Coaching Matters, and Away Mon & Tue
I’ll be away Monday and Tuesday, so next blog will be next Wednesday. I’ll be at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, meeting with USATT and USOC people about setting up a USATT coaching education and certification program. My flight leaves at 6:50AM from Dulles Airport on Monday, so I’ll be leaving for the airport very early. We have a detailed agenda to go over – I’ll likely go over here when I return. It’s actually formulated in the form of questions – 18 of them.

The USOC is in the business of winning medals for the U.S., and part of that business is setting up coaching programs that lead to these medals. They have a lot of experience working with the various sports organizations in doing this, and are willing to support us in this with money and other resources. There was a time when there simply weren’t enough training centers or potential coaches in the U.S. to make this worthwhile for table tennis, but these days we have lots of both. So now we can focus more and more on quality.

Meanwhile, I’m also involved in about a zillion other issues. I’m on the selection committee that’s currently debating the coach of the year awards – we have the nominations, and there are some very tough choices to be made from a number of highly qualified coaches. Picking and choosing among them is perhaps the least favorite part of my volunteer work. The coaching committee is also debating the grandfathering of a top coach, and along with it various requirements in general, such as English skills needed, the value of full-time versus part-time coaches, and the potential problems of being a high-level coach while still competing as a player.

Books I Read in 2017: "I have no life, and I must read."
Today’s blog is only partly related to table tennis – skip ahead if you have no interests in my book-reading proclivities. Below is a listing of the 58 books I read in 2017, which includes three books on table tennis, and another on coaching. It includes 21 novels by Mike Resnick; I’ve now read 43 of his books, 41 of them science fiction novels, the other two books on writing. I also read biographies of the first ten U.S. presidents (partly in preparation for a SF novel I might write), and lots of other stuff.

NON-FICTION (21)

North American Youth Olympic Games Qualification – Boys’ Final
Here’s the match, Kanak Jha vs. Jeremy Hazin (17:35, missing first game). This was one of the few top matches I got to see at the US Open, since I was so busy in meetings, coaching, and playing. But it was a great tactical match – basically, Kanak, age 16 but already over 2700 and #90 in the world, gave a clinic in receive and ball placement.

The match epitomizes something I’ve been quoted saying many times: “Tactics isn’t about finding complex strategies to defeat an opponent. It’s about sifting through all the zillions of possible tactics and finding a few simple ones that work.” In this case, Kanak used disarming receives to take away Jeremy’s serve advantage, and then used one seemingly simple tactic that completely dominated the match – attack the middle and wide forehand.

It seems simple, but the execution is far more difficult than it appears. If you just keep going after someone’s middle or forehand, they can anticipate it, and jump on that shot, so you have to be ready to switch back and forth. If you attack too aggressively, you make mistakes; if not aggressive enough, opponent has time to react.

Watch the rallies, and you’ll see over and over that when Kanak attacks the middle, Jeremy would struggle to react, either going for erratic counterloops (ones he’d likely made if the attack were to a corner) or awkward blocks. If Jeremy hedged over to cover the middle, usually with his forehand, Kanak immediate attacked the opened forehand corner.

Tip of the Week
Elbow Drill.

U.S. Open
It seems like ancient history now, but the US Open ended only eleven days ago. A lot happened there, and a lot’s happened since! In case you missed them, here are the complete results.

I flew to Las Vegas on Thursday, Dec. 14. We had USATT board meetings all day Friday and Saturday, Dec. 15-16. I blogged about the agenda on Dec. 13. The minutes for the meeting will go up later, but the list of Actions and Notices is already up. They don’t really give a proper reflection of all that went on – the minutes will do a better job of that. I’ll likely blog more about the meeting when they go up. (Note – I’m on the USATT Board of Directors, and chair the USATT Coaching Committee.)

I also had a long, productive meeting with USATT High Performance Director Jörg Bitzigeio on USATT Coaching Education and Certification. I’m flying to Colorado Springs on Jan. 8-9 (USATT and USOC headquarters) to meet with him and USOC officials on creating a USATT Coaching Education Program.

