Richard McAfee Visits Maryland

Yesterday USATT Hall of Famer, ITTF Trainer, and former USATT Coaching Chair (2009-2013, until USATT term limits forced him out) Richard McAfee, from Denver, CO, visited the Maryland Table Tennis Center. He was in town to do a coaching video with JOOLA USA.

So yesterday afternoon I stopped by JOOLA USA in Rockville, Maryland, which is also headquarters for North American Table Tennis. I hadn't been to their new offices, and so Googled the directions. I followed them exactly - and found myself in a construction site. The paved road had ended and I was driving on a muddy road, worried my tires would sink in and get stuck. I kept driving for 50 yards or so, then stopping and wondering if this right, then driving another bit, and stopping again. I kept wondering, is owner Richard Lee trying to save money by housing everything in half-constructed buildings, with muddy quagmires for streets and parking? Finally I called Richard Lee (president of JOOLA USA and NATT), and discovered the Google directions were off - they had me make a left-hand turn near the end rather than turn right. So I turned back and quickly found the place. I apologized to Richard for even thinking they might have set up offices in the muddy wonderland I'd visited. Unfortunately, my tires and the sides of my car were now all muddy.

The actual place is impressive, with lots of office space, a meeting room, large kitchen area, and a big video room. About a dozen people worked there full-time, each with their own office, some of whom I already knew - Richard and Wendy Lee, Michael Squires, Steven Chan, Rich Heo, and Katherine Wu. Out of the office at the time were Tom Nguyen, Greg Cox, and Mary Palmar. Richard McAfee was working with Rich Heo on the video.

Then I took Richard over to see my club, the Maryland Table Tennis Center. (Richard Lee and Katherine Wu, both of whom developed as players there, joined us shortly afterwards.) We watched as a number of our top juniors trained with coaches/practice partners, and discussed their technique. Then I took Richard M. to dinner at a local Japanese & Korean restaurant. (Teriyaki chicken for me, some sort of shrimp and vegetable dish for Richard.)

When to Call Time-Outs

In my book Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, there's a section on when to call time-outs. It was a rewritten version of a Tip of the Week I'd written in 2011. Here's the updated version.

2013 U.S. Open Challenge Series

USATT will organize the ITTF Challenge Series/World Tour to be held during the US Open and will include the following events: Women's singles, Men's singles, and U-21 Men's and Women's singles. Players in these events must be entered by USATT. Here's further info.

Why Chinese Players Are #1 in the World

Here's a short article and video (2:28) exploring this topic, which mostly showcases their training techniques, especially physical training. If you want a more extensive look on some of the reasons China dominates, here's an article I wrote with Cheng Yinghua on the subject for the July/August 2005 USA Table Tennis Magazine, "The Secrets of Chinese Table Tennis…and What the Rest of the World Needs to Do to Catch Up.

Exceptional Table Tennis Skills Around A Table!

Here's a Facebook video (36 sec) with two players doing a pretty good exhibition - on a mini-table! I think anyone can see this, even if you are not on Facebook or "friends" with the players, but if you can't, let me know and I'll try to find another version.

Vancouver Canucks Play Pong

Here's a video (2:04) of hockey players Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider playing table tennis in what appears to be the team's clubhouse as they prepare for the NHL playoffs. They're pretty good!

Goofy and Mickey

That's some goofy ping-pong.

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U.S. Open

The U.S. Open this year is in Las Vegas, NV, July 2-6. The entry deadline is in eleven days - May 11. (There's a late deadline of May 18, which requires a $75 late fee.) Have you entered yet? Here's the U.S. Open webpage. I'll be there as a coach. I'm toying with entering some of the hardbat events as well, but not sure if I have time. (I normally play sponge, but have won a bunch of hardbat titles on the side.)

One of my annual pet peeves is that there is rarely any advertising or advance notice about the top players coming. This year the U.S. Open is part of the ITTF World Tour, and we know a bunch of top players are coming - but there's no publicity about who is coming. Year after year the entry deadline comes, and it is only after the deadline that prospective players (i.e. potential cash-paying entries) find out who the top players are. For all we know the Chinese National Team is coming, or the top European players - but we just don't know. Rather than wait and see who enters, and announcing it after the deadline, it would be a lot better if USATT pro-actively found out at least some of the top players who are coming before the deadline, and the publicized it. They did this in the early 1990s, and it seemed to lead to increased entries, as well as happy participants who came both to play and watch (as well as to buy stuff, with all the table tennis venders at the Open).

I hope to see many of you at the Open. There are so many reasons to attend - you get to play, see the top players, see friends, see a huge convention center filled up with a hundred tables and 800 players (and hundreds of family members, coaches, officials, staff, volunteers, etc.), explore the many equipment booths, and oh yeah, it's in Las Vegas!

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers

For two months in a row I've made more writing about table tennis than actually coaching. So please jump on the bandwagon and buy your copy of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers! Or any of the other fine books sold on my Amazon page. I also made a sizeable chunk last year writing science fiction & fantasy - about $2000 total. I'm not sure if it's a profitable hobby or a low-paying job. Here's my Science Fiction & Fantasy page.

Me and Marty

Here's a picture posted on Facebook by Bruce Liu of me with the late great Marty Reisman, taken at my U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame induction in 2003. Marty was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the banquet, while Eric Boggan and David Zhuang were my fellow inductees. (If you can't see it on Facebook, try this.)

Ping Pong Candy

Alabama's Michael Wetzel (that's International Umpire and Certified Referee to you) sent me a pair of Ping Pong Candies, made in Venezuela. Here's the picture! They seem to be chocolate covered nuts or something like that. I haven't decided whether to eat them or keep them as a souvenir.

