Who Has the Best Table Tennis Name?
Upon realizing that nobody has ever investigated this extremely important question, I took it upon myself to resolve this issue. Mostly using the USATT's database (which only goes back to 1994), here are some of the more interesting table tennis names.

The Pings

• There are 44 Pings in the database, though I think some are duplicates. One of them is 2004 USA Olympian Whitney Ping.

The Pongs

• Beth Pong Green Berggren of Monument, CO
• Johnny Pong of Lake Forest, CA
• Vivien Pong of Eugene, OR
• Chin Pong Tsui of New York, NY

Those Who Love Table Tennis - the Lovett's

• Cullen Lovett of Sebring, FL
• David Lovett of Fayetteville, NC
• Reuben Lovett of Searcy, AR

The Balls

• Ian Ball of Nashville, TN
• David Ball of AZ
• Ed Ball of Santa Monica, CA
• Kevin Ball of Loveland, CO
• Russell Ball of Swanzey, NH

The Loops

• Craig Loop of Los Angeles, CA
• Tom Loop of Scotch Plains, NJ

The Blocks

• Adam Block of...

58 and Jörg
That sounds like an address doesn't it? "Taxi, take me to the table tennis club at 58 and Jörg." Actually, it's two things.

First, today I'm turning 58. How did that happen??? To mourn celebrate I was going to take the day off from blogging, but I decided the last thing I wanted on my birthday was for legions of USATT members storming my house with pitchforks and torches. So instead I'll celebrate by going to the doctor at 1PM today to go over the results of the MRI on my shoulder on Friday, find out if I have a rotator cuff tear, and whether I'll be out for weeks or months. (I'll put in a small "Breaking News" item here when I get back.)

Second, USATT High Performance Director Jörg Bitzigeio was at MDTTC yesterday afternoon where he watched some of our top kids in training, and even worked with a couple. (One had a tendency to play backhands with his right foot in front, so Jörg put a wire cord on the floor in front of him and had him play backhands while keeping the...

NOTE - off to do MRI on my shoulder Friday morning, so no blog that that morning. (See my Wednesday blog on this.) Wish me luck!

Help Fund Coaches to the Nationals for These Top Juniors!
The HW Global Foundation, which runs the Talent Junior Program at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, is trying to raise money to send coaches for the many kids they will be sending to the USA Nationals in July. In their words:

"We're raising $15,500 to bring the coaches that work with the kids all year to the tournament to ensure that our young athletes have the support they need to succeed in the sport they love. They will create a training camp for the kids before the tournament and coach them during the tournament."

Want to help out? Here is their...

Tip of the Week
Forehands and Backhands: 1-2-3, not 1-2.

USA Team Selections
On Friday I spent much of the day studying the USATT Team Selection Process. (I blogged about this on Friday morning - somewhat jokingly though it's a serious matter.) There's a lot of nuance to this. For example, I often read complaints about how the teams are selected, but without distinguishing between how players are selected to be on the National Team (now called "TTTeam USA"), as opposed to who is selected to play at specific events, such as (for juniors) the World Junior Championships, Pan Am Junior Championships, or various ITTF junior tournaments. So there are really things involved in Team Selection - these two (who is on National Team, who plays in which events), plus the selection of coaches.

There's also the question of how much should be done by Trials, and how much by Selection. Many instinctively want it to be all Trials, until it's pointed out that due to injury...