It'll just be another circle-the-wagons, Larry's a trouble-maker moment. Besides completely contradicting what we were told in the coaches meeting, it also seems to imply they want to run future Nationals and Opens this way - if they want to go all single elimination this year to "better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently," the situation won't change in future Nationals and Opens. The quote speaks for itself, and I'll let readers interpret it as they see best.

Regardless of the reason, running it all single elimination is a mistake. If you go by the first argument, the worry of a low turnout (likely self-inflicted, due to going all single elimination), they seem out of touch with what's going on in the table tennis world. First, they are getting large turnouts at recent tournaments held in Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, and other locations. Second, people are HUNGRY for a Nationals - there hasn't been one since 2019. Third, by the time of the Nationals, anyone over age 16 who wants to will be vaccinated. Conclusion? If they'd run the Nationals with the usual RR format, there would have been a very large turnout and a nice financial windfall for USATT at a time they really need it. As to the second reason, that's basically an admission that they don't feel they can do what others have done in every past Nationals and Open since I began going to them in 1976.

On a related note, single elimination does not make it easier to manage the schedule. Round robin events are easier to schedule - you just send them out and let them play it out, with fewer SE matches afterwards. Single elimination is more difficult to schedule since you have to schedule every round, while in RR events you have fewer rounds after the RR stage to schedule. The only thing that makes SE easier to schedule is the presumption that by going all SE, you'll get fewer players. And THAT makes it easier to schedule.

Someone told me that if they'd run the Nationals with the usual RRs, they might get stuck with too MANY players - and they can't really handle more than a thousand. While I disagree that they can't handle more than a thousand, there's a simple solution - cap the entries at a thousand.)

CHANGES TO ENTRY FORM. There were two major changes to the entry form since it went up last week. At the coaches meeting on Friday, April 2, we spent much of the session discussing the Nationals. I pointed out (repeatedly) that if they were going to have a consolation event for every event in the tournament, it should say this on the entry form. (I can't believe something so basic needed to be pointed out - it literally doubles the minimum number of matches you play in each event.) I also pointed out that the wording on the entry form implied that parents couldn't coach their kids unless they were certified as USATT coaches, which is exactly what I thought they meant based on past discussions, but I was assured that wasn't what they meant. A week later, at the coaches meeting on April 9, I pointed out that none of the changes had been made. After that meeting, I think that very day, they made those two changes to the entry form. To those who fixed this, we appreciate it!!!

SCHEDULING PROBLEMS. There is still a major scheduling problem for players and parents. Several parents at my club last night were frustrated over this. If you look at the entry from (page 5, first column), you can see the scheduling is very top-heavy - lots of events scheduled on the first two days (Sun and Mon), then a lot fewer after that. We were told at the coaches meeting that events should finish by the day after they start - but that's not what it says on the entry form. What it actually says is:

"Event Scheduling: Events are not guaranteed to be completed on the same day that they begin. No refunds will be given for early departure. All events will be completed by Friday (July 9, 2021) evening."

To use the example of the 20 or so kids from my club who plan (or planned) to go to the Nationals, the majority only play in events that start on Sunday and Monday, so presumably they'll be done by Tuesday. A few might stay an extra day for Under 2300 on Tuesday. So, can they fly home on Tuesday or Wednesday, or do they actually have to stay through Friday, where they would likely spend three days stuck there with no events? I've run over 200 USATT tournaments and was Operations Director for two US Opens with large turnouts (i.e. did the scheduling with the Director), and know that USATT should have no problem in finishing these SE events by the day after they start (including the SE consolation) - but the players and parents don't know that, and we don't know if they will schedule it that way. So players and parents are stuck, trying to guess what to do. The entry deadline for the tournament is June 15, and presumably USATT is playing it safe on their side, waiting to see what the turnout will be before making these scheduling decisions. But players and parents need to work out schedules well before that - flight plans, hotel plans, and even their own plans at home if they don't have to stay through Friday. Since the tournament is all single elimination, USATT shouldn't need to wait on this - just put it on the entry form that all events will finish by the day after they begin. Don't leave us in the dark like this - there are junior players whose only events are on Sunday and perhaps Monday (if they play rating events) - are they and their parents really expected to block out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for this? (They did in past Nationals, but that was because the events were RR and spread out over six days, instead of all SE and at the very start of the tournament.) USATT - PLEASE FIX THIS!!!