Table Tennista

Here are the international headline stories right now at Table Tennista

• The Warm-Up Match Was Meant To Be Hard (Video)
• Zhou Yu: Ma Lin Did Not Play Well
• Liu Shiwen Injured! (Video)
•  Chinese Team Offered a 3-Minute Silence For The Quake Victims (Video)
• Zhang Jike Doesn't Aim To Defend His Title In Paris Anymore
• Ma Lin: I Am Not Thinking Of Winning The World Championships (Videos)
• Chinese Men's Team Confirms Lineup For Paris
• Sharara's Defense To Bosi's Accusations (File)
• Simon Gauzy Won The 2013 French National Championships! (Videos)
• Pavlovich's Fenerbahce Won Its Second Ettu Cup's Title!

The Inspiring Chinese National Team

Here's a video (2:39) from a year ago on the Chinese National Team in training that I don't think I've ever linked to. It has inspirational narration (rapping?) by "Hiphoppreacher." I think I may have linked to something by him once before, but I'm not sure.

Table Tennis Can Be Really Awesome

Here's a new video (1:20) of shot-making and trick shots, from the "Piing of Power." (Not sure why there are two i's.)

A Boy and his Cat

Here's a continuous gif image of a boy playing table tennis with his cat (really!), with a seven-shot sequence repeated over and over.

USATT Minutes

[NOTE - I usually save the fun stuff for the end - like the boy and cat video above - but I decided to stick the USATT stuff here at the end so as not to scare people away.]

Here are the motions from the USATT Board of Director's April 20, 2013 meeting at Westchester, NY (during the North American Cup). You can see the minutes and motions from meetings going back to 1999 at the USATT Minutes page.

• MOVED to appoint Rajul Sheth as Chair of the Juniors Advisory Committee.
• MOVED to appoint David DelVecchio as Chair, and to appoint Adam Bobrow, Alex Figueroa, Willy Leparulo, and Han Xiao (athlete) as members, of the Leagues Advisory Committee.
• MOVED for USATT to review Diego Schaaf’s Merit Pin Proposal, to incorporate Board comments into a revised draft, and to submit the revised draft to Diego Schaaf.
• MOVED to deny North American Table Tennis’s request to vacate the Board’s December 19, 2012 Motion regarding the sanctioning of a Butterfly Teams Championship in 2013.
• MOVED to direct the Clubs Advisory Committee to design a strategy for implementation of the club equipment package proposed by Attila Malek.
• MOVED to affirm the February 17, 2013 Final Decision of the Board’s Special Committee in the disciplinary matter In re Chui, Case No. 2012-003.
• MOVED that any service of Roman Tinyszin on the Officials and Rules Advisory Committee prior to December 31st, 2008, was ultra vires; therefore, the waiver approved on March 25, 2013, is inapplicable.
• Respectfully submitted, Dennis Taylor, Secretary

USATT High Performance Committee

Here are the Actions of the USATT High Performance Committee (HPC) for March by Chair Carl Danner.

During March, the HPC did not hold any formal meetings or conference calls. However, the following summary of its actions and discussions is offered to inform USATT members about the HPC’s activities conducted by email, and through participation in the USATT Board’s March conference call meeting.  

1. The selection process for the Youth Olympic Games was approved by the Athlete Advisory Council (AAC) and forwarded to the USOC for its approval – which was still pending as of the date this summary was prepared. The HPC reviewed the YOG code of conduct, and approved it subject to one wording change regarding possible serious criminal acts by athletes.  
2. The HPC continued its discussion about the selection and review of National Team Coaches (NT Coaches). During the Board meeting, Board members advised that the responsibility for selecting, retaining, and opening positions for NT Coaches is the responsibility of the CEO. The HPC and other relevant committees would provide support for that process. The Board also asked the HPC to prepare a memo with its recommendations for the hiring process for able-bodied NT Coaches. As of this writing, it has not yet been determined by the CEO which able-bodied NT Coach positions will be open for applications, or on what schedule. A number of HPC members did emphasize the importance of having defined criteria for the evaluation of the performance of NT Coaches.  
3. The HPC had some initial discussion of the concept of using multiple trials or tournaments to select national team members, starting first perhaps with the junior and cadet teams. This item will require further research and development prior to being implemented, including identifying specific events that will be counted. No decisions were made in this regard during March.  
4. Another point of discussion was the potential of requiring some tournament participation during the year in order to validate a player’s rating as current for purposes of seedings in the Nationals Men’s and Women’s Singles events. Lacking that, the tournament committee might be authorized to seed a player based on estimated playing strength instead. Mr. Danner will identify the appropriate USATT committee to forward this proposal.  
5. HPC members consulted with the CEO and the head of the Coaching Advisory Committee, Federico Bassetti, to help draft position announcements for Para Head NT Coach, NT Coach, and Junior NT Coach positions. USATT Para Program Manager Jasna Rather prepared the announcements, which were posted on the website with an application deadline of May 1.  
6. The selection discussion for the April ITTF North America Cup in Westchester, NY raised some questions for future consideration about how to select teams for such events. These included understanding the relationship between the members of a U.S. adult team who represented us at a given event (such as the World Championships), the National Team Trial finishing order, and also how the coach’s pick for the World Championship team might fit in. Future selection policies will be more explicit about how priorities will be established among these criteria. 

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Tip of the Week

The Decline of the High-Toss Serve and Why You Should Learn It.

Pong Power Pins Proposal

Martial arts have colored belts. For many years people have proposed that table tennis adopt something similar, but designed for table tennis. But nobody could ever decide just what it should be. Here is my proposal.  

