September 15, 2025

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

Fethomania
With Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

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

Improvised Two-Table Drill

Here’s the video (16 sec)!

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

Major League Table Tennis Launches

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

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

New from ITTF

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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