Some Nationals links:

• 2021 USA Nationals Home Page
• Omnipong listing (You'll have to search for the Nationals - it's in CAPS. The problem is that it should stand out as a 5-star tournament, with the regional ones as 3-stars, the state ones as 2-stars.)
• Entry Form
• Player Listing (Alphabetical, by rating, and by event. I've emailed Omnipong asking if they could add a State and Club column. If you hover the cursor over a player, club info appears, but that means hovering over every player if you want to find the players from a club.)
• USATT News Item

USATT Board Meeting
They met last Monday night, April 5. It was supposed to start at 8PM, but they ran into technical problems on Uberconference and so switched over to Zoom. The meeting began around 8:10PM, then went into executive session an hour later, at 9:10PM, and so I had to get off while they presumably discussed legal and personnel matters. There were 23 people in the meeting. The minutes for the meeting are not yet up, but will go up at some point on the USATT Minutes and Actions page. Here are some highlights.

• CEO Report: Membership, Clubs, Nationals, Coaches Licensing. Membership and clubs are way down due to Covid. Membership 7007 to 4536. Clubs from 207 to 145. Understandable, with Covid.
• Mark Thompson (COO) gave a report on SafeSport. SafeSport is important, but I am so tired of it that whenever I hear it, my mind goes to sleep. The "S" in USATT has almost become SafeSport - more time is spent on that than probably any other topic.  
• Sean O'Neill gave the High Performance Director Report on upcoming events and trials.
• Kelly Watson gave the Audit Committee report.
• Bylaw proposals - no vote at this meeting. I wrote about this briefly in my blog last week in the "USATT Board Meeting" segment, where I wrote about the meeting to be held that night. Based on lots of input, they will be rewritten again. (I've blogged about this a few times.) One interesting quote - Dave Patterson from the USOPC said, "Athletes should select who represent them." This sort of ended the argument over whether one of the two incoming athlete reps should be appointed by the Athlete's Advisory Committee and approved by the USATT board (as some on the board were pushing for) or elected directly by the athletes. I wrote about this briefly in last week's blog, but frankly, I'm so tired of USATT bylaw battles that I haven't gotten to involved in this one or the other proposed bylaws.

USATT Coaches Meeting
We had our weekly meeting last Friday at noon, lasting almost an hour. (Here's the video, 58 min.) There was more discussion of the Nationals and Team Trials. Here was the agenda:

• Welcome
• Schlager Interview (China) - Linked below
• Kanak Interview (High/Low) - this is with Stupa Analytics, linked below
• National Team (Trials)
• Nationals (2021 &2022) - see mention above about the entry form and the changes that came out of this discussion here and in the previous week's meeting.
• Use of Titles (dropping words). Some people advertise themselves as, for example, the "US Open Champion" when they won a rating event, such as maybe Under 1800. I've run into this problem - when news reporters ask me about my playing career, if I honestly tell them I was the US Open and National Champion in Hardbat Table Tennis, they don't know that's different than "regular" table tennis unless I explain it. (I'm normally a sponge player, but play hardbat on the side, and have won a lot of hardbat titles.)
• Ball Speed (100mph?) Some still claim this, but test show the fastest smashes seem to be just over 70mph. I think if players trained just for this, they could get it higher with wristy smashes, but at most they might approach 80mph.
• Questions

Happy World Table Tennis Day (April 6)

• World Table Tennis Day from JOOLA (76 sec)!
• National Collegiate Table Tennis Association
• 2021 World Table Tennis Day | What's Your Passion? (1:33)
• 2021 NCTTA World Table Tennis Day [CalTTC x BU] (3:53)
• Loving Table Tennis on World Health Day
• Every day is World Table Tennis Day
• Around the Globe on World Table Tennis Day 2021
• World Table Tennis Day 2021: Champions TT Academy (19 sec) from Kelaria, India
• There are others at the World Table Tennis Day videos at the ITTF Foundation Video Page.

RIP Fred Tepper, 1928-2021
Here's the obit of Mr. Baltimore Table Tennis. I knew him pretty well from many years ago. I even have a copy of his book, "Ping-Pong is Not Table Tennis!" by Fred Tepper, 1990. (I don't think it was published professionally, but I have a copy of the manuscript.)