1. USATT should have specially made Pong Power Pins, numbered every 100 points from 1000 to 2800, which would be sold at slightly above cost to players as they reach these 100-point milestones.
2. To qualify at each level, a player would need to both reach that rating level in tournament play, and beat at least three players at that rating or higher in tournament play. This latter is to make sure the player didn't just have a fluky tournament that gave them an inaccurate rating, as often happens; three wins at a level is a minimum goal for one who wishes to attain that level.
3. Once a player qualifies for a pin, he would send in the needed fee ($5-$7?), and USATT would send that person a pin.
4. The system would be administered by a newly-created USATT Ratings Committee, which would presumably also advise on other ratings matters. However, the actual sending out of the Pong Power Pins would be done by USATT Headquarters.   
5. The design of the Pong Power Pins would be done by a contest, with the creator of the winning design getting a free five-year USATT membership. The winning design should prominently display the actual rating achieved (such as 1800), and also obviously be table tennis related. For example, the rating achieved might be inside a stylishly designed ping-pong paddle.
6. A color scheme would be used for the pins, perhaps the following: 1000-1400 (red); 1500-1900 (green); 2000-2400 (blue); 2500 and up (gold).
7. Since ratings are online from 1994 to the present, players who qualified during that period could apply at any time for a pin. Players who may have qualified from before 1994 must present evidence that they qualified, normally with copies of rating lists from pre-1994 magazines. Players from before 1994 would only need to show they achieved the required rating, and would not be required to have three wins at the required level.
8. Players would be encouraged to wear their Pong Power Pins at tournaments and at other table tennis activities.

Weekend Warrior

I should write a book on how to beat players without really doing anything. I'm feeling so old and stiff these days that it seems as if I'm barely doing anything when I play. And yet this past weekend, in practice matches with many of our top players, I went undefeated, winning nearly every match 3-0, with none going five. (My final record for the weekend was 13-0, losing a grand total of two games.) Either I'm playing really good without really playing really good, or no one can take my tottering about the court seriously. Anyway, for the weekend I won matches against players rated roughly (I'm rounding these off a bit) 2250, 2230, 2180, 2100, and a mess of players from 1800-2100. At one point I told someone I've never been so tired in my life - and then I went out and beat the 2230 three straight, with two of the games at 3 and 4.

Okay, how am I winning without seemingly doing anything? Mostly off serve, receive, sudden forehand attacks (both looping and smashing), and a steady backhand. I'm throwing every serve I have at players (which doesn't take much physical effort) and taking their game away with effective receives (again, minimal physical effort since I'm mostly controlling the serves with short and long pushes and controlled flips rather than trying to loop all the deep ones like I used to). When I attack, it's usually one-shot affairs, where if they make a strong return my attack ends - but usually, if the first attack is well-placed, it either doesn't come back or it's a weak return. And when all else fails, I just go backhand to backhand. I don't have an aggressive backhand, and I can't stay at the table, but I can keep it on the table, deep and wide to the backhand.

After beating the 2230 player I gave him a pep talk on how he can't let players like me completely dominate with serve and receive. He was relying far too much on pure physical skills, but rarely got a chance to use them.

There was one moment of hilarity when I was playing one of our juniors, and I serve and smashed twice in a row. The kid, who is far more used to players looping than smashing, pointed at me and said, "He's using his hardbat skills!" (I normally use sponge, and loop about as much as I smash, but I'm also a hardbat player on the side where I'm an all-out hitter on the forehand while mostly chopping on the backhand.)

Table Tennis Master

Here are three new coaching articles from Table Tennis Master.

• Effective Serve Practice
• Why Service Variation is Vital
• Feed The Subconscious

Ma Long Training and Donn Olsen

Here's a video (7:25) with selections of world #1 Ma Long of China in training as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. The video is at the Event Arena in the same building as the Werner Schlager Academy in Austria. At 5:20, you'll see Coach Donn Olsen of the U.S. walk into the video. He's been to the Schlager Academy a number of times. Donn's doing coverage of the Chinese training, and along with Kyongsook Kim (another U.S. coach) is presenting a paper at the 13th ITTF Sport Science Congress, which meets every two years at the Worlds.

Hou Yingchai vs. Daniel Gorak

Here's a video (4:34) from the ETTU Cup Final, between attacker Gorak and chopper/looper Hou, with time between points removed.

Missouri University and Alan Chu

Here's an article and video (3:08) from Vox Magazine that interviews Alan Chu, a sports psychology graduate student at Missouri University and a member of their table tennis team.

Susan Sarandon and Jimmy Fallon

The two talk ping-pong and Justin Bieber in this article and video (3:58) from Table Tennis Nation. (First you get to meet Susan's cure little white dog.)

The Dark Side of the Paddle

Here's the latest table tennis artwork from Mike Mezyan, a rather dark one as a tornado-style paddle from the seeming dark side comes down to do battle at the table in a seeming cornfield (from The Natural?). (If you can't see it in Facebook, try this.)

Cub Scouts Build Super-Sonic Ping-Pong Ball Gun

Here's the video (2:05) as they blow up watermelons and coke cans! The balls shot out at speeds up to 883 MPH.

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Audrey and Long Pips

A while back I blogged about how I was now coaching Audrey Weisiger, the former U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Coach. I gave her another lesson on Wednesday. She's getting steadier in rallies, can push, and can now create spin with her serves. At the start she was an all-backhand player, where she sort of slashed at the ball. Hitting forehands for her was like me trying to ice skate - i.e., not natural, and pretty much against the natural order of things. However, she now has a pretty good stroke, and has hit 50 or more in a row live.

But on the backhand she still tends to stroke down on the ball, often putting backspin on the ball with her downward-stroking backhand drive (more like a push). She also has trouble returning spin serves (as do all beginners), which is problematic as her primary goal at the moment is to beat a fellow figure skating coach who beats her over and over with his backhand sidespin serve.

