September 27, 2011

Steady or aggressive blocking?

There are generally two types of blockers, steady blockers ("walls") and aggressive blockers ("jab-blockers"). Which are you? You should do both, of course, but it's usually best to specialize in one or the other. For example, David Zhuang (six-time U.S. Men's Singles Champion) is primarily a steady blocker. He can block forever, side to side, often changing the pace and even sidespin blocking. But when he sees the chance, he snaps out an often point-winning jab-block, which is made even more effective by the contrast with his usual steady but not-too-hard blocking.

A key to blocking is placement. Steady blockers mostly block side to side at wide angles, since a softer block to the middle can be hammered. Jab-blockers play the extreme corners and to the opponent's middle (playing elbow), rushing the opponent who has to decide between forehand and backhand, which often opens up a corner to jab-block a winner to. (This is because the opponent has to move to the middle of the table to hit a forehand or backhand, leaving one side open.) The nice thing about having a good block is you can get away with a lot of tactical things that others might not be comfortable doing, such as long serves or aggressive pushes. The opponent may have trouble with these, but if he does attack them, a blocker isn't worried since he's comfortable blocking.

Berkeley Open Results

Isn't it great how at the North American Table Tennis events, such as the Berkeley Open this past weekend (choose "Berkeley Open" from the dropdown menu), you can see not just the results (which most tournaments are slow to put up), but every single match played in each event?

The Amazing Michael Maze

Here's a profile of Denmark's Michael Maze, with the understanding that after this, we'll have a moratorium on the clichéd nickname "Amazing." He's probably the best lobber in the world. He was the 2005 World Championships Men's Singles Semifinalist, 2009 European Men's Singles Champion, 2004 European Top 12 Champion, 2004 Olympic Men's Doubles Bronze Medalist, and is currently world #21, was World #8 one year ago. Here's a tribute video to Maze (6:37).

If you want to relive Maze's greatest victory ever and see some of the greatest lobbing ever, his comeback against China's Hao Shuai in the all-lefty quarterfinals of the 2005 World Championships (he was down 3-0, won 4-3, lobbing over and over), here's the full match (52:11).

Maze defeated China's Wang Hao the round before, 4-1, perhaps an even bigger win. I can't find the video in one segment, but here are the five games. That's Liu Guoliang coaching Wang.

Men's Singles Finals, 2011 World Championships

In case you want something more recent than Maze's Amazing (there's that cliché again...) matches in 2005, here's Zhang Jike versus Wang Hao in the 2011 Men's Singles Final, with the entire match in just 12:11 (by cutting out the time between points). Yes, you can relive the entire thing (and study their techniques) in just twelve minutes!

World Cup Participants

The participants list for the 2011 LIEBHERR Men's World Cup (Paris, Nov. 11-13) are announced. Wang Hao of China will be defending his title.

Sports Coaching Brain

Here's an interesting sports webpage, the Sports Coaching Brain, that (to use their "About" text) calls itself the "ultimate source of ideas, innovations and inspiration for all sports, coaching, sports science and performance issues." Someone who read my blog yesterday about USA Table Tennis gave me the link to this article, Coach-Driven, Athlete-Focused, Administratively-Supported? Isn't it time we did something different? It does seem to fit our sport's situation.

Obama playing table tennis

We already have lots of pictures of Barrack Obama playing table tennis. Now we have the other Obama, Michelle Obama playing table tennis! (And for those who missed it before, here is Barrack Obama playing table tennis: photo1 photo2 photo3 (Photos 2 and 3 are from a picture on the wall at the White House); Obama and David Cameron, Prime Minister of England: photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6 photo7 photo8 photo9

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