Heaviest Spin Ever!? My Signature Shot
Here's the video (3:43) from Timo Boll.

How To Create More Spin
Here's the video (3:37) from David Zhuang.

Short Game Play
Here's the video (2:15) from Zhou Xin.

Flip to Random Play
Here's the video (1:29) from Crystal Wang.

Top 6 Exercises for Powerful Forehand
Here's the video (2:24) from inMotion Table Tennis.

Backhand Table Tennis Topspin Technical Tips
Here's the video (26 sec) from eBaTT.

New from Ti Long

• Ma Long and Xu Xin's way of preparing to attack after the serve (5:20)
• Attacking against Long Pimple's serve is extremely easy (3:04)
• Backhand Topspin attacks near the melee table (4:10)

New from Samson Dubina

• Between Points
• Videos of the Week
• 4 Tips to Improve Your Performance (3:34)
• Winning and Learning

Werner Schlager - "Talk to Me"
Here's the video (33:08) with the 2003 World Men's Singles Champion, from the Canadian TTA and Adham Sharara.

Kanak Jha Joins Stupa Analytics for a Fun Interview
Here's the USATT video (45:30).

Mandy Yu: Byron's Table Tennis Sensation
Here's the article from The Post Bulletin in Rochester, MN.

Ma Long Multiball Training with Liu Guoliang
Here's the video (68 sec). So, how's your backhand loop?

Five Things to Know About Table Tennis Olympic Champ Ma Long
Here's the article and videos from the Olympic Channel.

A Big Stack of Table Tennis Skills
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Interview with Sweden Olympian Matilda Ekholm
Here's the interview (21:21) from Kevin Table Tennis. Ekholm is currently #50 in the world, and was #20 in 2017.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

• Amazing Parody Song by MonquiPong (8:07)
• Z Form - Very good table tennis tips (8:35)
• Blue or Pink (WR 25 vs WR 27) (26:56)
• China Team Is Ready for Olympics Tokyo 2021 (27:54)
• Coach Ma Lin Advanced backhand flick (5:18)
• The Classic Battle (Ma Long 68%) (4:42)
• The Super Man [Xu Xin] (2:15)
• Xu Xin and Tomokazu Harimoto [Super Match] (11:24)
• Illegal Serve in Table Tennis [Study Case] (3:38)
• Amazing 9 years old kids battle (15:21)
• Xu Xin improved his Penhold Backhand RPB (6:40)
• What if Tomokazu Harimoto plays versus his sister ? (1:01)

New from Steve Hopkins

• PongNow: Dan Seemiller (24:43)
• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Alguetti tops Liu
• WAB Club Feature: Rhode Island Table Tennis Association
• German League Semifinals: Saarbrucken Joins Dusseldorf in Final
• German League Semifinals Update: Saarbrucken leads Ochsenhausen

New from the ITTF

• WTT readies for post Olympics action
• The world of table tennis rubbers
• Meeting demand list grows, now published quarterly
• Shin Yubin - Inspirational Women in Table Tennis (3:31)
• Home page, news page, and video page ("World Table Tennis").

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

I Played Against a Long Pips Player
Here's the video (12:43) from Adam Bobrow.

When Players Go Around the Net
Here's the video (23 sec) from Table Tennis Central!

Hawaiian Table Tennis Shirt
Here it is!

Nick Kyrgios Table Tennis
The controversial tennis player also plays table tennis.

• Nick Kyrgios Funniest On-Court Chat (3:02, go to 2 min to hear him say, "Shouldn't have played ping pong with 10 year-old kids for 3 hours before.")
• Nick Kyrgios breaks racket after losing ping pong match to Hewitt (19 sec)
• Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock play table tennis in Roma 2015 (48 sec)
• Tennis Players Playing Table Tennis (21:33, you should watch it all, but Kyrgios shows up at 17:46) "Here is the ultimate compilation of [tennis] players such as Federer, Williams, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Kyrgios, Thiem, Wawrinka, Sock, Tiafoe, Monfils, Querrey, the Bryan brothers, and many more playing Ping-Pong."

Grasscourt Pong
Here's the cartoon!

Riley Dog Pong
Here's the video (63 sec)!

Real Dog Pong
Here's the video (9 sec)!

