Junior Incentives and Team Leagues

One of the things junior table tennis in the U.S. tends to lack - including at my club - are junior incentives for each level. The kids come out and train and train, but for what? To win a rating event at a tournament? To win an age event at a tournament? (Not enough of them.) To win practice matches? To do well in a singles league? Rating points? These are all nice things, but they aren't quite enough. One way to address this is a junior team league. Another is to give training incentives, especially at the lower levels. At all levels there needs to be a balance between improvement (with specific goals) and fun. I'm now looking into both, with plans to set up various incentives and goals at the beginning level, and a junior team league starting this fall.

How would the junior team league be set up? Kids like doubles, so I want to include that. So most likely it'll be some version of two-person teams. However, rather than have just two or three players on a team (where the third can only play doubles), I'm leaning more toward six-person teams, where the top two play a best of five against the other team's top two (i.e. four singles and a doubles); the third and fourth players do the same against the opposing team's third and fourth; and the same for the fifth and sixth. This means each team will be made up of a balance of advanced, intermediate, and beginning players, but players would mostly compete against players in their own range.

Here are some thoughts on what are needed at the various levels. Please comment or email me if you have any suggestions.

• Beginners - Goals and Milestones. At this stage, it's all about improvement and fun. And so the focus should be on training players for specific goals, such as a certain number of forehands in a row, or a number of side-to-side forehands and backhands made in a row, or pushing a certain number in a row, or serving a certain number of times under a bar over the net (so the serve must be low enough not to hit the bar). These give the players specific goals to aim for, and keeps their interest up. At the same time, it needs to be fun - and so as soon as players are good enough to rally, I want to get them into the junior team league. In fact, one of the built-in incentives is they have to pass certain of these goals before they can play in the junior team league.
• Intermediate - Competition with their Peers. They've got the basics down, and from here on improvement isn't as fast as before. A junior team league is a great way to give them something to train for.
• Advanced - State and National Titles. At this point they've played for years, and have reached a very high level. They may be training for National titles, or at least State titles. At the same time, a junior team league gives them something to train and look forward to on a more immediate level, as well as a way where they can connect with their friends, who might not be at quite the same level.

Book Signing Tonight

Reminder! Today at 7PM I will be doing a book signing at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I will also be selling and signing four of my other books. All books will cost $15, with a Special - buy the Tactics book, get a copy of the Tales & Techniques book for only $5! Here's the info flyer. Below are the books.

• Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
• Table Tennis: Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Pings and Pongs

Table Tennis on TV in Tampa

Here's a video (4:32) where Coach Michael McFarland and college player Matt Delgado demonstrate table tennis on the Tampa local TV show Daytime TV.

How to Play Ping-Pong with Soo Yeon Lee

Here's the video (3:57)!

Table Tennis Music Video

Here's a music video (3:59) in Croatian, by Nevan Dužević. The description, translated into English via online translator, says, "Marigold is Zagreb Dužević songwriter fan of ping pong plays multiple instruments and especially likes to compose on keyboards." I'm not sure what the "Marigold" refers to.

Table Tennista

There are a bunch of new articles and videos at Table Tennista, including:

• Ding Ning Lost The Battle To Hu Limei For The 4th Spot In Paris!
• Zhang Jike: My Goal In Paris Is To Defend The Title 
• Wang Liqin's Participation In The 2016 Olympics Is Unrealistic
• Kong Linghui Impressed By Hu Limei's Surprising Performance
• Ding Ning Misses Another Chance To Qualify For The 2013 World Championships
• Yan An Joins Ma Long, Xu Xin & Zhang Jike To Be The Future Of The Chinese Team
• Wang Hao Deserves To Be In The 2013 World Championships
• Xu Xin & Ding Ning Confirm Participation In The 2013 Asian Table Tennis Cup

Table Tennis Master

There are a bunch of new articles at Table Tennis Master, including:

Articles:

• How to do the "Behind-the-Back" Shot
• Ma Long Returns to the Top
• The Importance of Short Play

Videos:

• Ma Long vs Yan An (Qatar Open 2013) Final
• Attacking Deep/Fast Chops
• German National Championships 2013 - Highlights
• The Magnus Force - How Does Spin Work?

