June 23, 2025

NEXT BLOG JULY 7
I’ll be out of town next week at the US Nationals, so next blog will be Monday, July 7. However, not only will there be a Tip of the Week next Monday, I’ve already put it up, along with today’s! And they are:

Tips of the Week
Since I’ll be out of town next week at the US Nationals, I’ve gone ahead and put up both this week’s and next week’s Tip of the Week. Enjoy!

Off to the Nationals – Soon!
I spent most of the last ten days resting my right shoulder, right side, and right knee. Hopefully, they’ll all be A-OK for the Nationals! Either way, I’m playing – if they get re-injured, I’ll have to play through it. I do have a few practice sessions this week. Then I fly to Ontario, CA (an hour from LA) next Saturday.

I’m in nine events (yikes!). They are Over 65 Men’s Singles and Doubles; Over 60 Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles; Hardbat Singles and Doubles; Over 40 and Over 60 Hardbat Singles (I’m the defending champion from the US Open); and on the spur of the moment, I entered Sandpaper Singles, since it’s the only event I’ll be playing on Monday, June 30. I’m seeded to win medals (top four) in seven of these events. (I normally play with inverted sponge, but as readers here know, I also play a lot of hardbat events.)

I was also entered in Over 65 Mixed Doubles, where we would have been seeded third. I emailed a player who was entered in other events, asking if she wanted to play. She emailed back, “OK.” So, I entered it and stopped looking for other partners. But as the deadline approached, she hadn’t entered this event. I emailed her, and she said someone was helping her enter. Then, a couple days before the deadline, I saw that she had withdrawn from the tournament without telling me. At that point, all the potential partners where we might have been competitive were taken. Oh well!

There’s also a problem with my hardbat rating. My last hardbat tournament was the US Open in December. Last night I discovered that there were numerous errors in my rating. I had nice wins in the semifinals and finals of Over 40 and Over 60 – but none of those four matches were processed! In Hardbat Singles, I lost to a 2337 player – but he was mistakenly given a rating of 1817, so I lost a LOT of rating points. And so my hardbat rating is only 2065, but should be around 2250. (In the current listing, it’s 2308, but I think that’s an old rating – they haven’t updated it yet in Omnipong.) I emailed yesterday to get those five mistakes corrected. (Classic ratings, which include hardbat, sandpaper, and wood, are similar to USATT ratings, but are done separately.)

How to Solve the SafeSport Problem for Coaches, Umpires, and Others
Getting so many people SafeSport certified each year is a big hassle. It seems USATT could really help with this problem. Why not, on the night before the US Open and US Nationals, invite coaches, officials, and others to come together in one big room, and everyone does the course together? USATT could have a person on hand to assist with technical issues, and in one shot, everyone’s SafeSport certified! There’s the downside if someone doesn’t pass and so can’t take part in the tournament until he does – but that’s rare, and they can just take it again immediately after not passing.

Full-Time Table Tennis Clubs in the US
I keep a running list, but it’s probably getting dated. If you have any updates – full-time clubs that have opened or closed - email me with their webpage. Current listing has 117 full-time clubs in 26 states and DC. See the rough definition on the page.

Non-Table Tennis – Voteometer
Any entrepreneurial techies out there with good math skills? I created an app, Voteometer, that helps voters decide between candidates in a primary election, where they are trying to decide between voting for who they think would be the best president, and who would be the most electable. (If you vote for who want to be president, even if he’s not that electable, you are likely to help elect the opposing party’s candidate.) The app asks users to rate the candidates, and to judge the probability they’d win against each of the opposing party’s candidates – and once these subjective judgements are inputted, it works out the probability of each scenario and gives an absolutely objective recommendation on who to vote for to get the maximum possible result on average. However, it needs a number of enhancements, and I’ve taken it as far as I can. If you are interested in taking this over – and having complete control in developing and marketing it - email me and I’ll send you the four-page document about it, along with a link and password to the current version. (I don’t need any recompense for this other than being listed as the originator and/or co-creator. I have a math degree from circa the Jurassic period.)

Dora Kurimay Free Live Seminar: Unlock Your Champion
Mental Toughness & Growth Mindset Strategies for Life, Sport, and Success
Dora will be running this free one-hour seminar on Zoom from 4-5PM on Wed, June 25. (I will be attending.) Bonus - All participants will receive a free mental performance worksheet and exclusive mindset insights from Dora’s published books. She’s a former member of the Hungarian National Team, now coaching in New York. She’s a sports psychologist with two Master’s degrees, one in psychology, the other in sports psychology. She also has a few books on table tennis sports psychology.

MDTTC Open
It was held this past weekend. Here are the results!

WTT Youth Contender in New York
Here’s the info page for the event held Jun 24-27 at the Westchester TTC.

Butterfly Training Tips and Highlights

New from Pingispågarna

Short or Half-Long Service Receive
Here’s the video (5:27) from Andrea Levenko.

Long Side-Topspin Pendulum Serve
Here’s the video (3:10) from PongSpace. For other videos showing other types of forehand pendulum serves (linked to last week) see their video page.

Master Your Table Tennis Development: The Strategic Power of Goal Setting
Here’s the article by Dr. Alan Chu from Paddle Palace.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Waldner Gave Timo Boll Nightmares!
Here’s the video (40 sec) from MH Table Tennis, where Timo talks about the “legendary” walk-off block Waldner did against him.

The Man Who Never Gave Up
Here’s the video (6:31) featuring Michael Maze from TacoBackhand.

Wang Hao: The Greatest Player Who Never Won Olympic Gold
Here’s the video (6:11) from Beyond the Podium.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

Retro TT Channel
Here’s where you can find videos of old-time players – blasts from the past!

New from ITTF

Ping Pong Shirts
Red Bubble has an incredible variety of ping-pong shirts. The link takes you to page 1 of 25 pages!

200 Ping Pong Jokes
Here’s the page from Punsify – but most are rather dumb. I think AI came up with these.

I Would've Been Friends with Stalin If He Had a Ping Pong Table
Here’s the segment from Seinfeld (22 sec)!

“I’m the only one who can help Godzilla with his form!”
Here’s the cartoon and every table tennis coach’s dream scenario.

NO MERCY: Adam vs. Kao Cheng-jui
Here’s the video (10:38) from Adam Bobrow! Kao is the 2025 Men’s Doubles Silver Medalist, former World #1 Under 19, and current World #24 from Taiwan. The two played previously – but this time, as Kao says, “No mercy!”

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