Planetary Table Tennis Tour

Today's blog is going to be a little out of this world - and I mean that literally. We're going to explore the solar system through table tennis. What would it be like playing table tennis on the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, or in outer space? We'll assume that you (and the ball, racket, and table) are impregnable to extreme heat, cold, pressure, vacuum, gravity, the lack of breathable air, and any other local problems. How will the various local conditions affect table tennis? I'm not going to spend a lot of time with a calculator; I think I can make some decent judgments based on general conditions. Feel free to give your own input.

MOON

Gravity is about 1/6 Earth's, and there's no air. With low gravity, and with topspin unable to curve the ball down without air, there's little to pull the ball down on the other side. So players wouldn't be able to hit and counter-hit very fast. Most rallies might become endless battles of attrition as players pat the ball back at lower speeds than are the norm for a good player on Earth. Or would it? I think that what would happen is that players would take advantage of the difficulty in keeping the ball on the table by putting extreme topspins on the ball. The topspin would jump off the opponent's racket, making it tricky to keep the ball from going long.

Two-Winged Attackers
In this modern era of super-sponges it's a huge advantage to be able to attack effectively from both wings. There was a time (back when I was learning to play) that many players mostly attacked from one side - usually the forehand - and mostly played steady on the backhand, which is how I usually play. It's generally a mistake to develop your game that way; learn to attack from both sides.

However, a common problem for some is trying to rip winners from both wings, whether looping or smashing. This is a very difficult style to master. Even if you have the ability to rip shots both forehand and backhand, it's difficult to get both shots going at the same time. Instead, it's almost always better to focus on ripping winners from one side, and a steady attack on the other side with opportunistic rips when the shot is there. While more players rip on the forehand while playing the backhand as the steady attack side, there are many who do the reverse.

Even on the "ripping" side, you shouldn't rip everything that's potentially rippable, though of course take the shot if it's there. Unless the ball is really easy, in fact, it's almost always best to take a little off for consistency, so even your best smashes and loop kills might be at 80-90% power. But which ones should you rip?

The key is recognizing which shots are rippable and which are not. In general, there are three types of balls that should be put away:

Tip of the Week

Turn Opponents into Puppets with Long Serves.

MDTTC October Open

I ran the MDTTC Open this weekend, a rather exhausting ordeal since I also did four hours of coaching. Here is my write-up and results of the event, followed by the usual blog stuff. 

$2600 Butterfly MDTTC October Open
MarylandTable Tennis Center
Gaithersburg, MD • Oct. 20-21, 2012
By Larry Hodges

This month there were extra large trophies waiting for winners of most of the Sunday events, in addition to $2600 in prize money mostly given out in Saturday events at the October Open at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. The larger trophies went over very well, and hopefully will attract more players in our next tournament, sometime early in 2013.

Wang Qing Liang, rated 2621, defended his title from last month, once again defeating fellow MDTTC coach Chen Bo Wen, rated 2516, in another 4-2 battle, this time at -9,10,-9,7,8,5. There's an old adage that choppers tend to get better as the match goes on as they adjust to the opponent's attack, and that's exactly what happened. By the end of the match there seemed no way to get through Wang's chopping defense, and his forehand loop was as spectacular as ever when he'd swoop in against a push or counterloop from off the table. Chen had actually spit matches with Wang at the recent Badger Open, knocking Wang's rating down from the 2642 he'd achieved mostly from making the semifinals of Men's Singles at the U.S. Open. Wang won $1000 to Chen's $400.

Developing Your Smash

So many players have this strange idea that the best way to develop a forehand or backhand smash is to, well, smash a lot. It seems to make sense, but isn't always the best way. I've seen this in student after student - they work on smashing by smashing a lot, and the balls spray all over the place as they ingrain the habit of spraying the ball all over the place. Smashing is, first and foremost, a precision shot, and if you practice smashing by spraying the ball all over the place, you are being counterproductive.