Ma Long, Timo Boll or Harimoto? Guess The Table Tennis Pro Player
Here's the video (6:18) from XOLAY!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Reading Service Spin.

Weekend Coaching
I had a busy Sunday - was at the club almost all day. I started with the advanced beginning junior class, where I spent much of the time working on basics and serves. When we went to the more advanced sessions later in the day, I acted as a practice partner for an hour - I may not be as fast as before, but I can still block very consistently, and I wore a few players out. One of the advanced players was having some problems with his serves, so I spent a full half hour on this with him - the main problem was his contact point was too high, and it's often difficult to make that transition. But I also showed him how to make the serve bounce really low. I finished the day with the beginning junior girls' group, where I introduced them to serving with spin. (I'd built up to this the last few weeks by having them practice tossing a ball up and spinning it off their racket.)

All players and coaches are required to wear masks at all times in the club, even when playing. It's a hassle, though the kids have adjusted well. Those with glasses have problems with them fogging up. But things might get a bit easier soon with the vaccines out. Soon everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be. I have my two vaccinations now scheduled - the first is tomorrow (Tuesday, April 6), with the follow-up on April 27.

Dan Seemiller's "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"
Now's the time to go to the Dan Seemiller Book page and order a signed copy of his new book, "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"! (Or his two previous books, also listed there.) He will have a large supply of them by the end of this week. They are already available on Amazon, but why not get a signed one?

USA Table Tennis Magazines I Edited
Here's a secret project I've been working on - all 71 issues of USA Table Tennis Magazine that I edited are now online!!! One huge thing - they are all searchable! You can do a search for the name of your favorite player (or your own name) and find them all. This includes 24 issues I did from 1992-1995, and 47 from 1999-2007. Also included are the three copies of Table Tennis World I did independently in 1996.

I initially put together a page that links to them all, but I thought it best that it be a USATT page, so I had Hall of Fame Committee Chair Sean O'Neill copy and paste the page to the new USATT page.

I could have tried doing it myself, taking a picture of each page, but I wanted the text searchable, and I wanted a professional job, so I hired Arc Document Solutions in Gaithersburg to do it, and supplied them with backup copies of all my magazines. Their charge was 15 cents/page if they could destroy the binding (i.e. destroy the magazine), or 45 cents/page if they could not. Since I had backup copies, I went with the 15 cents/page version. Total cost, which I paid myself, was $740.

Here is a listing I put together of every USATT Magazine editor since they began in 1933. (It also lists all past presidents, board chairs, and CEOs/EDs.) There have been a total of 556 print magazines done. I'm hoping someone will spearhead an effort to get them all scanned and put online, either by doing the work or by funding it. It would take an effort to collect copies of all of these magazines, especially since few will allow vintage magazines to be destroyed. (I know of some people with extensive collections, and I have most since 1976.) There are 556-71=485 issues to be scanned. The older ones were smaller. Let's say they average 32 pages each. Then there are 485x32=15,520 pages to scan. At 45 cents/page, that's $6984, or about $7000. Someone can either sponsor this or start a GoFundMe. Unfortunately, I'm just too busy on other things to get more involved in this, but if you are interested and have questions, email me.

USATT's Nominating and Governance Committee, and Clubs and Leagues Committee
The deadline to volunteer for either of these committees is TODAY, Monday, April 5. Here is more info:

• Nominating and Governance Committee
• Clubs and Leagues Committee

USATT Board Meeting
They have an online meeting tonight (Monday, April 5) at 8PM eastern time, on Uberconference. (It's similar to Zoom - not sure why they don't use that, but there must be advantages.) The meeting is open to anyone, and I will be there. You can watch and listen; you can't say anything without permission from the chair. However, you can speak up in the chat box, the board does see that, and usually responds to questions there. The agenda is not up as I write this, but it says it will be posted prior to the meeting.

I believe the main issue is going to be the Proposed Bylaw Changes. (Make sure to page below the actual note, where the proposed bylaws changes are listed. The note doesn't mention they are below, and so many, including me, didn't realize they were there at first.) USATT is getting a lot of flak from members over these, with a number of emails from prominent table tennis people. At issue are whether there should be direct elections of the two new athlete reps or if one should be selected by the Athlete Advisory Committee, and the apparent extension of the terms of some board members.