So on Wednesday I tried an experiment. I pulled out one of my demo long pips rackets that I keep for students to practice against, the one without sponge on a Dr. Neubauer blade (designed for long pips blocking). She tried it out, and it was like me getting off a hated and not-designed-for-human-usage ice rink! She loved it, and was able to keep the ball in play much better and more effectively. Even better, she was able to return nearly all my spin serves with the long pips.

She'll keep the inverted on the forehand, and focus on steady drives and, when the ball's up, smashing. It also gives her an inverted side to serve with. I showed her how to use the inverted to serve backhand and then flip the inverted back to the forehand. I'm letting her borrow my long-pips racket for now, but soon she'll get one for herself.

Someday perhaps I'll blog about my bad experiences with ice skating.

Serving With Spin

I used to have a bunch of striped balls that I had beginning players use when they were learning to serve with spin. They gave much better feedback than a normal ball, where beginners can't really see how much spin they are getting. At some point I lost those balls. Well, I just ordered four six-packs of "sports" ping-pong balls ($3/pack), where they are colored to look like soccer balls, basketballs, and baseballs. This'll make it a lot easier to see what type of spin they are creating. They are also good for learning to read spin, especially off a serve. They are only one-star balls, but they are 40mm. I'll blog about this after they arrive and I start using them again.

Sharara Fights Back

On Wednesday I linked to the article at Table Tennista about the allegations of corruption against ITTF President Adham Sharara by European Union President Stefano Bosi, "Adham Sharara Accused Of Long-Term Corruption In The ITTF." Here is Sharara's response, "Sharara Fights Back Against Bosi's Allegations." Sharara says, "All the allegations concerning me modifying accounts or hiding the true income are all false," and "Anyone within the ITTF has the right to run for presidency. In addition, anyone also has the right to complain or clarify any issues. Unfortunately, some one is attacking me and at the same time campaigning."

Dimitrij Ovtcharov Vs Robert Gardos

Here's a great video (7:07) that just came out of these two playing in the Champions League in Europe, with the time between points taken out. Ovtcharov of Germany is world #7, Gardos of Austria is world #32. Watch some of the backhand serves of Ovtcharov. (But guess who wins this time?)

Stiga Videos

Stiga Table Tennis has a lot of videos on their webpage - the "Stiga Movie Channel." They are divided into:

• Drill Your Skills with China National Team (6 videos)
• Promotion videos (21 videos)
• Product videos (5 videos)
• Match videos (21 videos)
• Practice videos (30 videos)
• Interviews (18 videos) 

A Touch of Magic

Here's a table tennis highlights music video (5:13) that came out last month.

The Misdirected Surprise Serve

Here it is (20 sec)! I've done this in exhibitions. ("Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No . . . it's my serve." And then you quick serve.)

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Defaults and Rating

There's been an email exchange among some USATT officials, of which I was CCed, on the subject of players defaulting tournament matches to protect their rating, It was instigated by a gentleman who was the victim of this - a player didn't want to play him, perhaps because he had long pips, and so defaulted, apparently to protect his rating. The question raised is why don't players who default matches lose rating points? It's a good question - and below is my response.

I'll jump in and give the reasons for why they do not give away rating points for a default, and then (at the end), I'll offer a possible solution.

It would be somewhat unfair to take away rating points for certain defaults. So the only way I see for a rules change that would allow a rating loss for defaults is if the referee were given the responsibility of determining if the default was "legitimate" or not. That would not be easy to determine, as someone who wanted to avoid playing a match for rating purposes could easily fake one of the below reasons. Here are some legitimate reasons why players default that have nothing to do with avoiding rating point losses - and over the course of 37 years of play, I've defaulted matches at least once for each of these reasons (except for #3 and #8), as have many others. (I'm sure there are other reasons I haven't thought of.)

1. Tournament runs late, and player has to leave.
2. Player is injured or sick.
3. Player is too tired. This happens all the time - sometimes someone older or out of shape advances in multiple events, and simply can't play all of the matches, and has to default some. This especially happens to elderly players.
4. Player is unhappy with the playing conditions and decides to drop out. If a tournament has poor lighting, a background where you have trouble seeing the ball, slippery floors, or some other such problem, a player might decide to default rather than play in such poor conditions.
5. Player's equipment is broken, defective, or stolen.
6. Player is unable to attend a tournament he entered, or is called away from the tournament unexpectedly. Some people are on call, such as doctors. Players have defaulted out of less important matches at big tournaments to do table tennis TV interviews, or to do commentating, or some other function. Or a player may be called away due to a family or work emergency.
7. Player is also a tournament official or volunteer, and he is unexpectedly needed, and so he drops out (i.e. defaults) to help run the tournament.
8. Player unexpectedly advances in a major event, and so defaults a less important event. This happens at the U.S. Open and Nationals quite a bit. When I have a top junior who is pulling off upsets and has a chance to win a major age event, I'm almost always going to advise him to drop any rating events so he can focus on the age event and a national title. The problem is the player might not know in advance he'd do so well in the age event, and so enters the rating events as well. This also happens in Men's and Women's Singles, where a player might find himself advancing deep into the draw, and so not want to tire himself out in another event, such as a rating event, some age events, hardbat, sandpaper, etc. When Dan Seemiller, in his late 50s, pulled off some upsets and advanced deep into the Men's Singles event at the 2011 USA Nationals, he defaulted his senior events to save energy for that event.