Instead, focus on driving the ball only at the pace that you can control, and develop the precision at that speed. As you get better, increase the speed. If you find yourself spraying the ball all over the place, take it down a notch. Precision comes from good technique and timing, and these are things you should work on at a pace you can control. Spraying the ball over the place is a great way to develop bad technique and poor timing. (I may expand this into a Tip of the Week.)

MDTTC Open - Last Chance

If you live within 100 miles of Gaithersburg, Maryland, then enter the MDTTC October Open this weekend or we will go online and steal rating points from you. Yes, we can do that. I'll take entries at least until 7PM tonight. 

Here are the top seeds as of now:

1. Wang Qing Liang (2621)
2. Chen Bo Wen (2516)
3. Richard Lee (2424)
4. Raghu Nadmichettu (2328)
5. Larry Abass (2320)
6. Nathan Hsu (2312)

Senior and Hardbat/Sandpaper Camps

The training camps at the Maryland Table Tennis Center are open to all ages and levels, but because we have so many junior players, they tend to be dominated by junior players. Most camps have a few non-juniors, but not many. So essentially we run junior camps.

MDTTC October Open and Tournament Scheduling

This weekend I'm running the MDTTC October Open in Gaithersburg, Maryland (that's USA). Come join us for a weekend of competitions! Top entries so far include Wang Qing Liang (2621), Chen Bo Wen (2516), Raghu Nadmichettu (2328), and Nathan Hsu (2310), and I expect a few more. We're giving away $2600 in prize money, and much larger trophies than before. If you are playing in the tournament, here's my Ten-Point Plan to Tournament Success.

For those of you scared of facing under-rated juniors who spent all summer training in our camps, relax - most gained a zillion points in our last tournament. Besides, if you do lose to a 60-pound kid with a rating 500 points lower than his level, it'll be something to talk about years from now when that player becomes a superstar. It's sometimes fun to watch these up-and-coming kids and guess which ones are going to become the superstars. Also, remember that if one of these kids has a really good tournament - including a win over you - he'll get an adjusted rating, and you'll only lose rating points to the adjusted rating, not his starting one. In fact, by losing to him in an upset, you greatly increase the chances of his getting adjusted!

There's a downside to my running these tournaments - it conflicts with my coaching schedule, where I'm busiest on weekends. Each time I run one I have to do a series of cancellations, postponements, reschedulings, and substitutions. For some players with less flexible schedules, it means they miss their weekly session, which isn't always fair to them. I may have to recruit someone to take over to run our tournaments next year. (Any volunteers? You do get paid! Not a huge amount, but at least $200 per tournament, more if there's a good turnout.)

Creating Spin

Yesterday I was coaching a junior (who is mostly a hitter) on his forehand loop against backspin, and later on his serve. In both cases he had difficulty in creating spin because he tended to start with his racket mostly behind the ball, both when looping and serving, rather than from below (when looping against backspin) and from above or from the side when serving backspin or sidespin. He also didn't backswing enough to give himself time to accelerate into the ball, which allows you to snap the forearm and then the wrist into the ball like the tip of a whip.. These are common problems, especially for hitters.

Hitters, by definition, don't loop as well as loopers. I've noticed that, in general, hitters have more difficulty learning to serve with spin, and I think the two are related. Loopers are more used to creating spin, and instinctively understand the need to backswing so as to allow themselves to spin the ball - getting below the ball when looping backspin, above it to serve backspin, and to the side to serve sidespin. They also instinctively understand the need for the longer backswing to accelerate the racket to create spin, whether looping or serving.

If you guide a player through the serve by holding his hand and literally serving the ball for him, with a better backswing, they tend to get the idea, though it takes practice for them to do this on their own. (Learning to graze the ball when serving isn't easy at first.) I've noticed that those who learn to serve with spin also pick up looping more quickly, for the reasons give above.

I mentioned above how hitters tend to have more difficulty putting spin on their serves. However, there is a corollary to this - hitters tend to have better placement on their serves, and usually better fast serves. This is probably out of necessity, since they don't have spin to make their serves effective.