USATT Nationals Entry Form and USATT Coaches Meeting
It's out!!! Here are some links:

• USATT News Item
• 2021 USA Nationals Home Page
• Omnipong listing (You'll have to search for the Nationals - it's in CAPS. The problem is that it should stand out as a 5-star tournament, with the regional ones as 3-stars, the state ones as 2-stars.)
• Entry Form
• Player Listing (Alphabetical, by rating, and by event. I've emailed Omnipong asking if they could add a State and Club column.)

Why am I combining the US Nationals and the USATT coaches meeting? Because that was the primary discussion in the coaches meeting, by far the longest we've ever had, almost two hours. Here's the video (1hr 55min). There are a number of issues with this year's Nationals entry form, though many are communication problems. I'm told there will likely be updates to the entry form to address these communication issues.

Here's a rundown of some of the issues, which I hope will clear up some of the confusion on these issues.

• Why Single Elimination. I tried to convince USATT to put in the entry form the reason why they are going all single elimination this year, but they chose not to. (Alternately, they could put in large letters that the explanation is in the FAQ page, and put it there.) It seemed to me and others that, regardless of the pandemic, you can have just as many tables and so just as many matches as needed with round robin events - and it's even easier since they are not having any doubles events (to avoid Covid spreading). It was explained to me at the coaches meeting - but why not simply give the following explanation up front? Here's what I was told, primarily by High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, who runs the weekly coaches' meetings.

  Because of the pandemic, it was feared there would be a low turnout at the Nationals. If USATT rented the normal hall, expecting perhaps 800 players, but only got 300, they'd lose a fortune on the tournament. So instead of getting one with room for perhaps 90 tables, they rented one with room for only 45. But then they realized that if they did get a big turnout, they'd be overwhelmed running RR events on just 45 tables, and decided they couldn't risk that - and so went with all single elimination.

  Now this makes some sense, and I wish they'd had the sense to explain this up front. At least there is an argument for why they went all SE, especially if they were being extremely conservative. However, I still disagree with the decision. By the time of the Nationals, anyone over age 16 who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated. Plus, there's been no Nationals or Open since 2019. People are starved for one. I'm pretty certain this year would have had a huge turnout, easily justifying the larger hall. However, by going with all SE, it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy as they may now end up with a small turnout. The irony is if they still get a large turnout, imagine what they might have gotten with regular RR! (I'm told that if there is a large turnout, they may then go for a larger hall.)

  UPDATE - at the USATT board meeting tonight (Monday, April 5), USATT CEO Virginia Sung said, "Reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." This seems to differ with the reasons given above. If this really is the reason, then it seems to imply that this is a permanent change. Someone in USATT recently told me that often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is thinking and doing. This seems to be another case of that. 

• Consolation Events. In the earlier version of the entry form that I proofed for USATT, there's no mention of Consolation events. (A Consolation event is where all of the first-round losers are put into another draw and play it out to the final, with prizes.) In the version that went online, it says in the small print near the back, "For further information on the rules for preliminary round play, consolation events, qualification for the Main Draw and Seeding, please refer to the USATT website." Hidden in there was a passing mention of Consolation events. What they should be saying is, "Every event has a Consolation event, so players are guaranteed at least two matches in every event they enter." See the difference? It should be highlighted, in HUGE letters, that players will get at least two matches in every event, due to the Consolation event. Instead, players are left in the dark on this, and so believing they only get one guaranteed match.

  I do think USATT made another mistake here. As I blogged previously and suggested to some USATT people, instead of consolation events, why not simply have a 2020 and 2021 National championships for each event? You end up with two single elimination draws, and except this way we can crown our 2020 champions. It would mean a few more matches and conflicts, but with SE, you have fewer matches and so this should have been relatively easy.  

