October 23, 2012

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:

  • High balls - but beware, sometimes a somewhat high ball can be tricky to put away if it's deep on the table with lots of spin.
  • Balls that land in the middle of the table depth-wise, i.e. not too long or too short. With practice, these balls are easy to loop or hit.
  • Balls where, with experience, you get that feel for when you've read the ball perfectly and know you can make the shot. This mostly happens when you are "in the zone."

What I Did Yesterday
This past weekend I ran the Butterfly MDTTC October Open. (See the story, photos, and results in my blog yesterday.) Here's what I did yesterday (straight from my todo list, with these items now crossed off), mostly TT related, much of it tournament related. I had only one hour of coaching scheduled, but the student was sick and cancelled. (I just realized that I never left my house yesterday, unless you count letting my dog in and out.) Yeah, this was my day off....

  • Wrote and posted the weekly Tip of the Week. ("Turn Opponents into Puppets with Long Serves.")
  • Wrote and posted my daily blog.
  • Did the USATT Tournament Report for memberships and ratings for USATT. (Will mail out this morning.)
  • Typed up results.
  • Wrote article on tournament for USATT Magazine, Butterfly, and my blog.
  • Fixed up the photos from the tournament, added captions, and put online, and sent to Butterfly.
  • Wrote press release for the tournament and sent to local media.
  • Wrote up a list of possible enhancements for the creator of the Omnipong program that I used to run the tournament.
  • Did the tournament accounting.
  • Did the accounting for the MDTTC weekend junior program.
  • Edited a new MDTTC brochure that Butterfly made for us.
  • Wrote up an application for sponsorship to a major table tennis company for a local junior star.
  • Answered 20+ emails.
  • Watched the Presidential debate.
  • Read for an hour and went to bed.

Scoring Against Ariel
Here's an article in yesterday's issue of Slate called "Smashed: My quest to win a point against one of the world's best table tennis players." The author relates his attempt to score a single point against U.S. Women's Champion and Olympian Ariel Hsing.

Multi-Table-Ball
Forget Multi-ball - it's Chinese Multi-table-ball! Here's the video (3:43). I've done this at my club in the past, though not recently. Time to revive these types of drills?

Point of the European Championships
Here's the last point of the quarterfinal match between eventual champion for the sixth time Timo Boll of Germany (the lefty) and Andrej Gacina of Croatia. The video (2:36) replays the point in slow motion.

Photos from the European Championships
Here's a photo album (347 photos) from the European Championships that finished this past weekend in Herning, Denmark. (As noted in my blog yesterday and last week, here are ITTF articles on it, and here's the home page for the event, with complete results.)

500 MPH Ping-Pong Ball Cannon
In this video (6:49), Professor Harold Stokes uses a ping-pong cannon to demonstrate to his physics class the effects of air pressure. He puts a ping-pong ball into a sealed tube, pumps out all the air, and then punctures one side. The air rushes in, and shoots the ball out the other side at 500mph. He does it three times in the video, but the ball moves too fast to see, and ends up shattered each time. The second time he shoots it through a piece of plywood (leaving a ping-pong ball sized hole). The third time he uses a human target - himself! You get to see the welt at the end.
***
Send us your own coaching news!