If You Want to Compete, You Have to Cheat

This headline isn't technically accurate - there are a few top players who serve legally, and are still able to compete. Vladimir Samsonov is perhaps the best example. But the gist of the statement is correct - at the higher levels, since players are allowed to illegally hide their serves, players who do not cheat are at a substantial disadvantage. (The other major cheating problem in table tennis is boosting, which I discuss and give my solution to in this blog, which I will submit later as a rules proposal.)

I've been torn about whether to post pictures of all the USA cadets hiding their serves to show the extent of the problem. They're only kids. But the videos are public, and so anyone who isn't blind can see them. And I don't really blame the cadets who hide their serve in response to an opponent who does so and gets away with it - they are doing what they need to do to compete, and what they are coached to do, because the rules aren't being enforced or fixed. (I often look to see who does it first in a match– that's the one I do blame. You definitely shouldn't be hiding your serve unless the opponent does so far and gets away with it.)

How bad is the problem? At the 2014 U.S. Open there was only one top cadet regularly hiding his serve. He made it to the final of Under 14 Boys, where he met up with a strict umpire. After getting warned on the second serve of the match (and I think faulted later on), he served legally and lost. 

But since that time, in tournament after tournament, umpires did not enforce the rule, despite regular complaints from opponents. The result? It became obvious that illegal hidden serves were allowed, and that those who used them had a large advantage. And so, one by one, the other top cadets began to illegally hide their serves. 

A Burned Finger, Arm Problems, a Cold, and a Deviated Septum, Oh My!

Let's take these in order. (Oh, and remember junior star Jessica Shen from the 1990s? We'll get to her.) 

On Monday, I over-microwaved spaghetti for lunch. When I took it out a gob of boiling sauce hit the back of my right index finger. The skin blistered - it was pretty bad. I ran cold water over it for a while, cleaned it, put antiseptic on it, and bandaged it. It's been hurting like crazy ever since. Worse, when I'm hitting backhands with my students the back of the index finger faces the student - and about once every 15 minutes someone smacks it with a ball. OW!!! I may have to put some padding on it for tomorrow. 

On Wednesday, while hitting some hard backhands with a student, my arm started hurting a bit. I've blogged about this a few times; I wear an arm brace that really helps. But while the brace mostly protects it, I have to be careful not to make it worse. Note to self: no more very hard backhands for a few days. 

On Tuesday (yes, I'm going out of order), I woke up with a slight cold. I was blowing my nose and could barely breathe except through my mouth. It was pretty tiring. It's only a minor cold, but it would be nice if it decides to go somewhere else. Maybe to this guy. 

Type of Table Tennis Forum Members

Here's a hilarious new video (12:27) that talks about the various types of people you find on a table tennis forum. It's spookily accurate!!!

I used to be very active in online forums, but in recent years not so much. Why? It was a combination of dealing with what the video calls "1500 Experts" and trolls. Often someone would post a coaching question, and I'd answer it, only to be contradicted and even scorned by these "Experts." Let's just say that there are some very opinionated people out there who haven't actually done anything in table tennis, and frankly speaking, don't know what they are talking about. This doesn't mean there aren't lower-rated players who are knowledgeable about table tennis, but they are outnumbered and often outposted by those who are not but believe otherwise.

One that comes to mind was a guy who argued strenuously with me about forehand looping technique. He'd argue to the ends of the earth that you only use your arm for the shot, no legs or hip rotation, and talked about his revolutionary methods that gave him a more powerful loop than those taught by the clueless people who taught table tennis. He admitted he'd never been to a table tennis club or tournament, nor had he played any top players, but he knew. He KNEW.

I've also had to deal with way too many trolls. I made the mistake (please slap me) of trying to have reasonable discussions with a few of them, and let's just say that never worked. I learned.

Tip of the Week

Do You Have the Blocking Reachies?

My Weekend

Here's a short rundown of my weekend, Fri-Tue morning.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I'm not Jewish, but the local schools celebrate it and are closed today. If the kids I coach get the day off, so do I! So no blog today, and the Tip of the Week will go up tomorrow, as I sleep late. But not too late – I've got a long todo list today involving various USATT, MDTTC, and CATTL issues, plus some private coaching tonight. (You may notice I'm putting this up at about 4:15 AM Monday morning. Guess what I've been doing all night?) But to tide you over, here's an…

...Incredible Doubles Rally at the Belgium Open

Here's the video (38 sec) between the Koreans and Hungarians in the semifinals at the Belgium Open held last weekend. Hungary won the match! (They'd lose the final. See Men's Doubles results.) 

Some Ping-Pong Reading?

Why not spend some of your weekend (or next weekend) reading some table tennis books? Or are you one of the 28% who haven't read a book in the last year? No, table tennis players are too smart, and of course are voracious readers. Here's my table tennis book collection – currently at 234 books and 13 feet of shelf space. You could, of course, just read my books - here they are. (Here's my Amazon page.) Or you could browse these, mostly from the last ten years.

