Tip of the Week
Chopping and Playing Choppers – It’s All About the Mindset.

Weekend Coaching
“Keep your left arm up for balance!” I think I said that twenty times this past weekend, mostly to three players, all righties. It seems like every week there’s a different mantra, and that was this week’s. It’s so easy to let the arm just hang there when you aren’t moving too much, and then it becomes a bad habit and the player doesn’t even know how much they are off balance because of it. If you are 1% off balance in table tennis, you might as well be playing in a chair.

I worked with a group of kids on their fast, deep serves, using various targets on the table. For this, you should generally have three, sometimes four targets at the very end of the table. One on each wide corner, of course, but also one where a righty player’s elbow would normally be, a prime target for a fast serve or any other aggressive shot. You can also have a fourth target where a lefty’s playing elbow would be.

One of our top juniors has been experimenting with short pips on the backhand – and has had great success. I’ve always thought that there should be more diversity in table tennis, as it once was, but these days nearly everyone is trained pretty much the same, as shakehand two-winged inverted loopers. It’s true that it’s difficult to break into the top ten in the world with short pips, but not impossible – but more importantly, few players are going to reach top ten, and many players would simply be better with styles that are outside the standard mold. Short pips on the backhand used to be a common style, and sometimes on the forehand. (Sweden’s Mattias Falck, with short pips on the forehand, made the final of Men’s Singles at the 2019 World Championships, and won gold in Men’s Doubles at the 2021 Worlds.) I went over some of this with his father (also a top player) and we analyzed some videos of top pips-out backhand players, including Matteo Mutti of Italy and (a blast from the past) Wang Tao of China, one of the greatest players ever to never win Men’s Singles at the Worlds while arguably half of the greatest men’s doubles team of all time, with Lu Lin.

Cartoon Characters from “Ping-Pong Paddles Can’t Talk!”
Here are the main characters in my upcoming children’s picture book. (It comes out next Spring.) They include the main character, 9-year-old Kevin in his first tournament; his friendly but very good adversary Li; Kevin’s talking paddle; Kevin’s parents; and the tournament director and referee. (The frog might make an appearance.) As noted in past blogs, it’s a humorous Seussian-like rhyming book for children. It introduces kids, roughly 7-10, to table tennis. It features a nervous boy and his talking paddle in their first tournament, where he meets and plays a girl who is really good, and they have an adventurous match. Along the way, kids learn about the sport, with themes on facing your fears, working toward a goal, honesty, and friendship.

Possible TT at the 2026 World SF Convention, and the Capclave SF Convention
The 2026 World Science Fiction Convention will be in Anaheim, CA (near LA), Aug. 27-31. I will be there, likely as a panelist. I’m also in discussions about a possible table tennis demonstration. If so, I’ll contact the local TT community for a playing partner. We’ll see!

Meanwhile, this upcoming weekend I’ll be a panelist at the Capclave Science Fiction Convention in Rockville, MD. (I’ll try to spread the gospel of TT.) I’m on five panels: “Writing at Different Lengths” (moderator, about the difference between writing novels and short stories), “For the Love of Evil” (moderator, about why we often love the bad guy in stories), “The Absolute Boss” (why SF stories tend to have absolute leaders rather than democracies), “Learning the Craft”; and “Humor and Satire in SF & Fantasy.” I’m also got an author signing session (which will include my two SF/Fantasy table tennis novels/novelettes, “The Spirit of Pong” and “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships.” (The convention is Fri-Sun, but I’ll still be coaching at MDTTC on Saturday morning.)

Mastering the Serve: The First Step to Dominating Table Tennis Matches
Here’s the article by Coach Ju/Coach Hailong Shen

New from Dr. Alan Chu, Ph.D., CMPC

• Handling Pressure in Big Moments: Lessons from Truls Moregard’s Grand Smash Victory
• Recovering from Disappointments: Lessons from Hugo Calderano’s Historic Victory

Fethomania
With Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

• FETHOMANIA 11/Drill 3: Keep Your Left Side More in Front (45 sec)
• FETHOMANIA 11/Drill 4: Increase the Frequency During the Drill!? (56 sec)

Tanish Mamidyala – Backhand Loop Ball Placement
Here’s the video (1:44).

How to play against a QUICKER player! 
Here’s the video (4:13) from Pingispågarna.

Looping After the Push
Here’s the video (2:42) from PongSpace, with Cheyanne Chen.

Deadly Backspin Serve | Master the Deep Heavy Serve in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (6:49) from Ti Long.

Table Tennis Passive-Active Exercises
Here’s the video (8:45) from Dr. Table Tennis.

New from Taco Backhand

• Hunched Grandpa Humiliates The World Elite (3:01)
• Why This Man Deserves More Respect In Table Tennis History (4:34)

Improvised Two-Table Drill

Here’s the video (16 sec)!

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

Major League Table Tennis Launches

• Home Page
• Major Pong Head (blog coverage)
• MLTT Weekly Update
• Inside the first open serve doubles point in table tennis history
• Veteran Lundqvist delivers in pivotal moment for upstart Paddlers
• MLTT Weekly Spotlight – Opening Weekend on TableTennis.TV
• Opening Autographed Table Tennis Cards! (16 min) - LEAF 2025 MLTT Premier Edition Trading Cards, from Matt Hetherington.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

• WTT Champions Macao: A New Number One ?
• WTT Champions Macao: Anders Lind Makes Semis
• WTT Champions Macao: Final Eight
• ITTF Pan American U11 & U13 Championships: Recap
• Sally Moyland – WTT Spokane Singles & Doubles Highlights

USA Secures 13 Gold Medals at 2025 Pan Am U11 & U13 Championships
Here’s the USATT news item.

