Tip of the Week

Playing Off-Table Two-Winged Topspinners.

Snow!

We had about five inches last night, so schools are closed here in Montgomery Country, Maryland (and pretty much everywhere else in the region). No afterschool program or coaching today, so I'll either catch up on work, reading, or sleep. Lots of coaching articles and feature videos today!

Adult Beginning/Intermediate Class

On Sunday night my new Adult Beginning/Intermediate Class began. We have 16 signed up, though four had to miss the first session due to a combination of Presidents Day/Chinese New Year/Bad Weather. The class will meet at MDTTC for ten weeks, Sundays from 6:30-8:00 PM. (You can still sign up.) On the first day we covered the grip, ready stance ("Like covering someone in basketball, a soccer goalie, or a shortstop in baseball or softball"), forehand drive, and spin serves. (I brought out the soccer-colored balls for that.) Afterwards I let everyone stay for about half an hour, and hit with the players. Assisting in the camp are Raghu Nadmichettu and Josh Tran. This is about the 20^th time I've taught this class.

What, did you think I was going to blog while everyone else is taking the day off? Heck no!!! It's President's Day, and I'm an amateur presidential historian. (During long car trips to tournaments I drive people crazy by reciting all the presidents in order, including their terms of office and other trivia. It's how I punish bad-behaving juniors.) So in honor of our presidents - especially the ones who play table tennis (Obama, Bush Jr., Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Nixon), I'm off today. I'll have lots to write about tomorrow, and plenty of time to do it since I'll likely be snowed in here in Maryland (5-8 inches expected). 

Where Do Top Players Come From?

Nearly all top players start out as juniors training at training centers with top coaches. And so if we want more top players, what do we need? More training centers with top coaches. Sometimes I'm amazed at how many people don't see this as obvious.

Back in the pre-TCPUAOTC days (that's Training Centers Popping Up All Over The Country), i.e. before roughly 2007, there were only 8-10 such training centers in the country, and no more than a few dozen kids at most in the whole country doing serious training, while countries all over the world had many thousands. So we obviously needed more junior programs. That meant more training centers. Others argued that all we had to do was take some of the few current kids, and train them well, and they’d catch up to other kids who were years ahead of them – despite the fact that there were many thousands of these kids who were years ahead of them and getting training we could rarely match.

But now we are in the TCPUAOTC days (with nearly 80 full-time clubs), and guess what? More training centers => more junior training => the current explosion of talent. It used to be we’d have perhaps one or two good players in each age group, if we were lucky. Now we have players in the 11-14 age range that are downright scary, and great depth to back them up. We have kids who don't make the quarterfinals of their age group who would have dominated their age group eight years ago. Many of the top cadets of the past wouldn't make it past the early rounds in today's weighty draws.

Chinese Domination

There's no question the Chinese dominate table tennis. It isn't even close. At the World Championships they've won Men's Teams seven straight times and nine of the last ten. In fact, other than that blip when Sweden won it three straight times from 1989-1993, and the two times they missed due to the Cultural Revolution (1967 & 1969), they've won it 19 out of 22 times. On the women's side they are even more dominant, winning 18 of the last 20 times. They've also won Men's Singles four straight times and six of the last seven times, and Women's Singles ten straight times and 18 of the last 19.

In the World Rankings, China has the top four men and top three women in the world, and dominate below that level as well. Only a few countries have an outside chance of occasionally defeating the Chinese in team competition - probably only the German and Japanese men, and the Singapore and Japanese women.

I wrote an article about Chinese domination in Sports Illustrated in June, 1999, and since then the domination has only gotten greater. This leads to a lack of suspense in many major tournaments. As long-time Chinese star Ma Lin said in an article I linked to yesterday, "Before every World Cup (football), no one can confidently say which team will win the championship title because they are just popular. But that is not the case in table tennis because there is no suspense." He also wrote, "The decrease of the competency level of other countries in the world has resulted to the lack of eye-catching competitions and confrontation."​

Contenders for Greatest Of All Time (Men)

There have always been debates about who is the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). Most end up with a ranking. But a ranking for GOAT is not the same thing as listing the actual contenders. There are players who are arguably among the best of all time, perhaps even top five, who don't really have a good argument for being the actual GOAT. And there are others who might have an argument for being the GOAT who might not make the top five or even top ten list for others.

Also note that "Greatest" is not the same as "Best." Every generation is usually better than the previous one (better techniques, training methods, and equipment), and any modern sponge champion would easily defeat the hardbat champions of the past, as well as the early sponge players. But "Greatest" is a relative term, and so we are looking at how they did relative to their peers. I do take into consideration how strong the competition was. For example, in the very early days of table tennis there simply were not many serious players, and so the level was not very high, and I don't see them as being as "Great" as a more modern player where there are many thousands of players training full-time all over the world. You have to find a balance here, though ultimately it's a judgment call.

Tip of the Week

Pulling Off Big Upsets.

