June 1, 2018

Serve & Receive Tactics Seminar
The Serve & Receive Tactics Seminar was a big success. We had 23 players ranging from beginners to 2000. Here's a group picture. (Several players left before we did the picture at the end.) We raised exactly $400 to help send our coaches to the Nationals to coach the 16 MDTTC junior players going. Here's the funding page, which currently shows $14,175 of the $15,500 goal, but the $400 hasn't been added as of this writing. (It'll probably go up later today.) So we're now just $925 short of the goal. Why not pitch in? From the funding page, "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."

The seminar went a little longer than expected. We started at 8 PM. Originally I planned 30 minutes on serve tactics, 30 minutes on receive tactics, and 30 minutes table practice where I'd walk around and coach, and we'd be done at 9:30 PM. But the serve tactics part took 45 minutes, partly because of lots of questions, but also because there's a lot of material. The receive part took 25 minutes, finishing at 9:10, but then we had lots and lots of questions, so we didn't get to the tables until 9:25 PM. For the majority who could stay late we went until 10PM, even though it was scheduled to finish at 9:30PM. Special thanks to Wen Hsu, who collected the money and also stayed late to help out.  Here was the list of topics covered:

SERVE TACTICS

  • The purpose of the serve
  • Set-up serves vs. trick serves
  • Types of deception
  • Long serves
  • Short serves
  • Serving combos
  • Holding back on serves
  • Ten-point plan to serving success

RECEIVE TACTICS

  • Reading the serve
  • The purpose of the receive
  • Types of receive - your arsenal
  • Passive, disarming, & aggressive receives
  • Receiving deep serves
  • Receiving short serves
  • Deception on receive
  • What to do with tricky serves

I covered all except the "Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success," where I had initially planned to cover the ten steps one by one. But to save time, I instead gave printouts to everyone of the article and invited them to email questions later. (It's one of the more popular articles, with 4546 reads.) Throughout the seminar I called up volunteers to demonstrate various tactics. I think the parts that had the greatest interest were the backhand banana flip; serving a side-topspin or no-spin serve that looks like backspin; the tactical placement of long and short serves; receiving long serves; and reading spin.

I'll be running the same seminar again on Tuesday, July 3, 7:00-8:30 PM at USA Nationals in Las Vegas - and that one is FREE!!! We have eleven signed up, but there will for certain be many more entered over the next month. If you would like to register, email me, and please include your state, rating (or estimation if you don't have one), and age. See you there!

China Open
Here's the ITTF home page for the event (results, articles, pictures, video), which is taking place right now in Shenzhen, China, through Sunday. Huge news from yesterday - the Japanese whiz kid, Tomokazu Harimoto, defeated Zhang Jike in the round of 32, 4-0 (8,3,6,6)! Here's video of the match (8:28, time between points removed). Xu Xin also lost that round, 1-4 (7,9,-6,-7,-6) to Lim Jonghoon of South Korea. On the women's side, #1 seed (and world #2) Zhu Yuling lost in seven (5,-9,7,8,-9,-8,-5) in the round of 16 to Saki Shibata of Japan. Here's their news page where you can read about all this and more. Here's the Day One Video Review (2:44).

North American Hopes Challenge
Here's the home page for the event which started yesterday in Markham, Canada, in Ontario. This is for the best 11- and 12-year-olds in the North American. Players qualified through a series of regional trials. 

USA Juniors and Cadets in Canada
Here are three ITTF articles on USA players at the 2018 Canadian Junior and Cadet Open in Markham, Canada, which finished yesterday.

Best Table Tennis Serves Tutorial
Here are three videos from Tomorrow Table Tennis.

  • Part 1 (20:54): backspin, hook.
  • Part 2 (24:53): reverse pendulum, tomahawk.
  • Part 3 (30:26): fastest, backhand, pendulum.

Alternatives
Here's the article from Pro Table Tennis by Rowden Fullen. "Power is not only what you have, it’s also a matter of what the opponent thinks you have!"

WAB CLUB FEATURE: Washington DC Table Tennis Center
Here's the article by Steve Hopkins.

USATT Insider - Edition 174
Here's the issue that came out Wednesday.

The New ITTF - Interview with ITTF CEO
Here's the ITTF article.

We’re Hiring: ITTF Content Manager
Here's the info page for this ITTF job. "Do you have a background in media and communications and have dreamt of working for the ITTF? If so then now is your chance of joining the crowning ITTF media and marketing team in the position of ITTF Content Manager."

2018 Elections for NCTTA Board of Directors
Here's the article for "NCTTA school club presidents, members, alumni, coaches, and supporters."

Ted Dabney, Atari Co-Founder and Video Game Industry Pioneer, Dies at 81
Here's the article. He co-invented "Pong," the ping-pong video game that revolutionized the video game industry. Here's one version you can play online - note that it gives you the option of moving your paddle using your mouse or the original way, with the keyboard.

Funny Table Tennis Match France vs Philippines
Here's the video (3:44)! Quality of the video isn't good, but the two kids really have fun as they do exhibition tricks and goof off.

Table Tennis Bees
For this, I'm not distinguishing between bees, wasps, and hornets! This segment is in honor of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which ended yesterday, and took place at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington DC, the same location for the annual North American Teams Championships. 

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