Some would argue that if a player chooses to default, he should always lose the rating points. But besides being unfair in some cases (such as reason #1 above), that would just make the rating system less accurate. We have enough trouble with under-rated players showing up and sweeping the rating events and messing up the seedings; do we really want to take away 50 points in a default from a player - and possibly multiple times if the player defaults several matches - knowing what this will mean when he shows up at his next tournament? Suppose a player is rated 1830, but defaults out of two round robin events for one of the reasons above. That could be six matches, and perhaps 200-250 rating points. His next tournament he shows up way under-rated and playing in events he should not be eligible for.

What I would suggest as a solution is to have a player who defaults lose rating points unless the referee approves the default, i.e. the defaulting player must give the referee a reason for the default, and the referee must accept it, based on guidelines from the bullet points above. I'd also limit it to a maximum of 50 points lost in one tournament from defaults. I don't think players should gain rating points from a default. There's no perfect solution, and a liar would still get away with defaulting matches to protect his rating, but it would happen less often as many players might have some difficulty flat-out lying to the referee, and sometimes the player's actions would convince the referee he is lying. Also, if a player defaults regularly, then the referee could turn him down.

I'd rather not get into a long discussion of this - I have a busy day coaching and writing tomorrow. But hopefully the above will offer some grounds for thought, discussion, and possible action by those in a position to make changes.

The Plastic Poly Ball

Here's the ITTF's report on the ball. It's 32 pages and seems pretty comprehensive with lots of scientific-looking studies - but no, I haven't read it yet. I'm hoping some of our readers will read it and report your thoughts on it. This could be a scary situation, as one thing that comes out is that the new poly ball plays differently than the current one. Do we really want that? Does the report give a strong reason for doing so?

Stance for Returning Serve

Here's the video from PingSkills (1:16), plus an article on the topic of proper stance and how far to stand from the table when receiving serve.

Table Tennis Master

Here are four new articles from Table Tennis Master.

• Encouraging Creativity in Table Tennis
• How to Manage Your Emotions
• Is 'Cho-ing' Becoming Excessive?
• Special Tips for Developing Backhand

Crystal Wang on TV

Here's the video (4:34) of Crystal and her dad getting interviewed on NBC 4 yesterday. Crystal (just turned 11 and rated 2292) just won the Hopes Trials at the North American Cup.

Texas Wesleyan University Team on TV

Here's the video (5:03) of the team after winning their tenth straight national collegiate championship, on CBS Local.

Central Florida Table Tennis Club

It's not full-time, but it's 27,000 square feet!!! Here's their web page. They have 18 tables, but with rather large courts.

Great Chopping Point

Here's a great attack versus defense point from the 2012 China Open, featuring world #1 Ding Ning versus world #11 Wu Yang, perhaps the best chopper in the women's game. When it all ends, guess how Wu wins the point?

Roman Table Tennis

I think that's Julius Caesar playing TT!

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Looping Placement

Here's something interesting I noted at the Hopes Trials, which I've also seen in the past. When a player backhand loops, he is roughly facing his opponent, and so can see where the opponent's middle is. When a player forehand loops, he faces more sideways, and the opponent is no longer in clear view. Result? Especially at the junior level and below the elite level, players seem to have far more difficulty in attacking the opponent's middle when forehand looping then when backhand looping. (The middle, in table tennis terms, is the switchover point between forehand and backhand, roughly at the playing elbow.) I watched one player nail the opponent's middle over and over with backhand loops, but when forced to do forehand loops, the player was unable to do so. (This is all true as well for basic forehands and backhands, but to a lesser extent, since players tend to turn more sideways to forehand loop than for forehand hitting.)

The solution? Practice. Look to loop at the opponent's middle at least half the time, usually the weakest spot, and see how often you can nail it. Few opponents are actually moving as you are hitting the ball, so you should be able to see where he is just before you take the shot. With practice, you'll be able to hit the middle over and over. (If an opponent is moving, then usually aim behind him, since he'll have to stop and change directions. Unless, of course, he's way out of position, in which case go for the open area.)  

Table Tennis Commentating at the North American Cup

No, I didn't get to hear any of it - I was there coaching. (I'm told I was on video at least one time, coaching Crystal Wang in the Girls' Hopes Trials.) What I've heard and read over and over was what a great job Barbara Wei did through most of the tournament - and how she was then replaced for the "big" matches at the end by someone who spoke broken and heavily accented English, and various officials. C'mon, people, Barbara was on the U.S. Junior Girls Team, trained nearly full-time for years, and speaks very clearly and intelligently. Listeners raved about her performance. What were you thinking??? (Disclaimer: Barbara came from my club, Maryland Table Tennis Center.)

I've been asked numerous times over the years to do table tennis commentating for TV. I've always turned it down. Why? I don't think I have a good speaking voice for TV. When I first began doing group coaching many years ago, I also had trouble. My solution was to take a course in public speaking. This greatly helped for those group sessions. However, I don't think I could do hours of commentating with my "public speaking" voice. I'd fall back into my normal habits, which tends to be somewhat fast and not the type of voice you want on TV. I'm far better writing.

Answers to Brain Teasers

Here are the answers to the four brain teasers from yesterday:

1. The opponent was a fish and they were playing underwater.
2. When you play an opossum, you play possum.
3. There isn't any room over the net for the ball to go over.
4. The single hair was a hare.

Table Tennista

Once again they have more international articles. Perhaps the most interesting one is the eyebrow-raising first item, where European Table Tennis Union President Stefano Bosi, who is running for ITTF President, accuses the incumbent, Adham Sharara, with this: "We found that Adham Sharara has been involved in a long-term and serious breach of the ITTF regulations and ethical standards. It is even possible that he also has civil violations. In particular, he is involved in serious violations on the Olympic charter. In addition, Sharara has established a complex system to aid him and his relatives to seek benefits from the ITTF." It also accuses him of "abuse of power and malversation of funds amounting to 20 million US dollars." I'll post Sharara's response when/if it comes out.

