December 23, 2013

Tip of the Week

Returning Hidden and Other Tricky Spin Serves.

2013 USA Nationals

Before we go further, here is the USA Nationals Home Page, with links to results, pictures, and videos.

Until they reached the semis of Men's and Women's Singles I didn't get to see many matches other than the ones I was coaching (almost non-stop), or when I was scouting out other players. (Shhhhh!) I did get to see the Men's and Women's Semifinals, and the Women's Final, but had to leave to catch a flight before the Men's Final.

Here are a few random thoughts about these matches.

Timothy Wang, who seemed off this tournament and yet still managed to win, seemed too soft this tournament. He's always had a good blend of looping and blocking from both wings, but he struggled at times as his shots seemed soft and tentative. But often the measure of a champion is how well he plays when he doesn't have his "A" game, and Timothy won many of his matches with his "B" game. (I didn't see the Men's Final against Cory, but I'm told that Timothy played better there, and that he dominated with his short sidespin serves.) Timothy and Han Xiao had won Men's Doubles the last two years, but this time lost in the first round to Lu Guo Hui and Justin Huang.

If someone had asked me a year ago to rank U.S. players in order of probability of their making the final of Men's Singles at this year's Nationals, Cory Eider might not have made the top 30. I remember coaching against him for years in junior events, back when he was a chubby second-tier junior. Now he's in great physical shape and his level has dramatically increased. If he can stay ahead of some of these up-and-coming cadet players, he could be a threat for years to come.

David Zhuang is still playing well, but he's lost a bit of his edge after being away two years. He's probably at 90% of his level from, say, five years ago, when he last won here in 2008. He does have a tendency to hide his serve at key points, and the umpire in his match with Cory enforced the serving rule, warning and then faulting him twice on serves, and that was a key in the match. Cory also got warned and then faulted for not tossing his serve six inches, though video shows it was awfully close.

Kanak Jha wins because he has a complete game, and because he does something that most don't really notice - he returns serves well. Often junior players bang it out, but Kanak often avoids that by not allowing opponents to attack off their serve while taking the initiative on his own serve. I was especially impressed at one simple-looking thing he did that few noticed: when players served short to his forehand, he'd come in as if returning crosscourt, and then just pat the ball down the line to the opponent's backhand. The opponent would usually do a weak backhand that Kanak would jump on, and that's how the rally would begin. Too often juniors think that if they flip a forehand, they have to flip it hard, but a well-placed deceptive one is usually better.

Almost all of these players had topspinning backhands. Kanak both blocks and spins with his backhand in fast rallies, rarely backing off. Timothy Wang can play backhands both at the table or off the table, but often seemed too soft when backing off. Adam Hugh, who is basically an all-forehand player, paid for this against Kanak, who was able to get into his backhand. Cory has a big looping backhand that often dominated points. David Zhuang, of course, is a pips-out penholder who mostly blocks on the backhand - but he can block forever, all the time varying the speed and placement of his shots.

I wonder how many players think Women's Singles Champion Ariel Hsing just hits her backhand. Watch closely - most of her backhands are actually topspins off the bounce, basically mini-loops. The same is true of Prachi Jha who she played in the final (and is Kanak's older sister).

Here's a link to a video of the USATT Annual Assembly, about 68 minutes long, where there were presentations/discussions of Safe Sport (background checks for coaches), the upcoming poly ball (non-celluloid - see what I wrote about this below), a new TT Ap presentation, election stuff, and a discussion about date protection for tournaments (including an impassioned argument by Dan Seemiller to do away with blocking sanctions for tournaments on the same date if they are in separate regions). I was at the assembly, but only spoke up once, during the poly ball discussion, where the subject of Barna balls came up. Barna balls were balls made long ago that are also non-celluloid, and I not only have played with them, I have one - the ball used by Dell Sweeris in 1974 when he upset D-J Lee at the U.S. Team Championships, helping to end Lee's six-year undefeated streak against U.S. players! (Richard McAfee had beaten him earlier in the tournament.)

I'm not going to talk too much about the players I coach; I don't think they want their games dissected in public. Suffice to say that we have a firm grip on what they need to work on. One played really well but kept losing five-game matches, often after building up a lead in the fifth. Another has a specific forehand looping technique flaw that cost him over and over, but we're going to fix that.

One player from my club deserves special mention, and that's 11-year-old Crystal Wang, who won Under 21 Women (including an upset of Arial Hsing in the semifinals, who would go on to win her third U.S. Women's Singles title a few days later). Crystal also swept through the Cadet Singles event undefeated into the final, where she lost to Grace Yang, who she had beaten earlier in the event. (The event had six players seeded out, with others playing single elimination to the final six. Those twelve played two round robins of six, with the top two playing crossovers for 1-4. Crystal went undefeated in her RR, including the win over Grace, and won her SF crossover before losing to Grace in the final.) Crystal also teamed up with Diane Jiang to win Junior Girls' Teams. However, it was a long tournament, and Crystal finally cooled down and didn't do as well in Junior Girls, but she made it to the quarterfinals of Women's Singles where she lost to Erica Wu.