North American Grand Tour Final

I spent the weekend watching and coaching at the Westchester Table Tennis Center in New York, where 16 players from around North American gathered to battle for $10,150. (1^st $3500; 2^nd $1750; 3-4: $850; 5-8: $400; 9-16: $200.) Here's the USATT article by Bill McGimpsey and Ben Nisbet, featuring Eugene Wang (rated 2799), who (as most predicted) won the final in a 4-3 battle over Bob Chen (2730). Here's the USATT page for this five-star event, with results and video. Here are photos from Warren Rosenberg Photography and from JOOLA. Here's the event program booklet.

The North American Tour was started in 2013 by Bruce Liu, and has grown to 25 tournaments from coast to coast. Players earn points based on their results, and the top 16 were invited to the final. Two players couldn't attend, and so two promising players were invited in their place (Nathan Hsu and Crystal Wang). The stated goal of the Tour is to "raise the level of table tennis in the United States by encouraging the best American players to compete in tournaments more often and by attracting top foreign players to the U.S. for Americans to compete against."

Exhausting Weekend

Ever have one of those weekends where you leave early Friday morning for the five-hour drive to the Grand Tour Final in New York, spend that night and the weekend watching spectacular table tennis matches, get back home very late Sunday night, and then stay up until 4AM working on something? Yeah, it was one of those weekends. Plus I've got a zillion emails and a todo list from here to eternity. Let me take today off, and tomorrow I'll blog about the North American Grand Tour Final as well as the Tip of the Week. Meanwhile, here's are a few coaching and news items. (And here are some photos from the Grand Tour Finals - yes, that's me playing with a clipboard on Friday night against Crystal Wang; she won 11-8.)

Forehand Smash

Here's the new coaching video (4:54) from PingSkills.

Ask the Coach - Werner Schlager Academy Version

Here's the video (2:22, in German with English subtitles): What is a good exercise?

Perfecting Tournament Tactical Performance

Here's the new video (8:36) from Coach Brian Pace from Dynamic Table Tennis, which highlights his new Tournament Tactics video.

North Korean Ping-Pong Diplomacy with U.S. Table Tennis Star

Here's the article from TMZ, where Adam Bobrow does a Glenn Cowan with the North Koreans.

No Blog Friday and North American Grand Tour Final

I'm off early on Friday morning for the North American Grand Tour Final this weekend at the Westchester TTC in Pleasantville, NY. Here is a link to the program, with the schedule, rules, fun facts about table tennis, and information/photos on all 16 players (average rating over 2600, led by Eugene Wang at 2799). Here is the tournament flyer, which includes spectator info. Here's the USATT News Item.

All-out Forehand Attack - Surprise vs. Predicted

Fixing the Forehand Loop - Slowly and Meticulously

Yesterday was one of the best days I've ever had as a coach. It all happened in a coaching session with ten-year-old Daniel Sofer, #10 in the U.S. in Under 11 Boys with a rating of 1639, and recently #4 in Under 10 until he made the silly decision to turn ten. (I have permission from Daniel and his dad to use his name.)

Daniel has a nice backhand (both hitting and looping - he can do some nice backhand loops from off the table), and extremely good ball control for his age. (He's almost for certain the best lobber his age in the country - he can lob my best smashes back over and over unless I smother-kill them out of the court.) In fact, he does a lot of things pretty well. But for many months we've been trying to fix up his forehand looping. He has about five different strokes, and regularly switches back and forth. He also likes to back up and try to awkwardly spin the ball off the floor, or alternately switch in mid-rally to flat hitting. The result is he isn't really comfortable forehand looping, and in games it shows, as he mostly pushes and blocks, along with some lobbing. In rallies, he mostly hits or pushes with the forehand, despite the fact that in practice all he does is loop.

To Players in the Capital Area (Maryland, Northern Virginia, Washington DC):
*****Join Us in the Capital Area Super League!*****

The deadline has been extended to February 20, so you can still enter. We have enough teams already for the league, especially for Division One (though we could use one more), but would especially like to get more teams for Divisions Two and Three.

This is a team league for all levels - yes, that means you! In Europe, some countries have memberships in the hundreds of thousands, all because of such team leagues. (Germany has over 600,000.) Players from Europe talk about how much we're missing without such leagues, where players get to play on a TEAM, surrounded by friends cheering you on. So we hope you'll sign up and share their experience. (Some of this was in yesterday's blog, but I want to emphasize it.)

The league was initiated by Michael Levene and Stefano Ratti, who played in the English and Italian leagues and missed the camaraderie of such team leagues. (John Olsen and I are also members of the organizing committee.) This is your chance to join with us. All money going to the league stays in the league - it is run completely by unpaid volunteers. No payments are due until March 15.

If you want to play but don't have a team - or have a team that needs more players - there's a "Looking for a Team" section on the web site, or you can contact the organizers, who may be aware of other players in a similar situation. If you are concerned about having a home venue, or are concerned about the type of commitment, again contact us at Michael@smashtt.com or rattigno@yahoo.com.

So get your friends and practice partners together, and come join us!