• Adham Sharara Accused Of Long-Term Corruption In The Ittf
• Zhang Jike Not In The Mood For Training (Photos)
• Timo Boll Excited For The Upcoming Chinese Super League (Videos)
• Japan Hopes To Win In The World Championships (Photos)
• Tiago Apolonia Leaves Ochsenhausen!
• Boll's Borussia With 1% Chance Of Reaching The Bundesliga Final (Videos)

Testing the Large Hadron Collider with a Ping-Pong Ball

Here's the article from The Atlantic.

Receiving Options

Here's a video from PingSkills (2:07) on your basic options when receiving.

ITTF Ping Pong Paix at the 2012 WTTC

"Ping Pong for Peace" was a program at the Worlds in Dortmund, Germany, where kids from Burundi were brought in to learn about table tennis. Here's the video (7:58).

Ryu Seung Min vs Bojan Tokic (German League 2012/2013) Play-Offs

Here's the video (7:58).

Justin Bieber Table Tennis

Here's an article and a new short video (about 12 sec) from Table Tennis National of Justin Bieber playing table tennis. Yep, he's still using a two-handed backhand.

Ping-Pyong

Here's a nice cartoon of the U.S. and North Korea playing ping-pong on a nuclear missile, from the Washington Post, the result of a contest, with the caption, "Ping-Pyong: A high-stakes game in which two countries smack threats back and forth with lobs, spin and backhand shots."

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Tip of the Week

Proper Practice Progression Prevents Poor Play.

Hopes Trials

The Hopes Trials were held in conjunction with the North American Cup this past weekend in Westchester, NY, at the Westchester Table Tennis Club. And here's an article (lots of photos) on the players at the North American Cup.

I saw very little of the North American Cup since I was alternating coaching matches in the Hopes Boys and Girls Trials. (There was also an all-day USATT Board Meeting on Saturday, but I missed all of that as well.) I did see some spectacular play by 2406-rated 15-year-old Allen Wang - he's moved up to where he's challenging the best players in the country, despite being roughly six feet twenty inches tall. He beat Canada's Xavier Therien (rated 2517), went seven games with Peter Li (2557), and had a spectacular match with eventual North American Cup winner Andre Ho (2522), including an incredible game which Ho finally won, 25-23 (!). I saw some of the women's final - as usual, Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang put on a show, with Zhang winning.

I wrote a lot about the tournament in my blog last Thursday, so I won't repeat all of that. I coached Crystal Wang and Derek Nie in all of their matches, which roughly alternated every hour all day long. Most of the time they practiced together to prepare for their matches, but I also joined in a lot, especially with Derek, where we had a lot of nice counterlooping duels as well as lots of serve & receive and serve & loop practice.

Crystal, rated 2292, won Girls' Singles without losing a game. She beat Ivy Liao of Canada (rated 1939) in the semifinals at 7,3,7. In the finals, she faced Amy Wang of New Jersey (rated 2168, but recently over 2200, and with a winning record against Crystal). However, this time Crystal won at 8,7,8 in a battle of Crystal's two-winged looping (often off the bounce) against Amy's more traditional hitting. Amy is looping more than before, but is forced to block when Crystal starts looping, and Crystal's loops into the forehand and middle were effective.

There were two umpires - the main umpire, and the assistant umpire, who was the scorekeeper. Throughout this match, for some reason, the scorekeeper seemed to stare at me almost continuously between points. Every time I'd glance at the scoreboard he'd be staring - almost glaring. I have no idea why; I'm not even sure if I've met him before. Perhaps he thought I was signaling or something. Several others noted this as well. Neither he nor the main umpire were staring or glaring at the other coach. 

I've never used signals when coaching; they are illegal. (Here's proof: I've been coaching matches for over 30 years, and I've many hundreds of players in tournament matches. ATTENTION, all players I've ever coached - if I've ever used signaling when I coached, please step forward now and let everyone know. But nobody's going to step forward because it never has happened.) Some umpires are overzealous in guarding against signaling, but it's somewhat silly. Any coach could get away with signaling if he wants. For example, no umpire is going to tell a coach he can't clap after a point. So a dishonest coach can, for example, work out with his player that one clap means serve short to the forehand; two claps mean short to the middle; three claps short to the backhand, and so on. Elbows up for topspin, down for backspin, and perhaps clap with the tips for no-spin. (I'm making this up as I go along. Really.) Or use innocuous words of encouragement that mean something. However, all this is rather counter-productive as signaling a player over and over is a really good way to mess up their concentration as well as training them to not be able to think for themselves.

Derek (rate 2215, was 2234 before a bad Cary Cup) made it to the semifinals of Boys' Singles. There he faced Victor Liu (rated 2226). It was a seesaw battle, where one player seemed to dominate every game. Derek led 9-7 in the fifth. The last time these two had played (at the 2011 Nationals) Derek had led 9-6 in the fifth and lost five in a row. Two of the best times to call a time-out are when the player is losing focus, and when the player is serving and on the verge of winning an important game. In the latter case, you do so to make sure the player is completely focused and knows what serves to use to lock up the game. So I called a timeout - but Derek, feeling he was okay, shook it off. He lost the next four points, including an easy loop, a push, and an easy block. Sheer agony as he lost, 8,-5,7,-7,9. We'll never know if the timeout might have helped. Victor went on to win the final over Gal Alguetti at 13,7,9.