I was amazed at how many former junior stars were at the tournament, some coming out of semi-retirement. Okay, I knew most of them as junior stars, but all were actually just stars, once they left the junior age groups. Not playing but watching were Todd Sweeris and Eric Owens. Playing were Perry Schwartzberg, Mike Lardon, Chi-Sun Chui, and Randy Cohen. I got to sit next to Perry during many of the semifinal Men's and Women's matches.

Speaking of Mike Lardon, that's Dr. Michael Lardon to most of you. He's not only a former top player, he's a sports psychologist, and wrote the book "Finding Your Zone: Ten Core Lessons for Achieving Peak Performance in Sports and Life." I've assigned several of our junior players to read this book. He was nice enough to meet for 45 minutes with one of our top juniors.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: the current level of play at the cadet level (under 15) is the best in our history, and it's not even close. The depth is unbelievable. The rise of full-time training centers with junior programs is the reason for this - we've gone from about ten to 65 in seven years. Kanak Jha, 13, who made the semifinals of Men's Singles, leads the pack on the boys' side, while several battle for that title on the girls' side (including 11-year-old Crystal Wang from my club, who won Under 21 Women), but there's a lot of them in the pack. Only time will tell who will rise to the top.

Once again I verified that coaching is exactly 16.7 times as tiring and 18.9 times as nerve-wracking as playing.

I went to the Hall of Fame Banquet on Thursday night. Inductees were Todd Sweeris and Terese Terranova, with Yvonne Kronlage getting the lifetime achievement award. I've known and worked with Todd since he was 13; I can't believe he's 40 now. I coached against Terese all through the 90s and into the 2000's. And my first club was the New Carrollton Table Tennis Club in 1976, run by Yvonne.

Here's a quote from Todd about a week after I first met him, at a major tournament in 1986. (I told this story to a number of people at the Banquet.) I was playing John Allen, a lefty 2350 player, in a best of three to 21. I was playing all sorts of complex tactics - moving the ball around, changing spins, changing speeds and depths, varying my serves, etc. I was playing so smart! Of course I got killed the first game. Then little Todd called me over, and said, "Stop being a baby and kill the stupid ball!" So I changed from the non-working complex tactics to a simple one: serve and smash, and receive and smash. (I did put some tactical thought into what serves and receives to use to set up the smashes.) I went on a smashing binge and won the next two games.

While I'm giving out quotes, here are two more, one funny, one important. We're always encouraging Derek Nie, 12, to eat more since he's small for his age, and there's zero chance of him getting overweight in the foreseeable future. Perhaps he got the message? After eating a big meal at the Las Vegas Hotel buffet, he said, "I'm so full I can't eat anything more." About ten seconds later he said, "I'm going to get some fruit." He came back with a huge bowl and ate it all.

Later, I was discussing with Sean O'Neill how a player I recently coached always lost to a rival because the player was told to play to the opponent's forehand. I convinced the player to play into the rival's middle instead, and that led to an easy win. Sean said, "The middle should always be the default placement." How many zillions of times have I told this to players I coach? Many just haven't developed the habit.

Most of the players from my club (MDTTC) have club shirts with their name on the back. At the Nationals, players were required to wear a player number so spectators could look up the player's name in the program booklet. As I kept pointing out to officials, what's the point of wearing a player number so spectators can look up their name when their name is already written on their back??? Answer: it's a rule. And so once again common sense takes a hit. I may make a proposal that players who do not have their name written on their back need to wear player numbers. The irony is that some of our player names were covered by the very player numbers used to identify them.

A month ago I had ordered a packet of the new poly balls, the non-celluloid seamless plastic ones. As I blogged previously, they weren't really acceptable. However, Kagin Lee had several of a newer version (Xu Shaofa balls, also seamless) and he let me and others try them out. Verdict? These ones are usable, and only subtly different from a regular celluloid ball. Even the cracked sound is almost gone. I had several of our junior players try them, and they also said they were usable. One had said of the earlier version, "Unacceptable but fun to use," but these passed both his and my test for usability. So I think this problem has been solved.

There were some serious problems with hidden serves at this tournament, not just in the Men's Singles, but in the younger junior events. I'm going to write about them tomorrow Thursday.

Jim Williams RIP

I'm sad to report that Charles James Williams ("Jim") died last Thursday. He was a long-time Maryland player, club & tournament director, and promoter. Funeral will be Dec. 28; info on that is here, where you can also leave condolences. Here's a posting and obit at the about.com forum by his son, Alan, who many of you may know from his many years with North American Table Tennis.  

Seven Easy Steps to Mastering Any Table Tennis Skill

Here's Part 2. (I posted Part 1 previously.)

Fan Zhendong Hopes to Meet Coaches' Expectations

Here's an article from TableTennista on the Chinese phenom.

Zhang Jike a Finalist for the 2013 Sports Personality Award

Here's the article.

Interview with Miran Kondric

Here's the video interview by the ITTF (13:29). Kondric is a professor at University of Ljubljana and an expert in physical preparation. He has worked with number of top table tennis players. In the interview he explains importance of paying attention to physical fitness of young cadets.

Table Tennis Training in China

Here's a video (2:12) about kids and athletes training in China.

2013 Top Ten Table Tennis Shots

Here's the video (6:59).

Xu Xin Multiball

Here's 55 seconds of the recently world #1 training.

Carl Sagan on Life and Ping-Pong

Here's a cartoon series by the famous scientist, which ends with table tennis.

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