Photos:

• Ma Long Paris
• John Lennon Table Tennis
• SI Models

Table Tennis on the Moon

Here's the secret picture of what the astronauts really did during the moon landings.

Link to my blog where I wrote about table tennis on other planets? (And here's my blog from Oct. 24, 2012, where I wrote about table tennis on the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and outer space.)

Collective Table Tennis - Quintuples!

Here's a video (4:30) of five on five table tennis on an "adjusted" table!

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Biggest Things Happening in Table Tennis

Here are the biggest things happening in U.S. table tennis right now. (I'm toying with putting in sandpaper table tennis, with all the new money events they are offering. I may feature them in an upcoming blog.)

• The rise of full-time training centers. They are all over the place now. Ten years ago there were about ten. Now there are well over fifty, with more popping up regularly. The result is by far the strongest group of cadet players in our history. The depth of the competition these days is just mind-boggling. Now if we can just get them to continue training when they reach college age....
• Influx of top Chinese players and coaches. This dramatically raises the level of play in the U.S., as our up-and-coming players get coaching, practice, and compete with these top players and coaches. My club, MDTTC, has Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Zeng Xun (currently out of the country, but returning full-time in June), Wang Qing Liang, Chen Bo Wen ("Bowen"), and our two newest, Chen Jie ("James") and Zhang Liang Bojun ("Brian"). This list doesn't include local Chinese players, only ones who came from China to coach and be practice partners at MDTTC. Clubs in New York, California, and other regions similarly rely on these Chinese coaches and players, and is one of the driving forces for the rise of full-time training centers.
• Spin NY, LA, Milwaukee, Toronto. These bring a lot of publicity to the sport. By themselves, I don't think they'll make the sport big, but by keeping us on the media radar, they could help a lot when the time comes.
• Strong team leagues in the SF, LA, and NY regions. This is long-term, since it'll take time for this type of thing to grow and expand in each region, as it did in Europe. MDTTC takes part in the NY league, and of course runs its own singles leagues. We plan a new junior team league starting this fall.
• Publication of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. Duh!!!

Book Signing

Reminder! Tomorrow (Friday) at 7PM I will be doing a book signing at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, in Germantown, MD, USA. I will be selling and signing four of my books - hope to see you there! All books will cost $15, with a Special - buy the Tactics book, get a copy of the Tales & Techniques book for only $5! Here's the info flyer. Below are the books - later I hope to go back to selling Steps to Success and Tales & Techniques online.

• Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
• Table Tennis: Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Pings and Pongs

Table Tennis part of 2014 Youth Olympics

Here's the article. The event will be held in Nanjing, China, Aug. 17-28, 2014.

Wang Hao vs Fan Zhendong

Here's a video (4:44) of these two at the Chinese World Team Trials, with time between points removed.

Judah Friedlander on a Ping-Pong Paddle and NBC Sports

Here he is, Judah Friedlander (from 30 Rock and stand-up comedian), looking like he's just faced one of Ma Lin's ghost serves. The other paddle shown, "How to Beat Up Anybody," comes from Judah's book. And here's Judah on NBC Sports (2:34) giving a table tennis lesson to anchors Michelle Beadle and Dave Briggs. Since I've given Judah several lessons, that sort of puts me on NBC Sports, right?

Table Tennis Meme

Here's a great table tennis meme: "What society thinks I do ... What my friends think I do ... What Asians think I do ... What Americans think I do ... What I think I do ... What I really do."

Non-Table Tennis - Orioles Top Ten List

My article entitled "Top Ten Reasons Brian Roberts Will Have a Monster Season" was the cover story at Orioles Hangout for much of the last two days. Here's the direct link.

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How Many Serves Are There?

There are a lot of possible serves in table tennis. How many? Let's look at the ways to classify serves.

