November 7, 2016
Tip of the Week
Three Ways to Play the Forehand.
Reasons for More Trials Instead of Selections
As I blogged on Friday, I believe we need to go back to more Trials for our youth teams, and less selections, as we used to do it. I didn't like the idea from the start, but was willing to give it a try – but now I'm convinced it was a mistake.
The main argument for primarily choosing our youth teams rather than doing so by Trials is they feel that Trials only puts players against other USA players, and isn't a valid measure of their level against international players. I disagree, as a player who is better domestically will tend to do just as well internationally – when he has the international experience, which is the whole point of sending them overseas to tournaments like the World Junior Championships. Often the argument is made for a player with a world ranking to be chosen over a seemingly stronger player without a world ranking because that player's parents couldn't afford to send their player overseas to achieve an international ranking – and this comes down to essentially saying, "We're not sending you out for international experience because of your lack of international experience." Or we argue for a junior with a current world ranking that's much lower than another junior who no longer has a current world ranking simply because he wasn't able to go overseas.
They also feel that by choosing, they can pick the players they believe are hardest working or have most potential. There is an argument for this – they want to choose the player who is single-minded about table tennis over the one who they feel will favor academics – but it's also a subjective argument. Worse, this can lead to favoritism, where they may convince themselves that the player they want to pick is the best pick. It's not always intentional, but it happens. Many coaches, including myself, have disagreed with some of the selections. There have also been many historic examples of top players who were called "uncoachable" by their national coaches, or sent home for lack of potential – such as Jan-Ove Waldner ("uncoachable") and Deng Yaping ("too small"), often considered the greatest man and woman ever to play.
If at any time USATT puts up a note about why they favor Selections over Trials, or choose to do a guest blog here, I'll link to it or post it.
I don't want to get into this game of publicly putting down specific juniors by arguing another player should have been selected over them. But that's the situation we're often put in when we see these selections and disagree. I simply am not going to play that game – the kids involved did nothing wrong, and arguing publicly why one is more qualified than another highly qualified one who was selected instead just embarrasses the junior who was chosen. Instead, I'm going to simply make the arguments over why we the teams should be chosen more by Trials, and less by Selections, which make us look like the teams are being chosen in the proverbial smoke-filled room. Here are my reasons.
- Many other coaches, myself included, disagree over the Selections. What does this mean? It means that the teams are being decided not by the players, but by who is chosen to do the selecting. Case in point: USATT just selected the players going to the World Junior Championship. (It hasn't been officially announced by USATT, but the entries are listed at the World Junior Championships page – here's the list of entries.) The controversial decision was not to include Krish Avvari, who finished first at the Junior Team Trials in July, is the current National Junior Singles and Team Champion, is rated #2 among USA juniors available to go to the Worlds, and in the USATT's own complicated point system, is #3 ranked among USA junior available to go to the Worlds. USA chose four players, and left him off the list. (Sharon Alguetti wasn't available to go.) The reason given was that Krish had only played five tournament this past year – though all five were 4- and 5-star tournaments. Should he be on the team? By Trials, he's #1, and by nearly every other factor he should be. But the selected selectors said no, and so he's not going. Many others, including myself, disagreed with the decision. And so the selection was made not by the players, but by who was chosen to do the selecting.
- The Selectors are often being put in the position of choosing between players from their own state or club over others, or to make such decisions about students of their colleagues. Even if they are objective in their decisions, or try to be, the appearance is often very bad. (This has happened multiple times already.) And so when players are chosen who have any connection to the Selectors, it is now under suspicion. The contrary is also true – if players connected to the Selectors are overlooked, they may feel they were overlooked because of the appearance of conflict.
- If Selections are preferable to Trials, why do we have Olympic Trials? Shouldn't we just choose our Olympic Team? Some would say this is different, that at the youth level we are looking for potential, while at the Olympic level we're looking for our best players – i.e., in both cases, we're looking for our best chance of winning, whether long-term with youth players, or now with Olympic players. But these are actually the same case. If the goal in the Olympic was to win, then we shouldn't have Trials – we should have coaches choose the players so they can also send weaker players with unorthodox styles that international players may have trouble with. So if you favor Selecting our youth teams rather than Trials, then by the same logic you should favor Selecting our Olympic Teams rather than having a Trials. I don't think many would agree with this.
- We're going to have non-stop controversies (and threats of lawsuits) over this as long as we select the players rather than going primarily by Trials. It's already happened this year in both sets of selections. With Trials, as long as you word the rules properly, there is little controversy, and the players consider it fair because the decision was made at the table, not in a back room. (I do believe we should select up to 25% of the players, as I explained in my Friday blog, but we've almost always done something like that and it rarely led to any controversy.)
