U.S. Olympic Trials
They start this morning at 9AM in Greensboro, NC, and continue through Saturday. Here's the home page, which includes the draws (see below), schedule, format, ticket information, playing listing, Live Results, and lots and lots of articles and other stuff. The matches will also be streamed live, with the women's and men's finals each night at 7 and 8PM. (Read over the format, but roughly speaking it's three consecutive days of single elimination, with the winner each day making the final USA team to the North American Trials, where they will compete with Canada for the final spots. The winner from the previous day doesn't have to play since he/she's already qualified.)

Here are the Day One Draws:

Table Tennis Variations
Getting tired of playing the same table tennis all the time, where you do the same topspin and backspin shots all night long? Here are some variations!

John Miller Match Analysis
I recently did a match analysis of John Miller, a regular in the Adult Training Sessions I run at MDTTC on Sunday nights, 6:30-8:00 PM. He has graciously agreed to let me run it in my blog. (Many of you know him as the Director of the three biggest tournaments in the country – the U.S. Open, the USA Nationals, and the North American Teams.) Here is what I wrote to him.

The match I analyzed was against Dmitriy Buluchevskiy at the Texas Wesleyan tournament, March 22, 2014, Under 1800 round robin match. (Buluchevskiy wins.) I watched it point by point, often replaying points and taking notes. Remember that such an analysis is by its nature critical – the key is to fix the problems.

The strength of your game is that when you are in position, you have very strong loops from both sides, as well as a very strong backhand smash against soft topspin returns of your serve. So setting up these shots with serve and receive is key. Just as important is not throwing away points by trying to loop too hard against serves or not being in position to take advantage of your strong shots. Below are six things that jumped out at me from the video and my notes.

Tip of the Week
Holding Back Against a Weaker Player.

Fifteen Fun Facts about Table Tennis
A few days ago I received an email from Herson Go, who said he would be doing exhibitions and clinics this week in five 45-minute classes at a middles school– about 300 students in all. He said, "I wanted to perk their interest and one of the things I was thinking of is to give them a short one-page list of 'Did you know that Table Tennis...' Any suggestions?" And so the list was born! Here's the list I came up with. Feel free to use this on your club websites or in other ways to promote the sport!

Fifteen Fun Facts about Table Tennis

Next Week is USATT Week (followed by a little "rant" on Illegal Hidden Serves)
I've been otherwise occupied on various things the last two months, but next week I'm planning to focus on USATT stuff. What does this mean? As readers of this blog know, I'm focused on three main issues right now for USATT:

• State Championships
• Regional Team Leagues
• Regional Associations

Next week I plan to contact people about these issues, both those who have shown interest (and may or may not now be working to set these up), and others who might. I'm finding the first two especially promising (state championships and team leagues), while the third, regional associations, is proving more problematic. (I wrote about this in my USATT Report, which I presented to USATT at the board meeting at the USA Nationals in December. It's supposed to go online, but hasn't yet. I'll link to it when it does.)

Are you interested any of these three – running a State Championship, setting up a Regional Team league, or creating a Regional Association? Contact me! (And note that this is all volunteer work on my part – I don't get paid a penny.)

Pete May and a Proposed Police Table Tennis Program for Inner City Kids
At the USA Nationals, Pete May told me about an idea for a new type of table tennis program. Some of you may remember Pete as the guy who ran much of the table tennis activities in Augusta, Georgia, circa the 1980s and 1990s – 4-star tournaments, the Augusta College Table Tennis Program (with scholarships), and other activities. He was also a 2000+ chopper, and he and Dell Sweeris made the final of Over 70 Men's Doubles last year at both the U.S. Open (losing to a team from China in five) and at the USA Nationals. His son, Derek, was a 2550 chopper who played on the U.S. Pan Am Team. Pete's mostly retired from running table tennis activities, and now is a Disc Golf Champion – see Interview with 3x Legends Champ Pete May, and this video (1:51), The greatest thing about disc golf.