• Parents Coaching. The entry form says, "Minor-Aged players are permitted one parent or adult guardian to enter the venue during their match." Then it says, "Coaches must be on the USATT coaching registry to enter the venue for the player(s) match(es)." The problem is that while parents/guardians are allowed in the venue, the moment they coach their kid's match, they become coaches - and so, by this wording, are required to be on the coaches registry. (That means undertaking the USATT's online club coach course for $299, passing SafeSport, getting a background check, paying $75 for an annual USATT "Pro" membership they will likely never otherwise need, and paying an annual $50 for a USATT Coaching License that they also will likely never otherwise need.) When I brought this up at the coaches meeting, I was told that was NOT what USATT intended, and that parents CAN coach their kids. Hopefully, they will fix the wording on this. I was also told that to be a guardian, they would need a signed letter from the parents. (I wonder if anyone will abuse this and get signed letters from all their students, and so be able to coach them as "guardians" without getting on the USATT Coaches Registry!)
• Event Completion. The entry form says that events are not guaranteed to finish on the day they begin. So players don't know how long to book their hotel and flights for. I'm told that all events will finish by the day after they are scheduled - this should be on the entry form. So, for example, all the junior events are starting on Sunday, July 4, and will finish that day or on Monday. If your last rating event starts on Tuesday, you will be done on Wednesday. And so on.  
• Hopes. Normally the Nationals has Hopes events, for boys and girls. They are for players under age 12 as of Jan. 1 of that year. When the entry form came out without the events, there were some unhappy players and parents. (My club has two of the top three seeds on the boys' side, and they were training hard for this event.) But ITTF is now phasing out the Hopes event, and instead is going with the following age events - Under 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21, which is what USATT went with. That's understandable, but again, why no explanation? Plus, it turns out USATT is looking to run the usual Regional and National Hopes programs in the fall, so there will likely be a National Hopes Championships after all. I just wish this had all been communicated widely in advance.

There are other things I wish they'd done. The lowest rating event is Under 1400. Why not Under 1200, for example? I just checked, and 13 of the 74 players currently entered are rated under 1200 (including two unrated players). That's 17.6%, a pretty big proportion - and that's without running Under 1200. If they had the event, presumably there'd be even more players rated under 1200 entered. That's pure lost revenue, plus making it a better tournament for some.

The entry form also says that water will not be provided, so I'm hoping they'll make sure water will be available in some way. Imagine the plight of someone who shows up the first day without bringing a gallon of water! Basically, players will need to buy a case of water on the first day of the Nationals and bring as many as needed for each session. Perhaps USATT can communicate to all players the closest place where they can buy a case of water - but with hundreds of players, they will likely get sold out quickly.

Regarding the Coaches meeting, there were six attendees, Sean O'Neill (High Performance Director as well as Hall of Fame Chair), Larry Hodges, Britt Salter, Mike Lauro, Dave Fullen, and Priya Kannan. We also discussed the USATT licensing fee, the new $50 annual fee coaches must pay to be certified. That too was a long discussion. I blogged about this issue in last week's blog. (Search for "USATT Licensing Fee".) I still think we should drop that fee, and instead charge a coach's pass at the Nationals, Open and Team Trials, for those who choose to coach at those events.

Let's do some math. We now have about 50 coaches paying the $50 licensing fee. That's $2500. But we lost 138-49=89 coaches, or around 90 coaches who were USATT certified on Feb. 28 but no longer on March 1. Suppose half of those 90 were paying the $75 USATT "Pro" membership fee just to stay certified as coaches, but decided the additional $50/year was just too much (i.e. $125/year), especially on top of all the hassle of SafeSport and background checks. Then we lost 45x$75=$3375 in membership fees. $3375-$2500=$875 in lost revenue. Now it's not that simple - extra members cost office overhead, and a number of coaches will pay the $50 to get recertified at the Nationals (including me) - but overall, USATT will likely only come out a little ahead with this, and it's simply not worth the loss of all these certified coaches, not to mention the anger over this. As I said in the video, when you go from 400 to 138 to 49 certified coaches in a short period of time, you have a coaching pandemic. To put it another way, the market has spoken. (My suggestion: Cancel the licensing fee until the pandemic is over, and when we have more advanced online coaching courses to offer, and start with a lower fee.)

For me personally, the entry form works well. I'll be coaching the first four days of the Nationals, Sun-Wed. And then, on Thursday, I play in three hardbat events! (I'm normally a sponge player, but play hardbat on the side for fun.) I'm the defending and six-time champion (Nationals and Open) in Over 40 Hardbat Singles, and will likely be top seed in Over 60 Hardbat, where I'm playing for the first time. I'm also playing Open Hardbat, which I've won twice - back in 1991-1992! So I'm playing that more for warm-up, though there'll be a glint in my eye as I secretly expect to win it. Alas, no doubles - I've won Hardbat Doubles 13 times.