1. Spin. There are 27 types of spin. These include topspin and backspin (they are opposites of each other), sidespin in both directions, corkscrewspin in both directions, and combinations of these. (Yes, you can serve three of these at once, such as a topspin-sidespin-corkscrewspin serve.) There is also no-spin, which counts as one of the 27. There are also all the variable amounts of spin, but we won't get into that here. (For more info on spin, including the 27 types of spin, see my article Everything You Wanted to Know About Spin - But Were Afraid to Ask.)
2. Placement. You can serve wide to the forehand, wide to the backhand, to the middle, and everywhere else. However, we'll call it three locations, even though there are many more in reality.
3. Depth. Most serves should go either very long (first bounce near the endline), half-long (so second bounce would be near the endline), short (so the second bounce would be over the table) or very short (so it would bounce more than three times on the table). We'll call it four depths.
4. Serving Position. Most players serve from the backhand corner. However, there are also advantages to serving from the middle backhand (so to have a better angle short to the forehand), from the middle, and from the forehand side. We'll call it four places to serve from, although there are in reality an infinite number of places to serve from.  
5. Serving Motion. There are many. Here are the main ones - and this doesn't take into account the huge number of deceptive motions that can be made before or after contact. But most serves come under one of these four categories, with which you can create any of the 27 spins:

• Forehand Pendulum (including Reverse Pendulum)
• Tomahawk (including Reverse Tomahawk)
• Backhand (including Reverse Backhand)
• Windshield Wiper (left or right)

So we have 27 types of spin, 3 placements, 4 depths, 4 serving positions, and 4 serving motions. This gives us 27 x 3 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 5184 types of serves. But we haven't even talked about speed (it complicates things, since you mostly vary the speed on long serves), not to mention the amount of spin, varying placements and serving positions, as well as all the deceptive service motions, as well as other serving motions not listed here. So there are in reality far more than 5184 types of serves - infinitely more. But if you serve an average of 20 times per match, this should last you about 2592 matches before you have to start recycling your serves. If you play ten matches per week, this'll last you 21.6 months. If you run out of serves, come see me on Christmas in 2014.

Snow and Local Schools

A big snowstorm hit us early this morning, closing all local schools and completely befuddling my dog, who still can't understand why the outside world sometimes chooses to be cold white stuff. It's supposed to snow most of the day, with up to 10 inches, though it looks like it'll be considerably less - we'll see. With schools closed, some of our local juniors may head off to the club later today. Perhaps I'll join them.

Table Tennis for Thinkers Ad

Here's the one-page color ad that will appear in the upcoming USA Table Tennis Magazine. Next step - finding someone to do a book review.

Book Signing

This Friday at 7PM I will be doing a book signing at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, in Germantown, MD, USA. I will be selling and signing four of my books - hope to see you there! All books will cost $15, with a Special - buy the Tactics book, get a copy of the Tales & Techniques book for only $5! Here's the info flyer. Below are the books - later I hope to go back to selling Steps to Success and Tales & Techniques online.

• Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
• Table Tennis: Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Pings and Pongs

Table Tennista

Here are recent new articles there, some with video.

• Timo Boll: "I Will Still Fight to Win My 10th German Title"
• Wang Hao Takes Last Seat for the 2013 Worlds
• Zhang Jike: Ryu Seung Min Is Short-lived
• Ma Lin Ain't Giving Up On His Grand Slam Dream
• Zhang Jike & Ding Ning Will Attend The 2013 Laureus World Sports
• Hao Shuai Was Too Serious In The Squad Trials
• Ding Ning: Losing The Kuwait Open Was A Pity

Joao Monteiro

Here's a video (1:40) showing Joao Monteiro of Brazil (world #62) in slow motion.

Racket Sports Juggler

Here's a video (2:06) of a juggler who specializes in racket sports juggling. He juggles balls and rackets from table tennis, tennis, badminton, and squash. Watch for his ping-pong paddle juggling, and his juggling with a ping-pong paddle vertically balanced on his head.

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Table Tennis Online

As ITTF Coach John Olsen recently pointed out to me, we live in the golden age of online table tennis. You can watch just about any major table tennis match online these days, both live and afterwards. Over the last few days (and below) I've given links for many of the major matches taking place at the Chinese World Team Trials. During major USA Table Tennis events (Nationals, Open, Team Trials), you can watch the matches live as well. And you can go to youtube and find just about anything - just put in "Table Tennis" and anything else you are looking for. Over the weekend John watched the live streaming of the Swedish Nationals, the English Championships, and the Norwegian Championships. (Note that some of the links here that gave the live streaming still have the videos online.)