With Victor, Derek, and the Alguetti twins (Gal & Sharon, rated 2283 and 2271), I don't think we've ever had such a strong group of players at that age group, all 11 or 12. Add in Kanak Jha (2457) and Jack Wang (2329), who were one year too old for the Hopes Trials, and several others in the 2150-2200 range, and we have a powerhouse group coming up. Not to mention the twin towers on the girls' side of Crystal & Amy Wang! (No relation, though Amy is the younger sister of Allen, mentioned at the start.)

Brain Teasers at the Hopes Trials

It wasn't all table tennis, however. During the five-hour ride to and from the tournament, and also at meals, Derek and Crystal became addicted to brain teasers. I know hundreds of them, but I'd used many in past trips, and so began to make ones up. I think Derek may major in college in brain teasers.

Here are some brain teasers involving table tennis that I made up. Email me your answers, and tomorrow I'll publish whoever gets them right! (I made up many more, but can't remember them, alas.)

1. A player liked to play table tennis with various animals. He played a lion, a giraffe, a raccoon, and an elephant. Then he played another animal, but over and over the animal served wet balls. Why?
2. A player liked to play table tennis with various animals. He played a chimpanzee, a dog, an ostrich, and a snake. Then he played another animal, but over and over, rather than playing, the player would drop his paddle, fall to the ground, and lay still. Why?
3. A group of miners had dug tunnels to extract diamonds from the ground. They decided to set up a ping-pong table in their tunnel. The tunnel was exactly six feet wide, so just wide enough for the table and net (which extends six inches on both sides). It was very long, so there was plenty of room on each side. It was exactly thirty inches tall, and so just enough room for the table and net. However, once it was set up, they were unable to play. Why?
4. Here's a non-table tennis one I made up. Remember, this is being said out loud, so ignore the actual spelling. An old man with one hair went to a barber and asked him to cut the hair. The barber was outraged, and called the police. Why?

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers Featured by Australia TTA

Here's the article. Copies of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers are going fast!

Largest Club in the Country

The Westchester Table Tennis Club has been the largest full-time club in the country for several years, at 13,000 square feet with 18 tables. (My club, Maryland Table Tennis Center, is "only" 10,000, with 16 tables, alas. Though we sometimes jam in 18 tables for training.) However, a new club has just opened in Portland, Pure Pong, with 16,500 square feet and 20+ tables. Here's the article.

Table Tennista

Here are the headline international stories at Table Tennista.

• Zhang Jike & Ma Long Concerned For The Earthquake Victims (Photos)
• Chinese Team Gives Chance To Others For A Gold In Paris (Photos)
• European Table Tennis Players Are Amateurs
• Ma Long & Xu Xin Are The Hope Of Qin Zhijian In The Rio Olympics (Videos)
• André Ho And Lily Zhang Won The 2013 Ittf North American Cup! (Video)
• Orenburg Is Leader Of The Russian Premier League! (Videos)
• Ma Lin Teams With Timo Boll For The 2013 Chinese Super League! (Videos)
• Chinese Team Donates To The Victims Of Sichuan
• Liu Guoliang Terrified With The Earthquake In Sichuan
• Chinese Team's Closed Training Disrupted By Earthquake In Sichuan (Video)

Stiga Tisza Table Tennis Camp in Hungary

Here are three short videos from the camp.

• Multiball (3:37)
• Fitness (2:27)
• Training (1:09)

Training in China

Here's a training video (3:38) in China from Tony Table Tennis.

The Lord of the Ping

I think he's cupping his hand - but he doesn't have to follow no rules.

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I got back from the Hopes Trials in NY very late last night, and I'm exhausted. So I'll start blogging again tomorrow, including the Tip of the Week, which will likely be on PPPPPP - Proper Practice Progression Prevents Poor Play. Short version of the Hopes Trials (from my perspective) - the two players I coached were Crystal Wang (won Hopes Girls' Trials without losing a game) and Derek Nie (was up 9-7 in the fifth in the semifinals before losing to eventual winner Victor Liu). 

No Blog Tomorrow (Friday)

I'm off to the Hopes Trials in at the Westchester TTC in Pleasantville, New York. See you on Monday!

Hopes Trials at Westchester TTC in NY

I'm going up to coach the two Maryland players who qualified, Crystal Wang and Derek Nie. We've been training for this for weeks! I did a 90-minute session with Derek just last night, while other coaches worked with Crystal. What is it?

Every year the ITTF has Hopes Week. This year it's going to be at the Werner Schlager Academy in Austria, June 10-16. (I think it was there last year as well.) The best 11- and 12-year-olds from around the world will be invited there for a week of training, culminating in a tournament. The North American Hopes Trials are this weekend, coinciding with the North American Cup. Here are some info links:

• Home page for the 2013 North American Cup and Hopes Trials
• ITTF North American Hopes Trials home page
• Press Release for both
• ITTF Hopes Page

For the Hopes Trials, USATT chose the top four boys and girls born in 2001 or 2002, so they are all 11 or 12 years old. Canada did the same. (USA is only sending three girls - I don't think others applied - but the top two girls are going, Crystal Wang and Amy Wang, as are the top four boys. No, Crystal and Amy are not related.) Because ITTF requires a joint Trials for each continent, the Trials are combined. The top finishing player from each country then qualifies for Hopes Week. (So if USA players finish first and second, and a Canadian third, then the Canadian goes, not the #2 USA player. At least that's my understanding.)