Tidbits

Tip of the Week

How to Handle the First Loop Off Backspin.

A Commuting Weekend - Table Tennis and SF

I spent the weekend shuttling back and forth between coaching at the Maryland Table Tennis Center and being a panelist at the annual Capclave Science Fiction Convention. By great luck (or was it?), Capclave was held at the Hilton in Gaithersburg, about five minutes from MDTTC. I managed to cancel or postpone some coaching that conflicted with panels at Capclave. By simple good luck, my morning coaching on Saturday and Sunday were with beginners, meaning I didn't get all sweaty and so was able to just change into normal clothes and rush over to Capclave. So here's how my weekend went. (Panels are usually one-hour affairs where 3-5 writers or others talk about a topic in front of an audience.) Here's my online Capclave Bio - note the table tennis ice cube mention!

Panelists are allowed to display their books, and so I displayed on a mini-bookstand in front of me my collection of SF & Fantasy stories, "Pings and Pongs," and explained the title pertained to my table tennis background - which usually brought a few questions.

FRIDAY

Topspin Rallies

One of my beginning/intermediate students in a session yesterday kept pushing my topspin and sidespin serves, and of course they popped up or went off the end. This same junior is all over the ball in "normal" topspin rallies - he's primarily a hitter, though he loops against backspin. You'd think that he'd want these topspin and sidespin serves since he can use his regular forehand and backhand drives both to start and continue the rally, not to mention ending the point with his big forehand. Many players, especially juniors, are almost robotic (in a good way) once they get into a topspin rally, hitting and countering with ease as this is exactly what they do in most practice drills.

And yet, given the chance to immediately go into these comfortable topspin rallies, this student and many others choose to push the serve back. Why is this?

I believe it's the mindset when returning serves. They do get a lot of backspin serves, and so they find pushing the safest return. And so their mindset is to push the serve to get into the rally. Except, of course, when you push a topspin or sidespin serve, there is no rally. (At higher levels, of course, players can chop down on these balls as a variation, more of a chop-block than a push, but that's a separate issue.)

At most levels, when returning serves, you have to make a quick decision: Does the serve have backspin? If yes, then you can push it. If no, then you stroke it.

You don't have to push the backspin, of course. If it's short, you can flip it. If it's long, you can loop it. You can also drive it, whether it's short or long. And you use the same strokes if the ball doesn't have backspin, except you stroke mostly forward.

Placement of Loops

I coached a lefty junior yesterday, and was working on his backhand loop when he said, "I don't like backhand looping. Every time I do it, my opponents smash." I asked him to show me the backhand loop that kept getting smashed, and sure enough, it was a soft, spinny one that went crosscourt from his lefty backhand to a righty opponent's forehand. No wonder it was getting smashed!!!

Slow, spinny loops are effective if they go deep to the backhand, but only to the forehand side of a player with a relatively weak forehand. Soft loops to the forehand are easy to smash for many players since the body isn't in the way - you just hit through it. On the backhand side, however, if the slow loop goes deep, the body is in the way and so the player is jammed, and smashing them can be difficult. So slow loops that go deep to the backhand are usually just blocked back, and usually not that well. (Slow loops that go short to the backhand, however, are dead meat to any player with a decent backhand. They should be smacked away.) 

In general, soft loops should go deep to the wide backhand, aggressive loops to the wide forehand (since the forehand block is usually slower) and to the middle (i.e. the playing elbow, midway between forehand and backhand, so the opponent has to make a quick decision on which to use, and then move into position).

There are many exceptions to this rule. Some players, including myself, are looking to step around to use the forehand from the backhand side, and so even a soft loop to the wide forehand can often catch us going the wrong way if we over-anticipate or stand too far toward our backhand side. And others try to counterloop everything on the forehand, and are often too slow to react to a slow loop, especially if it lands short. It all depends on the opponent.