The availability of videos of the top players is one of the biggest advantages this generation of players has over past ones - along with more coaches and better sponge. On the other hand, there's also a disadvantage to the easy availability of these videos - players tend to watch a video and then move on to the next, and so don't really learn all that's going on. In the old days, there were fewer videos around, and so players would watch the same ones over and Over and OVER - and would pretty much memorize every point, not to mention really learning what the players did from sheer viewing repetition. I remember back in the late 1970s (when I was learning to play) having trouble with pips-out penholders. Then I got a copy of the famous Stellan Bengtsson vs. Mitsuro Kohno tape from the quarterfinals of the 1977 Worlds, and watched it endlessly, and my level against that style went up dramatically. (Pips-out penholder Kohno won, 19 in the fifth, in what many considered the "real" Men's Singles final as it was likely the best match of the tournament. Kohno went on to win the title.)  

Jim Butler on Serves

Here are some nice quotes from four-time U.S. Men's Champion Jim Butler on serving, which he posted yesterday on the about.com table tennis forum. He used to have the best serves in the country, and now, at age 42, he's made a comeback - and he may once again have the best serves in the country.

"I've decided to put a lot of time into practicing my serves.  Improvement there takes the least physical energy.  I have the motion and understanding already down.  To have great serves, they must be practiced daily in order to make them a weapon."

"I'm working on the forehand pendulum right now.  I want to have a good chop and topspin mix like that young Chinese kid in Westchester.  His serves destroyed me, and I'd like to have those.  Easiest way to be competitive in Table Tennis is to have dominating serves."

The Amazing Tomahawk Serve of Kenta Matsudaira

Here's the video (1:09). Note how he can break it both ways - and see the side-by-side slow motion of the two versions. The real question for all you serious table tennis players: Why haven't you developed equally good serves? It's just a matter of technique and practice! If you don't have the technique, see a coach or watch videos and learn. (You don't need to match Kenta's serves - there are many other good serving techniques.) If you don't practice . . . well, then you'll never have the serve of Kenta Matsudaira, and you'll never be as good as you could have been. (This type of serve has been around for a long time. Dean Doyle specialized in this serve when he made the U.S. Pan Am Team over 30 years ago.)

Remembering Zhuang Zedong and Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Here's the article.

ITTF President Election

ITTF President Adham Sharara is running for re-election - but he's unopposed so far. The election will take place during the upcoming World Championships in Paris, May 13-20, 2013.

Hunter Pence and Ping-Pong

Here's an article about how the Hunter Pence, an outfielder with the LA Dodgers, builds confidence with ping-pong.

The Terminator vs. Scottie

Here's a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger and table tennis exhibition star Scott Preiss just after their game ended in a "3-3 tie" at the Arnold Sports Classic in Columbus, OH this past week.

Chinese World Team Trials

Here are some nice matches, with time between points removed so it's non-stop action.

• Ma Long vs Yan An (6:43)
• Ma Long vs Ma Lin (4:28)
• Ma Lin vs Chen Qi (3:47)
• Yan An vs Chen Qi (2:49)

Swedish Men's Singles Final

Here's the video (6:53, with time between points removed) as Fabian Akerström upsets Jens Lundquist in the final. Akerström plays with long pips on the backhand - but he's so forehand aggressive it's sometimes difficult to notice.

More TT Videotapes

Here's a Facebook page devoted to collecting table tennis videos.

The Dirty Dozen Throwdown

It's on, this Friday at 9PM: Gideon "The Pigeon" Teitel (17-year-old 150-lb lobber) vs. Sam "the Rock" Rockwell (13-year-old 81-lb attacker). Between them they've had three and a half years of intense training, all leading to this moment.

Monsters University

Monsters University, the upcoming sequel to Monsters Inc. from 2001, will be the greatest movie of all time. How do we know? Here's an animated scene from the movie showing the characters playing table tennis!

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Tip of the Week

Should You Use a Neutral Grip?

The Flu, Late Players, and James Bond - Oh My!

As readers know, I battled with the flu most of last week, and was pretty much out of commission from Sunday afternoon through Thursday. I was tempted to coach on Wednesday - my 53rd birthday - but I got a call from my dad, and when I answered it, my voice was a croak. (I didn't know since I hadn't talked to anyone that day.) And then it got worse, so I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for me.

