October 20, 2025

Tip of the Week
Never Use “Full Power.”

Weekend Coaching
I spent much of the weekend working on our junior players’ forehand loops against backspin. It was sort of the theme of the week. Some of the weekend highlights:

  • One girl, about age 8, said she had learned to loop. It turned out she didn’t really understand the term, and she had never learned to loop. So, I taught it from scratch. Within minutes she was looping like a pro! Key thing – besides getting the technique right – is always the same: get it right one time, remember the feel of the stroke and contact, and repeat. Never focus on the awkward or missed ones or your subconscious will think that’s what you want to do. The ONLY time you think about the mistakes is if you absolutely cannot do it right even one time, in which case you have to analyze why. But once you get it right one time – REPEAT!!!
  • Never end a multiball session with looping against backspin, especially with players below the advanced level. If you do, they will struggle to rally properly afterwards in regular topspin rallies, where they will keep lifting the ball off the end, since that’s what they were doing against backspin. I often like to do multiball looping in three stages: against backspin; against backspin followed by against topspin (for example, a backspin to the middle, they forehand loop, followed by a quick topspin to their wide forehand, which they loop or hit); and then an all-topspin drill. The key to transitioning from looping backspin to topspin is primarily the shoulder – it drops against backspin, mostly stays up against topspin.
  • We have three 7-year-old girls who are getting pretty good, at least between giggling fits, which they go through every few minutes. Just before one of the sessions they “challenged” Stanley Hsu (2500 junior star), and he obliged by rallying with them for 20 minutes. He spent much of it fishing and lobbing, or just countering the ball back softly as they smacked away. I lent him my mini-racket (Tenergy both sides), and he rallied with that for a time, then played lefty for a bit. Then they lined up and tried to return his serves – not too successfully. They are pretty good at rallying but they hadn’t faced advanced serves yet!

Physical Therapy
After seeing a doctor, I had a cortisone shot in my right knee, and underwent platelet-rich plasma therapy in my injured right side. (Insurance didn’t cover that, so it cost me $500.) The doctor said the side, which is currently the more pressing problem, needs 4-6 weeks to heal. Alas, I have big tournaments in November (Amity Team Cup in Nanjing, China, Nov. 10-19, tournament on Nov. 14-15, playing on US Over 60 Team); US Open in December; and Classic World Cup in Brazil in January. I’ll have about three weeks healing for each, meaning the side might almost get healed each time before getting re-injured during competition. So, like at the World Senior Championships a couple weeks ago I’ll likely have to play injured again, primarily with the side and knee issues.

Another scare – I’ve had a lot of shoulder problems this past year, but it’s been better recently. But over the weekend while hitting with students it’s been bothering me again. I also have problems with my right foot and arm, but those, for the moment, are okay. The root of the problem? I still try to play like I’m 20, which was 45 years ago. My body just can’t take the stress of my serve and all-out forehand attack style anymore, which I also often do when receiving, plus I often race around the back court lobbing and fishing. Are long pips on the backhand in my future? Hmmm...

Blog and Tips
Dang, I missed it – eleven weeks ago I had my 2,000th blog but didn’t realize it. I just did a count, and as of today I’ve done 2011 blogs and 721 Tips of the Week.

Table Tennis Novels
I reviewed other table tennis novels, such as “Underspin” by E. Y. Zhao. But perhaps this is a good time to post about the two I’ve written!

  • The Spirit of Pong - Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness), Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and others, and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis? 100 pages.
  • First Galactic Table Tennis Championships (novelette) - Li Yi is a member of the Chinese National Table Tennis Team and the best woman in the world. She has trained long hours since she was a child. But now she faces her biggest challenge – aliens! Table tennis has spread to the galaxy and alien players now dominate the sport. The best are the giraffe-like Ith, with their dominating champion Egrayu. But Earth isn't part of it, not since the cowboy Americans colonized a moon in the Ith home system, which led to a blockade of Earth. The Chinese hope to reopen trade with the galaxy by using "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" – by running the first Galactic Table Tennis Championships in Beijing. Li, her teammates, and the American champion Danny See – a literal cowboy – play aliens of all shapes and sizes, including the seemingly unbeatable Egrayu, as they battle for the biggest cash prize in table tennis history. But Li is drawn into a corrupt conspiracy that will shake the very foundations of honor and sportsmanship. Plus, there's that problem with the Chinese dumplings… 42 pages.

Major League Table Tennis

What is Ping Pong?
Here’s the video (3:23) from Beyond the Podium.

Butterfly Training Tips

How to Finish the Point Like a Greek National Team Player
Here’s the video (2:35) featuring Gerasimos Chatzis, from Pingispågarna.

New from PongSpace with Damien Provost

Tactics to Beat a Left-Handed Player
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

New from PingSunday

New from Ti Long

The Art of Winning Points Before They Begin
Here’s the video (15:32) from Andrea Levenko.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

New from TT11TV
Lots of new videos here!

Lily Zhang and Kanak Jha Earn Singles Medals at the 2025 ITTF Pan American Championships
Here’s the USATT article by Barbara Wei.

New from Steve Hopkins

New from ITTF

Timothée Chalamet Spent Years Secretly Training for ‘Marty Supreme’
Here’s the article from the Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming table tennis movie (out on Dec. 25).

We Challenged Table Tennis Powerhouse Dimitrij Ovtcharov!
Here’s the video (11:06) from Table Tennis Daily!

Upside-Down Table Tennis
Here’s the video (13 sec)!

Bear Table Tennis
Here’s what you get when you Google “Bear Table Tennis”!

Little Na Learns to Play Table Tennis
Here’s the video cartoon (3:36)!

Non-Table Tennis – The Battle of Portland
President Trump says Portland is a war zone – so here’s my cartoon of The Battle of Portland. If you’re watching on a phone, zoom in – lots of little details in there!

Non-Table Tennis - “The Time and Place of the Invasion”
I just sold my science fiction story “The Time and Place of the Invasion” (2600 words) to Black Cat Weekly. It’s a dark and humorous story that takes place on June 4, 1944, a few days before the Normandy invasion. Two German physicists, Dr. Werner Heisenberg and Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, are summoned by Hitler. One of them knows the time of the invasion, the other the place of the invasion, and Hitler demands they tell him both. However, as the physicists explain to him, if he were to know the time and the place at the same time, very bad things will happen. (Yes, it’s a play on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.) It’s my 243rd short story sale and third anti-Hitler story sale.

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