BOYS
Gal Alguetti (NY, 2283)
Sharon Alguetti (NY, 2271)
Victor Liu (CA, 2226)
Derek Nie (MD, 2215)
Edison Huang (CAN)
Alexander Bu (CAN, 2093)
Edward Ly (CAN)
Boris Kalev (CAN)

GIRLS
Crystal Wang (MD, 2292)
Amy Wang (NJ, 2203)
Estee Ackerman (NY, 1721)
Benita Zhou (CAN)
Laura Yin Lai (CAN)
Sophie Gauthier (CAN)
Christian Lin (CAN)

Backswing Practice

Having trouble smashing against medium-high balls, or (for more advanced players) low topspin balls? One of the keys is to have the exact same backswing every time. Here's a way to learn to do that, as shown to one of my students last night. This is also how I developed my smash many years ago.

First, do a few smashes with someone (ideally have them feed multiball, or just serve topspin, they return the ball, and you smash), and when you make good ones, note where you backswing to. The question is how to repeat this over and over? Go near a wall and shadow practice the shot. Do your backswing just like you did in the good smashes. Then find a mark on the wall and move so the mark is just above where your racket is when you backswing. (You might have to put a mark on the wall yourself, alas.) Once you've done this, you can backswing to that same spot over and over. Get a feel for where the backswing should be. If you do this enough, it'll become so automatic that backswinging any other way will feel awkward.

Expert Table Tennis

Two new articles are up at Expert Table Tennis:

• How to Play a Forehand Push
• How to Play a Backhand Drive

Table Tennista

Lots of new international articles at Table Tennista, mostly featuring China. Here are the current front-page stories:

• Chinese Team's Lineup In Paris Isn't Final Yet (Video)
• Ma Lin Has The Outstanding Trait Of An Olympic Champion (Video)
• Xu Xin Fully Confident For The World Championships (Videos)
• Wang Nan & Her Suicidal Tendency (Photos)
• Xu Xin & Yan An Displayed High Quality Table Tennis (Video)
• Xu Xin Struggled Against Yan An In The Asian Cup (Videos)
• Liu Shiwen Aims To Be Undefeated Against Foreign Players In Paris (Video)
• Zhang Yining's Daughter Will Not Represent China In The Future
• Ryu Seungmin Out Of Paris 2013!
• China Confirmed Players For Paris 2013!

Table Tennis Spectacular

Here's a new video (1:54) of some nice exhibition play between Jan-Ove Waldner and Jorgen Persson, with Dan Seemiller giving animated commentary.

Ping-Pong Ball in the Face

Here's a new video (25 sec) of someone getting smacked in the face by an opponent's mis-hit smash. Shown in slow motion!

One Twisted Table

Maybe they Hopes Trials should be held on these tables?

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USATT Goals

Wouldn't it be great if USA Table Tennis (or another national table tennis organization) came up with a specific lofty goal, made it their top priority, brought in the right people to design a program to reach that goal, and then put their resources behind achieving that goal? Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen due to the politics. If you try to focus on a top priority, all the other special interests want their piece of the pie, and so limited resources are instead spread out over a number of items, resulting in lots of weak programs instead of one or perhaps a few really good ones. Plus it's easier to implement easy stuff than to go for the hard stuff - and make no mistake, creating a lofty goal and trying to achieve it is no easy task. But it's a lot harder to achieve if it never becomes a goal. But I always hope that someday, somehow, someway, it'll happen.

No, I'm not volunteering - there was a time when I volunteered for everything. I could go on a rant here on what usually happened, but I'll refrain. Let's just say I don't have the time anymore.

Here are three possibilities, with a rough plan on how to achieve it. (Note that I didn't put "Create Olympic Gold Medalists" on the list - all three of these items would be a first step toward doing that, especially #1. The others bring in the revenue needed if we want to create top players, which is an expensive process.) 

1. Goal: 100 successful junior training programs.
   How: Recruit and train coaches to set up these programs. There's been a huge influx of Chinese coaches in recent years because professional table tennis coaching is such a lucrative field, but it'd happen a lot faster with USATT assistance. Right now it's developed rather haphazardly by word of mouth. If we sell it as a Profession, we can charge potential professional coaches for the training. (This is the primary purpose of the Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook.)
2. Goal: 100,000 members.
   How: Study the league structures used in overseas table tennis that leads to hundreds of thousands of members in Germany, England, France, and other countries (as well as similar leagues in other sports in the U.S. and around the world), bring in experienced league directors to design a U.S. version, and implement it on a regional basis. It could either be volunteer run, or the regional and local league directors would make a percentage.
3. Goal: Make the U.S. Open a premier event with tens of thousands of paid spectators and major TV coverage and revenue. (Another possibility: thousands of paid players.)
   How: Bring in experienced directors and promoters, and pay them a sizeable percentage of the revenue brought in by these increases. Too often in the past we've brought them in but only agreed to small commissions, and we ended up keeping 100% of nothing, rather than getting, say, 50% of a lot more.

Table Tennis Master

There are a number of good coaching articles in the Blog section of Table Tennis Master. Recent ones include "Special Tips for Developing Backhand"; "Common Mistakes in Forehand Technique"; "Encouraging Creativity in Table Tennis"; "How to Maintain Concentration"; and many more. There are a lot of sports psychology articles.

USATT Webpage Features Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers

The USATT Web Page Features Page now has a link to the ITTF feature on Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.

Hawaiian Table Tennis

Here are two articles on Hawaiian table tennis that came out yesterday. "Never Too Early for Table Tennis" and "Athletic Chess." Both feature Hawaiian Coach Len Winkler and the local table tennis scene.

World Table Tennis Promo

Here's a promotional picture for the upcoming World Championships.

Dilbert Table Tennis

Yesterday morning's Dilbert comic strip featured table tennis - for the fifth time. Below are all five. These need to be printed out and taped to every wall in America.

• November 22, 2015
• April 16, 2013
• June 13, 2007
• August 12, 1995
• January 6, 1992
• September 7, 1989 (Dilbert in Action!)

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