It wasn't all bad - I spent part of the time watching James Bond movies which I'd borrowed from ITTF coach and student John Olsen. There are 23 James Bond movies, and I thought I had seen all but two or three. I discovered I had not seen five of them, and only had vague memories of three others. So I spent much of Tuesday through Thursday watching eight of them:

1. From Russia with Love
2. Thunderball
3. You Only Live Twice
4. On Her Majesty Secret Service
5. Diamonds are Forever
6. Live and Let Die
7. The Man with the Golden Gun
8. Moonraker

I got back into action on Saturday, running a junior session that morning and two hours of private coaching that afternoon. On Sunday I did two more hours of private coaching and ran another junior session. I also discussed with Wen Hsu plans for starting a junior team league this fall, tentatively on Saturday nights.

The junior session on Sunday was one of the more hectic ones I've run. It's a beginning junior class, so we need a higher ratio of coaches to players, with lots of multiball training. Normally we get 12-15 in this session, and I have two assistant coaches - for this session, Rocky Wang and John Hsu. The session began at 4:30PM, and there were only five players. I figured it was because we were running a tournament this weekend, and so many assumed there would be no session. I'd decided to start the session off with a short talk about the club's other programs - it seemed a good time, since the club was jammed with players for the tournament. (That's the advantage of a 16-table facility - you can run a tournament, a junior program, and have private coaching going on all at the same time!) I spoke for about five minutes to the five players and their parents. A sixth kid showed up in the middle.

I normally break the group into four smaller groups that rotate among the three coaches and the table tennis robot. However, with only five, I could pretty much run it alone, along with the robot. But since Rocky and John were already there, I decided we'd use two coaches and use two tables. So we took the robot down. Rocky volunteered to drop out, so he left. Then a strange thing happened - as we started, two more kids showed up. Then another. And then three came in - and it was now 15 minutes into the 90 minute session! I managed to grab Rocky before he left, and we hurriedly put the robot back up, but it wasted a lot of time for the others. With twelve players (beginners), I put them into four groups of three, and rotated as we always do. Since we had the late start, we only had three rotations, so not all the players worked with all the coaches or the robot. It also meant, due to lost time, we didn't get to work on all that I wanted, so we skipped pushing. After an hour of training, we played 11-point games (where they move up or down the table, depending on whether they win or lose, with 11-10 ending a game - no deuce).

Later today I'm sending out an email to the junior parents reminding them again of the importance of being on time.

MDTTC Open

I didn't get to see much of it as I was busy coaching. Wang Qing Liang (age 17, rated 2598) came from behind to defeat Chen Bo Wen (age 14, rated 2494) in the final. Wang won the first, Chen won the next three, then Wang won the last three to win 4-3. Crystal Wang, who turned 11 the week before, won Under 2250 and was up 2-0 on Raghu Nadmichettu (2366) in the Open before losing in five.

Amazon Review

Just got the first Amazon review of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers - and it's a 5-star one! Below is the review, titled "It Made Me Think!" He is correct that there are times when the book is necessarily repetitive. For example, in the chapter about choppers, some of the material covered in the chapter on non-inverted surfaces (especially long pips) is covered again, so readers don't have to page back and forth.

Very enjoyable read. The whole time I was reading this book, my mind would kind of drift off as I was picturing the aspects of my game in whatever part of the book I was reading.

Pros
The topics are laid out in a very logical order and explained in great detail.
The verbiage makes the book very conversational, so it doesn't drag on or feel like a sermon.
Many examples are used making it easy to visualize each subject.
Styles are broken down into various subsets - each containing their own goals and strategies
Excellent tactics are provided against a wide variety of styles - I highly recommend the section on non-inverted surfaces!

Cons
A little repetitive at times, but this kind of comes with the territory

Book signing

This Friday at 7PM I will be doing a book signing at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I will be selling and signing four of my books (see below) - hope to see you there! All books will cost $15, with a special - buy the Tactics book, get a copy of the Tales & Techniques book for only $5! Here's the info flyer.

• Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
• Table Tennis: Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Pings and Pongs

Put the Ball on the Table!

Here's an article by Samson Dubina, along with a video used as an example (Ma Long vs. Ryu Seung Min, 8:02) on the importance of keeping the ball on the table, which features the importance of positioning.

Table Tennista

Table Tennista is a great site for articles and videos on international table tennis. They do especially good coverage of China. I've linked to their articles many times. Their current features includes lots of coverage of the Chinese World Team Trials, as well as coverage of the German Nationals (Timo Boll was upset in the final) and Swedish Nationals (Waldner and Persson lost early).