Here's his idea. He tells me that local police departments have funding for local youth programs, especially for inner city kids. So we go to them about setting up table tennis programs for such kids, 12 and under, where they supply the tables, rackets, and balls. Older ones are selected as team captains and/or to feed multiball. There would be divisional play, with awards for the champions. Local newspapers would be brought in as stakeholders, which would lead to coverage. Pete suggests the matches be held outdoors (weather permitting?) for more exposure. The police department would enjoy doing this as they would get a "gold star" for helping kids. USATT would benefit from exposure, more players, and possible new phenoms.

Tip of the Week
Should You Develop Your Forehand Push?

Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions, Table Tennis, and Donald Trump
Since the novel has so much table tennis in it, I'm going to blog a bit about that, about recent happenings on it, and about some table tennis scenes – including Donald Trump being in it! There's also some futuristic table tennis in it – more on that and Trump below. But first:

Good news: It was scheduled to come out from World Weaver Press on Jan. 26 – yesterday. Yay!

Bad news: On Thursday, Jan. 21, five days before publication, I received an email from the publisher saying something no author wants to hear: the publisher was closing down, and so my novel wasn't going to be published. NOOOO!!!!!

Good news: The very next day I received an email from one of the assistant editors that she was negotiating to buy the company, and still wanted to publish the novel. The deal is apparently going through, and so the novel is back on track – but the publication date has moved to March 8.

Bad news: The novel was long planned to come out in the middle of the presidential election, since it's a political novel that covers the race for president of Earth in the year 2100. (With a third-party moderate challenge, a father pitted against a daughter, and an alien ambassador observing and often participating.) The plan was to have it out before the Iowa caucuses, which will be held Feb. 1 (next Monday). So we'll lose some of that.

Good news: Without any advance knowledge that Trump would be running for president and dominating the news, he's in the novel!!! Sort of. Hopefully he'll learn of this and sue me or call me a hack writer, thereby putting sales through the roof. How is Trump in the novel?

One More Day
The snow is being picked up, but the snow on my brain, after four days alternating between long stretches of lazing about reading and doing crossword puzzles, and sudden bursts of inspiration and frenzied work, needs one more day of recovery. (Translation: I’ve been staying up late, and after going to bed last night at roughly late this morning, I woke up with a headache and eyes that feel like they've run a marathon. Also, local schools are still closed, and I generally take the day off when they do so.) I'll get to bed earlier tonight, and start blogging again tomorrow morning. Promise!

Local schools were scheduled to be closed today for teacher conferences even before a few snowflakes blew our way, so as is my continued policy, when the schools take a holiday, so do I! (I have lots of other work planned, alas.) So no blog today. I'll be back tomorrow Wednesday. In the meantime, here's my (non-table tennis) Facebook rant about the snow and Obama's complete refusal to do anything to stop its arrival - and what other candidates would have done! Enjoy!

Fake Ages in Junior Events
One of the more "inside" problems table tennis faces in the U.S. is the problem of fake ages in junior events. In the U.S., it's pretty much assumed – and almost always correctly – that birth certificates are accurate. But this isn't necessarily true in other parts of the world. In particular, I'm told (and my own experiences seem to concur) that in China, it's very easy to get a birth certificate or passport with a fake age. Here's one article on the topic. "While a global problem, the falsifying of ages is considered particularly acute in China due to the massive pressure on coaches and officials to produce victories and the apparent ease with which false documents can be obtained."

Many dozens of parents have approached me on this, mostly Chinese, because there seem to be a number of players all over the U.S. (all non-citizens, as far as I know) playing in junior events with fake ages. I say "seem" because there's rarely any way of really knowing in any individual case. There are legitimate teenagers who look to be in their twenties, and it's not their fault that they look older. For all we know, it's the faster-maturing kids who do well, and that's why there are so many juniors from China who look older than their listed age.