Returning Serve

It's everyone's biggest weakness, or so it seems. But it shouldn't be that way. Let's review:

1. If the ball is deep, return it aggressively, ideally with a loop.
2. If the ball is short without backspin (i.e. sidespin, side-top, topspin, or no-spin), mostly return it aggressively with a flip.
3. If the ball is short with backspin, either push it long (deep, low, good backspin, quick off the bounce, angled, and hide the direction until the last second), push it short (so that it is low and that, given the chance, would bounce twice on the opponent's side of the table), or flip it.
4. Above all else, returning serve is about BALL CONTROL. If you have trouble controlling the ball, or reading the spin, play against players with good serves until you can read the spin and control the ball. If you don't have anyone like that you can practice against, then you better find someone because you aren't going to learn to do something unless you practice it.
5. That is all.

How arm problems are improving my game

More specifically, it is helping my backhand tremendously. Ever since I hurt my arm ten days ago I've avoided hitting or looping forehands with any power. It's really helped the healing process while allowing me to continue coaching every day. However, it's meant a huge amount of backhand play since I'm having everyone play most there in drills. And since I'm not looping forehands, guess what? When we play points, I'm opening with my backhand loop. The result is my backhand blocking, hitting, and looping have both improved tremendously. My normally steady backhand is still steady but at a faster pace, while I'm backhand looping in pushes and serves to all parts of the table, something I don't usually do as I'm more the all-out forehand looper type. Also, after nine days of non-stop backhand play, my backhand muscles are now tireless - I can hit backhands forever without my arm getting tired.

Take me out to the Ball Game--that'd be Ping-Pong
You all know the lyrics to the baseball version, which can be found here (with the second stanza the commonly sung one). Here's my version!

Take me out for some ping-pong,
Take me out for some fun.
Buy me a racket and ping-pong balls,
I don't care if I don't score at all!
Let me hit, hit, hit with my forehand,
If they don't land it's a shame,
For it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven points and you're out,
In the new pong game.

Talking to the Curator of the World's Greatest Collection of Photos of Celebrities Playing Table Tennis

Oh, that would be me! Yes, I was interviewed about my "Celebrities Playing Table Tennis" site. The interview went up yesterday - here it is!

Dan Seemiller article

Here's an article on Dan Seemiller in yesterday's South Bend Tribune.

Zhang Jike

Here's a tribute video (9:21) to World Men's Singles Champion Zhang Jike, strangely titled, "World Champion or Small Boy?"

Lots of Ping-Pong Balls

Yes, that's a lot of ping-pong balls in the air. I keep thinking I recognize the player, but I'm not sure. Anyone know? [NOTE: Aaron Avery emailed that it was Polish paralympic player Natalia Partyka, and sure enough her web page includes that photo. Thanks Avery!]

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Special Section on Ping-Pong Balls

Three-stars and two-stars and one-stars, oh my!

A couple of decades ago you could pretty much tell the star level of a ball with a couple of shots, or by simply examining it. Manufacturing simply wasn't that precise. Your typical one-star or training ball was shaped like an egg with seams the size of a Godzilla wedding ring. But times have changed. These days even training balls are pretty round and consistent, and usable for training even at the higher levels. The main advantage of a three-star ball is that they have been carefully checked, and so you know (well, usually) they are good. Training balls are usually good - but that's not a whole lot different than three-star balls. As to two-star balls, I don't think I've seen one in years - does anyone use them? Also, since training balls and one-star balls are often the same thing, the huge majority of balls used are either one-star/training balls or three-stars.

Here's a challenge. Randomly select five or so three-star balls. Then get the same number of one-star/training balls of the same brand and color. Mix them up, and hit with them. Can you really tell the difference? Only an elite player can really tell the difference in most cases. But I don't think there's that much difference anymore, at least in the ones I've used - Butterfly, Nittaku, Stiga, and JOOLA balls.

I know some players are rather finicky about the ball. Do you agree with the above?

Celluloid ping-pong balls banned?

I'm told that celluloid balls will be banned after the 2012 Olympics, replaced by seamless balls made of some other sort of plastic. The reason given is the high flammability of celluloid - apparently there have been a few accidents. I can't find info on this on the ITTF home page, so I've emailed them asking about this. If anyone can find something official on this, let me know. (I found some new rules posted on a forum, but no link to where they came from.) One other note - the new balls will be slightly wider. The current rule is 40mm, plus or minus .5 (so between 39.5 and 40.5mm). The new rule would be between 40 and 40.6mm. So after going from 38mm to 40mm a few years ago, now we'll be at about 40.3mm on average. I'm not sure of the reason for this.

Serve With the Red Side With an Orange Ball

[Note - this is a Tip of the Month I wrote years ago for USA Table Tennis.]

It’s a game of inches, and you have to use every fair and legal advantage you can get. It’s easier to see an orange ball against a black background than against a red background, so if you serve with the red side, your opponent may not see contact as well. In fact, if you push a lot with your backhand, you should consider using red on your backhand for that reason. (Unfortunately, I rarely follow this tip for serving, since I have black on my forehand, and I serve almost exclusively forehand serves. I don't flip - the advantage simply isn't large enough.)

What one can do with a ping-pong ball

Here's what Adam Bobrow does with a ping-pong ball when someone made fun of our sport. Video is 76 seconds; wait'll you see what he does with the ball 40 seconds in!

How to make a ping-pong ball

Here's a nice article (with pictures) of the manufacturing process of a ping-pong ball.

Physics of a bouncing ping-pong ball

Yes, now you can learn why a bouncing ping-pong ball ... bounces! And you don't have any technical knowledge to follow this

Flashing ping-pong ball

And now that you've learned how and why they bounce, you can start trying to figure out why these ones flash! (25 sec. video)

Videos featuring ping-pong balls

There are more in the Humorous Table Tennis Videos section.

• Ping-Pong ball stop-action manipulation. (4:02)
• Illusionist Brock Gill performs magic with ping-pong balls. (6:13)
• Ball-juggling table tennis robot (1:37) - go to 1:05 when the second ball is added!
• Ping-Pong Power Puma Girl shows her power of hundreds of ping-pong balls! (0:48)

Ping-pong ball pictures

• Buried in ping-pong balls
• Ping-pong ball eyes
• Watch the ball!
• Ping-pong ball light shade
• An apartment made with 25,000 ping-pong balls
• Ping-pong ball covered car
• Ping-pong ball interior decorating

Ping-pong ball guns

Here are nine videos that show how to make and use a ping-pong gun. Stick 'em up!

• How to build a ping-pong gun. (1:42)
• How to make a ping-pong gun. (2:29)
• How to make a monster ping-pong gun. (0.51)
• The making and shooting of a ping-pong ball cannon. (2:18)
• Ping-pong ball cannon. (0.16)
• Lethal ping-pong gun. (0.22)
• Table tennis ball gun. (0:44)
• Failed ping-pong gun. (0.59)
• Ping-pong gun demo. (2:59)

***

Send us your own coaching news!