German Nationals Highlights

Here's a video (2:45) with highlights from the German Nationals that finished this weekend. Big upset - Stefan Mengel upset Timo Boll in the Men's Singles Final!

Believe in Yourself

Here's a table tennis highlights motivational video (8:11) on the importance of believing in yourself.

Friendship Trophy for Women

Here's info from the ITTF's Women's Development Program on the Friendship Trophy, an event organized to help promote the participation of women and girls in Table Tennis. Each organizer can create a unique format to best celebrate the contribution of women and girls in Table Tennis.

Tribute to Women Players

Here's a video (59 sec) from ITTF that highlights the best women players in the world.

Hottest Chick in Table Tennis

Since we have two segments above on women, here's the hottest chick in table tennis! (Yes, I made this; blame me.)

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Flu Update

It's much better than before, but I'm still sick. I won't bore (or sicken) you with the details, so let's just say I'm singlehandedly propping up the economy with my support of NyQuil, Campbell Soup, and Kleenex Industries and. If all goes well, I expect to be coaching at the club tomorrow morning. It'll be a short blog this morning, then (after a few other items on my todo list), it's back to bed.

Off-Table Serve Practice

Here's a way to develop your serves away from the table - and it may greatly improve them. Start with a simple exercise: toss a ball in the air as if serving, and spin it with your racket. Try to do this so the ball goes straight up so you can easily catch it. After you've mastered this, try varying the spin. Try spinning it with the racket moving side-to-side, in-and-out, and in both directions. Learn to do all sorts of spins this way, where you focus on sheer spin and control. When you can do this, you are only one step away from doing this with an actual serve.

Ma Long - Superman?

Here's an article on Ma Long, the "Superman of the Chinese Team." Includes links to several videos.

Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui

Here's an article on these two titans of China, formerly superstar players and now coaches of the Chinese Men's and Women's National Teams.

LA Dodgers Ping-Pong

Here's an article from Table Tennis Nation on the LA Dodgers baseball team quickly becoming baseball's official ping-pong team.

Ping-Pong Making a Comeback

Here's an article and video (1:42) on how table tennis is "trending." Table tennis coach and player Matt Winkler is featured.

Cape Fear Table Tennis

Here's a documentary (11:26) on the Cape Fear Table Tennis Club in Fayetteville, NC.

Olympian Magazine

Here's a link to the online Olympian Magazine, both the new issue and past ones. Nothing directly table tennis related, but it might be of interest to some. One article might in particular jumped out at me (haven't read it yet) - "The Role of Deliberate Practice in Becoming an Expert Coach: Part 2 - Reflection." (Presumably there's a Part 1 in the previous issue.)

Behind the Back Training

Here's a video (19 sec) showing behind the back training on an iPong robot! That's Steven Chan doing the demo. (I'm jealous; because of stiff shoulders, behind-the-back shots are about the only "trick" shot in table tennis I've never mastered.)

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Flu

It looks like what I thought was a cold is actually the flu. The difference is I'm feeling constant muscle aches and soreness, which apparently is a flu symptom, not a cold's. So how am I feeling? Other than the constant coughing, runny nose, green stuff coming out of my lungs, entire body encased in aches, and complete exhaustion, I'm fine, thanks for asking. (I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for my coaching last night as I spent my 53rd birthday in bed.) 

Playing While Sick

Way back in the fall of 1979, when I was 19, I had my big breakthrough tournament at the North Carolina Open. I was rated about 1850, but was way under-rated, and knew it - and so I was somewhat excited in the days before the tournament, so much so that I couldn't sleep. Making it worse is I came down sick. I used to be an insomniac, and often went a night without sleeping. This time I didn't sleep the last two nights before the tournament (Thur and Fri), and I came down with a fever of 101.

Early in the tournament I pulled off a nice win, and celebrated with a quarter pounder with cheese. When I won another match, I had another quarter pounder with cheese. Eventually I found myself in the Open Singles final (despite not being among the top eight seeds). As the match began, my head was burning up - several people had put their hands to my forehand and verified it was pretty bad. I had a horrible stomachache from all the quarter pounders - something like nine of them in one day, and having to play right after eating them. I faced Fred King, who in modern ratings would have been about 2200. Anyway, down 13-17 in the fifth on Fred's serve (games were to 21 back in those days, and you served five times in a row), I scored all five on his serve, and ended up winning 21-19 in the fifth. I also won Under 22, Under 2000, and Open Doubles, all four events I'd been entered in.