New from ITTF

• World's Best Young Talents Unveiled for ITTF World Youth Championships 2025
• ITTF President and Advisory Commission Chair Advance Marketing Discussions
• Macao Returns to the Spotlight After An Historic ITTF World Cup 2025
• 100 Years of Table Tennis:  'A True England Table Tennis Great – Denis Neale Recounts His Career'

Hyogo: Unique Form of Table Tennis Takes Hold in Hot Spring Town, Players Use Oke Wooden Buckets Instead of Rackets
Here’s the article from The Japan News.

Ping Pong Maestro
Here are dozens of short, humorous clips!

Never Seen This Shot Before
Here’s the video (13 sec)!

Pat and Sam Table Tennis
Here’s the animated video (30 sec)!

We Challenged The Wall of India Sathiyan Gnanasekaran!
Here’s the video (9:34) from Table Tennis Daily!

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I’ve coached many choppers during a match, and coached even more matches against them. I've also chopped a lot myself, in practice and in tournaments. Chopping is one of the most “tactical” of styles for the simple reason that you need to score most points by finding a way to make the opponent miss. Overall, I’ve found that there are three key things a chopper should focus on during a match.

1. Get everything back. It sounds simple, but this is the mindset a chopper must have.
2. Never give an easy shot. No cheap or easy points for them - make them work hard for every single point. Again, this is the mindset a chopper must have.
3. Once you are in a rhythm and comfortable against their attack, that’s when you start really mixing things up. Vary your spin, placement, contact point, and perhaps look for balls to attack. The mindset here is that you can force your opponent to miss with subtle changes in your game (plus the sudden attacks that win points or throw them off).

One could write a book on how choppers win points, but these three aspects are the first three to focus on – especially the first two. But it’s hard for a chopper to win if he can’t master and have the right mindset for all three of these. Proper mindset is important for all styles, but even more so for choppers – it might be the most important thing of all for them, and a defining trait for all good ones.

Now, let’s switch sides. Suppose you’re playing a chopper who rarely misses and rarely gives you an easy ball? (We’ll focus on those two since there are a zillion variations for #3.) What can you do?

A chopper (except when he attacks or gets lucky) can’t score unless you make a mistake. So . . . don’t. Sure, that’s easier to say than to execute, but the key thing is that, just as a good chopper has a mindset of never missing and never giving an easy shot, you have to have a mindset where you won’t miss. That likely means changing from your normal game. An aggressive loop that might be high percentage against most players becomes a low percentage shot against a chopper since you have to do it over and Over and OVER. So, you have to change your mindset and focus on more consistent attacks and pushes until you get the right shot. Then, when you get that shot, take it! You have to be able to go from the mindset of playing consistent to the mindset of ending the point with decisive shots – which means you have to go back and forth between the two mindsets. The changing mindset, and knowing when to do so, is why many players have trouble with choppers.

But guess what? With experience, it becomes much easier, and you learn how strongly you can attack with consistency, and when it’s time to take the winning shot – and that becomes your mindset.

So, whether you’re a chopper or playing a chopper, just remember - it’s all about the mindset.

"I had trouble with his serve" is likely the most common reason given for losing a competitive match. There's a good reason for this - receive is the only time when the opponent can throw just about any spin at you, along with varied serving motions, placements, depths, and speeds. I know when I don't play for a time, returning serves is the most difficult thing to get back.

So, when you go into a match, when the opponent is serving, your first priority should be to get used to his serves. At the start, that usually means focusing on pure control. Just get it back at first, playing it mostly safe but with good placement, without worrying too much about being aggressive. If the opponent has tricky serves, then you may have to play much of the match that way.

It's only when you feel comfortable against the opponent's serves that you should begin to up your receive game. If you are playing someone you are used to, it might be from the very start. If the opponent has very good serves and perhaps not an overwhelming attack, you might play safe the entire time. But once you do get used to an opponent's serves, then it's time to consider turning your receive into a weapon where you use it to control the point, whether it be by playing aggressive with loops and flips, or controlling play by varying short and long pushes.

But only after you are comfortable with the opponent's serve! If that never happens, then you need to find someone with good serves like the ones that gave you trouble, and practice against them.

The stronger the player, the more predictable their attacking shots tend to be. Why? Because that’s what makes them consistent. They may be able to make a dozen strong loops in a row, but they often all come out about the same.

So, guess what? All you have to do is make one good block. Just one. Then remember the feel and contact of that one. And repeat. This is true of most shots, but even more true for blocking.

Two tips here. First, keep the racket low when blocking  or you’ll tend to loft the ball off. Second, the sound of your block should be the same each time. But that sound should also match the “feel” of the shot – if you get one, you get the other.

Once you’ve made that one good block, often all you have to do the rest of the way is that same block, over and over. The main adjustment is moving to the ball, i.e., footwork, especially side to side. (You also have to move or reach in for shorter loops.) If your opponent is making lots of strong loops, you can’t get to all of them. But once you make that one good block, then you should be able to block most of them.  

We’ve all had those matches where the opponent was just quicker, and we felt rushed in every rally. So, what can you do in such a match? Here are some tips.

1. Observe opponent’s stroke so you can see as early as possible where his shot is going.
2. Shorten your strokes.
3. Take half a step back. That’s not so far that you’ve given up the table, but it gives you that extra split second needed to react.
4. Cover the middle with the backhand.
5. Play more backhand if you are at the table, more forehand if you are off the table.
6. Put the ball in the middle of the table to cut off extreme angles.
7. Keep the ball deep.
8. Slow play down with soft, deep topspins (depth is again key).
9. Play more backspin.
10. Serve and receive long.
11. Use opponent’s own speed against him by simply rebounding his shots back with your racket – be a backboard.