Table Tennis Instructional Books

Fixing the Grip

Here's an interesting coaching story. I've been coaching one junior for about three years. Over the last year he's grown about six inches and his hands grew even more –at age 14, they're as big as mine. During his first three years his biggest technical problem was a tendency to stand up too straight, which affected his strokes. In particular, it led to a tendency to stroke too much upward. Often his strokes would start forward and then go upwards as he contacted the ball, which is the natural tendency of players who stand up too straight.

Over the past year, as he's grown, he's run into another problem - he began to forehand loop with mostly his upper body, with less and less legs and hip rotation. I kept harping on this, but he had difficulty doing so. At the same time, he seemed to overcome his problem with standing up too straight, adopting a very wide stance that kept him relatively low. So we'd sort of swapped one problem for another. 

And then, a few weeks ago, he sort of "confessed" something to me - that he'd been changing his grips much more than I'd thought. Yes, grips.  

I'd known that, like Waldner and many others, he had what I thought was a minor grip change from forehand to backhand, where he'd put pressure with the thumb on backhands, which rotated the racket slightly into the backhand position. However, over the last year - probably because his hands were getting bigger - he'd begun using more and more extreme grip changes, to the point where he was now using a relatively extreme backhand grip for backhands, and a relatively extreme forehand grip for forehands. And he was running into all sorts of problems in rallies as he tried (often unsuccessfully) to switch back and forth. The subject had actually come up about six months ago, but at that time it was only a minor forehand and minor backhand grip, and he wasn't having quite as much trouble switching yet.

Table Tennis Bucket List

A long time ago, when Pterodactyls ruled the skies, Jimmy Carter was president, and I had just graduated high school (1978), I put together a bucket list - things I wanted to someday do. Some of it was table tennis; some was writing; some was other things, like traveling to historical sites. At the time I was rated around 1800. (I didn't start until I was 16.)

Since you are a table tennis person (why else would you be reading this?), why not create your own table tennis bucket list? Here are some suggestions.

1. Achieve a certain rating.
2. Win a state or national title.
3. Play table tennis in a certain number states.
4. Play table tennis in a certain number of clubs. 
5. Play at a U.S. Open or Nationals.
6. Become proficient at multiple styles.
7. Master a certain stroke you've never been able to do well.
8. Start and/or run a club/tournament/league/training program.
9. Become a USATT or ITTF certified coach.
10. Become a USATT certified umpire.

Here is the bucket list I made. I've managed to do 14 of the 20, but still have a few to go.  (This was not the original order, which was scrawled in somewhat random order on a lined paper in very bad handwriting.)

Tip of the Week

Never Look for a Winner.

North American Championships

They were held this past weekend (Sat-Mon) in Toronto. Here's the ITTF page for the event, which has results, articles, pictures, quotes, and video. Here's the ITTF Press Release.

The big news is that USA swept everything over Canada, all eight events – Men's and Women's Singles and Teams, Cadet Boys' and Girls' Singles, and Junior Boys' and Girls' Teams. Historically, there have been many USA-Canada battles for many decades, and it's usually been competitive. But the strength and depth of USA Cadets is just too strong for Canada. As I've blogged a number of times, USA is stronger at the cadet level than it has ever been in history, and it's not even close. (Cadets is under 15, but due to dates used, some players are eligible after turning 15.)

But USA had to make two near miraculous comebacks to get the 8-0 sweep. In the Women's Singles Final, Lily Zhang (USA) was down 0-3 to Mo Zhang (CAN) before coming back to win 4-3. In the Men's Team Final, USA (Jim Butler, Timothy Wang, Kanak Jha) was down 0-2 before coming back to win 3-2. (Here's the match sheet.)

But USA overall dominance was rather obvious. In Women's Singles, seven of the eight quarterfinalists were USA, with Mo Zhang the only Canadian. In Men's Singles three of the four semifinalists were USA, including cadets Kanak Jha and Jack Wang. In Cadet Boys, all four semifinalists and seven of the eight quarterfinalists were USA. In Cadet Girls, all four semifinalists were USA.

Let's Revisit the "91-Shot Lobbing Point"

I posted the video a few days ago, and it's all over the Internet. Sure, it's spectacular, the lobbing point of the century. But there's one obvious thing most are missing – why Adrien Mattenet was lobbing in the first place. The video is 2:27 long, and you can watch it over and over, but we're only going to concern ourselves with the first two seconds.

Par Gerell, the lefty on the far side, is serving. He tosses the ball up and slightly sideways and backwards. The rule is the ball must be tossed "near vertical," which isn't well defined. By tossing the ball somewhat high, Gerell can throw the ball a little sideways and backwards while keeping the serve "near vertical."

At first the ball is easily visible, and Gerell actually moves his head backwards, away from the ball. But watch how the ball moves sideways, and Gerell moves his head forward, thrusting it in front of the ball just before contact! Yep, an illegal hidden serve. And that's how Gerell got the easy ball to loop kill that forced Mattenet to lob in the first place.

Here's a five photo sequence showing this. (The white "G" logo on the floor conveniently shows the relative positions of the ball and Gerell's head throughout the serve.)