I spent the next few days in bed recuperating - I was pretty sick. I also became so sick at the idea of eating hamburgers that I've never eaten another hamburger or cheeseburger since, except at the 2000 Junior Olympics. The kids knew about my aversion to hamburgers, so I made a deal with them before the tournament: if they won over half the gold medals, I'd eat a cheeseburger. They did, and I did. That was the only one I've had since 1979.

Now that I'm as sick as I was that day back in 1979, perhaps I should enter a tournament this weekend?

Paris 2013

Here's the table used at the Chinese Team Trials for the upcoming World Championships in Paris.

Pongcast Episode 24

Here's another Pongcast (15:24). "In this episode: Results and analysis of the 2013 Qatar Open, Project Runway finds style in table tennis, Extra TV gets their pong on, and find out what it's like to be Timo Boll in practice!"

Wang Hao's Around the Net Loop

Here's a video (22 sec) of Wang Hao doing an around-the-net no-bounce loop at the Qatar Open against Germany's Patrick Baum.

Spin Move and Backhand Counterloop

Here's a video (27 sec) showing Kenta Matsudaira who both does a complete 360 spin after one shot, and a few shots later pulls out a winning backhand counterloop.

Trick Shots

Here's a video (2:29) of trick shots.

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Happy Birthday to Me

I'm 53 today and sick in bed. Terrific. I'm still undecided whether I can do three hours of scheduled coaching tonight, 6-9PM. (Usually I have a 5PM as well, but she's out of town.) So today's blog will be a bit short.

Freezing Up

Here's an interesting psychological study. When I serve short backspin to top players, I instinctively prepare to follow up against three possible receives: short push, long push, or flip. This past weekend at the end of a lesson I played a practice game with a student who really could only push long off this serve. But a strange thing happened. I served and instinctively prepared for his long push - and instead, he pushed short! I was so caught off guard I literally froze in mid-backswing as the ball bounced twice on my side of the table.

I had mentioned short pushes to him before, but hadn't really taught him how to do them yet. He'd just picked it up on his own, and he realized he needed to push short to stop my loop. Meanwhile, my subconscious mind was so set on the idea that he could only push long that it not only anticipated it, it froze up when the push went short, as if to say, "That does not compute."

New Players/Practice Partners/Assistant Coaches

Two new players/practice partners/assistant coaches arrived at MDTTC from China on Monday. They are Zhang Liang Bojun, 17, a right-handed shakehander from the Hunan Province Team, and Chen Jie, 16, a lefty shakehander from the Guanxi Province who was training at the Shandong Luneng School. Here's their picture, with Zhang on the left. We're not yet sure of their level, but probably somewhere in the 2500-2600 range; we'll see. They join the two other players/practice partners/assistant coaches that joined us a year ago - Wang Qing Liang (17, rated 2598, Men's Singles Semifinalist at the 2012 U.S. Open, a chopper/looper) and Chen Bo Wen (14, rated 2494, a two-winged penhold looper), and coaches Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Rocky Wang, Raghu Nadmichettu, Jeffrey Zeng Xun (currently in Taiwan but returning this summer) and myself.

MDTTC Open

The MDTTC March Open is this weekend, March 2-3.  Come play and watch as the new Chinese players and others battle for the title.

Chuang Chih-Yuan Smashes Lob

Here's a composite photo of Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan smashing a lob. From a coaching point of view, the key thing to note is how he backswings as if the ball were low, and then raises his racket, all in one continuous motion. Some players raise their racket too early, leading to an off-balance shot.

Shot of the Year?

Here's a video (40 sec) showing a shot by Koki Niwa at the Japan Top Twelve this past weekend. As one commenter wrote, "What in gods name possessed him to even attempt to hit that shot? It's madness, MADNESS I SAY!" One interesting thing to note is how Koki returned the short serve with a backhand from the wide forehand side, a growing trend these days.

Topspin Charity Event

Here's a video (3:19) of the MarblespinTV Topspin Charity Event.

Waldner Jump-the-Barriers No-Look Lob

Here's the video (1:06).