Sometimes life just isn’t fair. I battled the flu just before the U.S. Open. During the Open I battled shoulder and knee problems – and after badly injuring my shoulder, I’ve had to cancel all private coaching for the next 2-3 weeks. And now I’ve come down sick again - chills, queezy stomach, complete exhaustion, and just miserably sick. I got up this morning fully expecting to start blogging again, and then reality hit – and I’m about to go back to bed. (I’m still on west coast time, so 9:30AM feels like 6:30AM.) I’ll get back to my usual daily blogging, Mon-Fri, next Tuesday, Jan. 2. Until then, check out the news items at USATT and ITTF. Plus here’s a dog trying to play table tennis (12 sec). 

5 PM FRI UPDATE: I spent the day in the hospital. Diagnosis is Gastroenteritis, better known as stomach flu though its not actually the flu. I'm in agony. Was dizzy and could barely walk, so had to take Uber home, leaving my car there. Haven't eaten since breakfast, can't keep anything down, and can barely drink water, so am dehydrated as well. Have to go back tomorrow for a follow-up. Hope your day went better. 

10 PM FRI UPDATE: Still in agony, fever over 102. Managed to eat a bowl of cream of wheat.

9 PM SAT UPDATE: I thought I was getting a little bit better today, but tonight it's come back in full relapse. I'm wearing warmups and under a heavy quilt, but have been shaking like a leaf in a hurricane almost non-stop for hours. In between are short periods where I'm burning up. But head is on fire. The rest of of me is just agony. In two days I've eaten only two small bowls of cream of wheat, and that was a struggle. 

Last Blog Until Friday, Dec. 29
I leave tomorrow for two days of USATT board meetings, the US Open, and then Christmas with family, so this will be my last blog until Dec. 29. (I originally said Dec. 28, but after being out of town two weeks, my todo list has reached epic size and I need another day to catch up.) 

USA Open, Meetings, and Christmas
I’m leaving tomorrow morning for two weeks, which I’ll divide into three parts below. Here’s the US Open home page, where you can follow all the action. Here’s the player listing, the event listing (showing who is in each event), and perhaps most importantly, the results page (where the draws will go up in a few days, and then results). Here are the two USATT articles that might be of interest for your US Open viewing:

• USATT and SuperMicro Partner to Present the US Open Finals on Tennis Channel
• USATT and Triode Media Group Partner to Enhance Online Streaming Experience at the 2017 US Open

PART ONE: Meetings

Tip of the Week
Push-Button Matches - Playing the Scary All-Out Attacker.

Top Ten Ways to Describe My Weekend with the Flu

No blog today - sick with flu. I went in to coach on Saturday, had to leave early when my fever hit 101.5. The fever's gone, but I feel like I just went 100 rounds with Mike Tyson. I singlehandedly have sent Kleenex's stock soaring while living on a diet of cream of wheat, chicken soup, and Dayquil/Nightquil. I also somehow lost two pounds from dehydration. And yes, I had a flu shot - last year. It's been on my todo list for a while to get a flu shot this year. Oops. 

Physical vs. Mental Stiffness, USATT &USOC Coaching, Sidespin/Backspin Serves, the Christmas Rush, and I Do Not Have A Cold

How’s Your Big Breaking Serve Into the Backhand?
I had an interesting “comeuppance” recently when I was explaining to several players the importance of including deep serves in your serving arsenal, and going over the more valuable types – fast down-the-line, no-spin to the middle, and big breaking serves to the backhand. One of them finally asked me, “Larry, what’s a big breaking serve?” Turned out at least two listeners had no idea what I meant.

A “big breaking serve” is one that curves a lot. Probably the most successful and most commonly used is deep into the backhand, so that it breaks away from the receiver. This is most commonly done with a forehand pendulum serve from the backhand side, crosscourt, between two righties (or two lefties). For righties against lefties, and vice versa, it's most commonly done with a forehand tomahawk serve from the forehand side. 

One of my regular demos when I talk about serves in a clinic is to show the difference between a fast topspin serve and a big breaking sidespin serve. I’ll have a volunteer – someone who’s not too strong – return my serve. When I give him a fast topspin serve, he has no trouble returning it. But then I throw the big breaking serve, and he’s caught off guard, reaching for the ball, and his return goes flying off the side and way past the end. I did this demo in a private session yesterday with a junior player to instill in her the importance of learning to put spin on the serve.