This doesn't mean I'm against any selections - as I explained on Friday, perhaps up to 25% should be selected, as a "safety net" for our very best juniors who are sick, injured, or just have a bad day at the Trials.
USATT does have a complication in that the Nationals moved to July. It used to be they could just have a Trials in December for the following year. But now the Trials at the Nationals in July means we're split, since half the team becomes ineligible on Dec. 31, six months before the next Nationals. The problem with having Trials in December at the Open is the same reason they flipped the Open and Nationals – it's right during finals week for kids, and many have great difficulty making it.
I'm one of the ones who initially didn't think we should have a Trials in December for this reason – I know at least half of the top youth players at my club can't make it, and the same situation is true nationwide. However, I'm rethinking this. So what do we do on Dec. 31, when half the players on our youth teams become ineligible? Here are some options.
- Fill out the team in order of finishers from July who are still eligible. Objective, but it means the results are affected by players who are no longer eligible. It also means you are using a Trials from six months before, but since we normally were having annual Trials for a 12-month period, that specifically isn't a big problem.
- Have a new Trials in December. Many will have difficulty making it. The Trials could be for the entire team, or only for those spots that open up when players age out on Dec. 31. If the latter, the number of spots that open up will vary from year to year. However, it's too late to do it this year. Also, while at the Nationals you can combine the Junior Team Trials with the National Junior Singles Championship, you can't really do that at the Open, since it's open to all players, not just USA players. It would mean adding six new Trials events.
- Have the HPC or HPD choose the remaining team. That's the current plan, and may be inevitable for this year.
- Have smaller teams. But this just penalizes players who might otherwise have made the team, whether by Selection or Trials.
ITTF Cadet Camp at MDTTC 2016
Here's the new video (1:52), from Matt Hetherington. It shows highlights, set to music, of the ITTF Cadet Camp we held at the Maryland Table Tennis Center in September – here's my write-up, which now has a link to the video.
Tactique Stratégie Tennis de Table
Here's the video (4:53) of the new French video ad for the French version of my book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. You can buy it in English or French versions, print or kindle versions. I'm pictured in the background giving a service clinic at MDTTC. The part where I stand on one leg and hold my arms in the air is where I'm about to demonstrate my "Karate Kid" serve and telling a joke about that movie.
Devastate the Offensive Chopper
Here's the coaching article from Samson Dubina.
Forehand Mechanics
Here's the coaching article from Carl Hardin.
The Table Tennis Training Partner: An Endangered Species
Here's the new article from Coach Jon.
Basic Rules of Table Tennis and Common Myths
Here's the new article from Matt Hetherington.
Tom's Table Tennis Newsletter
Here's the link. It includes both new coaching articles and links to others, most of which I've also linked to recently.
- Why you should “attack the middle”
- My biggest table tennis failures (so far)
- Tactics for beating a one-wing attacker
- A simple way to improve your practice sessions
- Online table tennis lessons
Best from the Web:
- How to Win Crucial Points in Table Tennis Matches
- The Ultimate Guide to Table Tennis Psychology
- Play Both Weaker and Stronger Players
- Waldner Table Tennis Tips
- How to improve your anticipation
- 5 Tips To Improve Your Long Push
- Vote for the best table tennis point of 2016
"I have unfinished business in India" - Massimo Costantini
Here's the ITTF article from one of our former National coaches.
Training with Jakub Dyjas
Here's the video (11:42) of the world #36 from Poland as he trains.
The Tomahawk Ghost Serve by Dimitrij Ovtcharov!
Here's the repeating video (5 sec).
Double Table Training with Gary Fraiman and Sherlyn Barvie
Here's the video (18 sec).
Chinese-born Spanish Player Juanito He Zhiwen Retires at Age 52
Here's the article. The pips-out penholder still ranked 78 in the world after three decades of competing. His peak was #24 in 2007.
Recent Photo of the Hungarian Trio
Here's the photo of Gabor Gergely, Istvan Jonyer, and Tibor Klampar, 1979 World Team Champions over China. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) Here they are on the winner's podium in 1979 (Gergely, Klampar, and Jonyer on far left). Here's a listing of all Men's World Team Champions, and Women's World Team Champions.
Kids Going Crazy over Balancing Ball Relay
Here's the video (60 sec).
Timo Boll and a Lot of Balls
Here's the picture. Should we call him Timo Ball?
Iron Pong
Here's the video (59 sec) of someone playing with an iron, including some tricky shots – and his clothes are wrinkle free!
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