Colorful Tables?

Here's the photo - yellow, blue, green, and red tables.

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Tip of the Week

Should You Hit or Loop the Backhand?

Two Weeks in a Desk

I'm still fighting off the cold I've had the last two days. However, I was already out of shape before I caught it.

The two weeks working on Tim's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. XIII, left me way, way out of shape. Sitting at a desk 12-16 hours/day for two weeks can do that to you. On Saturday, after coaching all day (arriving at the club at 10AM), I was a practice partner for a 4:30-6:30 match session. By this point I was exhausted as well as out of shape and stiff as neutronium. I was also probably tired from the early stages of the cold I would not realize I had until the next day.

Yet, by playing sound tactics, I was able to beat a 2300 player, and mow down a whole bunch of 1800-2000 players all 3-0. Here's a summary of tactics I used to make up for slow feet, an erratic forehand, and general exhaustion.

• On my serve, ended points quickly by forcing winners off my serve, either with the serve directly or an easy put-away afterwards. I threw everything at them - I call it "cycling my serves": short to the forehand (backspin, side-back, sidespin both ways, no-spin), long to the backhand (mostly breaking away, usually with a reverse forehand pendulum fake motion), fast no-spin at the elbow, and others short to the backhand or middle, or long to the forehand (either very long or barely long). Often I'd do my infamous "twitch" serve, which looks like backspin but a very small upward twitch right at contact puts light topspin on the ball.
• Mixed up the receives to mess them up quickly in the rally, with a mixture of short pushes, quick long pushes, and banana backhand flips, all done with last-second changes of direction.
• On their serve, forced backhand-to-backhand rallies where I just stood there hitting backhands until and unless they went to my forehand, in which case I'd loop or hit. By keeping the ball wide to their backhands, they had no angle into my forehand so I didn't have to move much to cover those balls.
• Slow, spinny opening loops, followed either by easy put-aways or more backhand to backhand rallies.
• When they attacked my forehand I'd go wide to their forehand, and then come back to their backhand, and then we'd be right back to backhand-to-backhand exchanges, except they'd start the rally out of position.
• Occasional quick and heavy pushes to the wide corner. If done infrequently, they lead to miss after miss.

USA Team to the Worlds

Here's USATT's official announcement of the USA Team to the World Championships coming up in Paris, May 13-20. (Peter Li qualified for the fourth unfunded spot on the Men's Team, but turned it down. The fifth spots were coach's picks - Chodri and Lin.)

• Men's Team - Timothy Wang, Yahao Zhang, Khoa Nguyen, Jim Butler, Kunal Chodri; Coach Stefan Feth
• Women's Team – Lily Zhang, Erica Wu, Ariel Hsing, Prachi Jha, Tina Lin; Coach Doru Gheorghe

ITTF Education Platform

Here's the page - "the new learning platform for the International Table Tennis Federation."

Ping-Pong: Head Game

Here's an article in the New York Times on table tennis this past weekend. The author writes, "This is not the kids’ game I grew up playing in my dorm at school."

Qatar Open

Here's the home page for the Qatar Open that was played this weekend, with results, articles, and pictures. Here's a video (8:24, with time between points removed) of the all-Chinese Men's Final between Ma Long and An Yan. Here's a video (6:23, also with time between points removed) of the all-Chinese Women's Final between Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen.

Zhang Jike: Fully Recovered?

Here's an article on Zhang Jike's recovery from a series of poor performances.

Interview with Joo Saehyuk

Here's an interview with the South Korean defensive star.  

New York City Table Tennis Academy

Here's a video (4:26) featuring the NYCTTA and Coach Ernesto Ebuen.

Wang Liqin Tricks

Here's an article on Wang Liqin, which includes a 21-second video of him doing table tennis tricks, including showing how tacky his rubber is. (It holds the ball upside-down.)

World's Perfect Vacation?

Here's beach table tennis.

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I came down sick yesterday, and had to get others to substitute for me for yesterday afternoon's coaching rather than infect everyone. It's probably just a cold. I'm taking today off. So no blog this morning, and the Tip of the Week will go up tomorrow. After all, I wouldn't want to infect anyone. (If you are reading this, you might already have caught my cold.) If you are really desperate for something TT to read, why not explore www.usatt.org or www.ittf.com?