USATT Coaching Committee
The new coaching committee has been approved by the USATT Board. I'm returning as a member, as is Chair Pieke and member Dave. The others are new. They are: Pieke Franssen (chair), Larry Hodges, Dave Fullen, Qiumars Hedayatian, and athlete reps Jennifer Wu, Terese Terranova, and Juan Liu.

New from Samson Dubina

• Hiring - The Samson Dubina TT Academy is looking to hire a TT coach!
• Sarah Jalli / Samson Dubina Chat (7:08) - if you want to improve, this is STRONGLY recommended! Sara is #1 for her cadet girls in the country at 2452. 
• Improve 100 Points - Do THIS Drill and Improve 100 Points this Month!
• Jet Lag - Traveling To Tournaments
• New Videos From SDTTA

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

• How Chinese Coach Does Multiball Training (article and video 4:45)
• Playing Style Between Male and Female Players (article and video 8:51)
• Xu Xin + Zhang Jike: One of the best double partner (2:29)
• Women vs Men players - Who is stronger? (8:51)
• Skillful beautiful Chinese players (4:42)
• Zhang Jike at his prime! (4:54)
• Waldner vs 10 Amateur Players in China (2:47)
• Thin or Thick Rubber? (9:32)
• Fan Zhendong trains hard with coach Wang Hao (4:11)
• We Are Friends (4:02)
• Chen Meng at national games (3:17)

New from Ti Long

• How to Block by Long Pimples | 3 principles (3:53)
• Ma Long and Zhang Jike's SECRET way of holding the racket when serving (4:27)

Table Tennis Penhold Grip (Feeding Multiball)
Here's the article and video (40 sec) from Eli Baraty, on why he often feeds multiball with a penhold grip.

Butterfly Training Tips: Rachel Yang – Defensive Specialist – Drill #2 Video
Here's the video (1:21). Here's Drill #1 (1:18) from last week.

Bruce Lee Philosophy in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:35) from InMotion Table Tennis.

The Fitness Tests Before the Chinese National Games 2021
Here's the video (6:54).

Explained: The Science Behind TT Racquets with Pimples

Here's the article from the Indian Express. It's written for non-table tennis people, but still pretty interesting.

New from USA Table Tennis

• USA Table Tennis Opens Registration for 2021 US Nationals
• Xu Xin vs. Xu Ruifeng Highlights - Chinese National Games Qualification (10:20)
• Ma Long/Wang Chuqin vs Zhou Yu/Ren Hao | 2021 Chinese National Games (QUAL) (8 min)
• USATT News Page

New from Steve Hopkins

• World Parkinson’s Day (article and 90-sec video) World Parkinson’s Day is next Sunday, April 11.
• WAB Club Feature: Vancouver Table Tennis Club
• German League Semifinals Update: Dusseldorf into Finals
• USATT’s T2 Challenge Season 2: Jishan Leads Team Alpha to 5-1 Advantage
• PongNow: Mitch Seidenfeld (19:30)

All the Things We Don’t Know About Table Tennis
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Table Tennis Climbs Up Social Standing
Here's the article from World Table Tennis.

New from the ITTF

• ITTF opens bidding process for 2024 World Table Tennis Championships Finals
• Table Tennis Around the World, Around the Clock: 24-hour Stream on 6 April! (World Table Tennis Day)
• Petra Sörling Nominated for ITTF President Candidacy
• Table Tennis the Passion, Ballo Lo Passes Away.
• Minimal Changes to World Ranking
• Home page, news page, and video page ("World Table Tennis").

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Hou Yingchao vs Liang Jingkun | 2021 Chinese National Games (QUAL)
Here's the video (8:47) of this nice chopper vs. attacker match. Spoiler Alert - the chopper Hou, who has no world ranking, upsets world #10 Liang Jingkun.

Linn Sandstrom is Stunning Table Tennis Star Who Quit Sport for Boxing
Here's the article and video (59 sec) from the U.S. Sun.

Come to the Dark Side: We Play Table Tennis All Day
Here's where you can buy the shirt from Etsy!

Darth Vader vs. the Martian
Here's the cartoon!

20 Funniest Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (8:06)!

Funny in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:46)!

Playing Ping Pong With A Cap | Annikas Roller
Here's the video (6:08) from XOLAY!

King of the Frozen Table
Here's the video (7 min) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!