Coaching Updates

I had some interesting coaching sessions yesterday. Here's a rundown on three of them, with their permission - plus a fourth who just won three titles!

• Audrey Weisiger - She's the former USA Olympic skating coach I've blogged about before. She is determined to win against some of her fellow skating coaches, with one in particular in mind. As I blogged about recently, she's gone to long pips on the backhand, no sponge, and it's working really well. She is getting pretty good at keeping the ball in play, can block loops and drive back pretty consistently now, and can return my spinniest serves. (The coach she has in mind has a spinny serve, both forehand and backhand.) She also can do a consistent push-block against pushes, which comes back with topspin. She needs more work on the forehand. She can hit forehand to forehand pretty well, but her stroke tends to be too long, and she tends to wander off the table, which doesn't work well if you are blocking with long pips on the backhand. Also, since her backhand will tend to have backspin, many of her opponent's shots will be...

J.J. Hardy and Brady Anderson at MDTTC

J.J. Hardy is the star shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. (He's the reigning gold glove winner with 52 homers the last two seasons and a former All-Star.) Brady Anderson was the Orioles star center fielder for 13 of his 15 major league seasons, where he was a 3-time all-star, and once hit 50 homers in a season. They are true baseball stars.

But they are also pretty good at table tennis! With the Orioles having a day off from playing, they spent four hours at the Maryland Table Tennis Center last night, 4-8PM. I gave them a private coaching session the first two hours, and then they hit with our local juniors. I knew in advance that JJ was the Orioles best TT player - they have a table in their clubhouse, and NOBODY beats JJ. Brady is their #2. But how good could they be, considering they hadn't had coaching? I was expecting "basement stars," perhaps 1200 level at most. Boy was I wrong! Both came with their own sponge rackets in racket cases.

JJ's around 1850. Strengths: fast rallying and good serves, and adjusts quickly to opponents. Weaknesses: return of serve and against spin...

Professional Franchise League System

One way to get a professional league for top players going in the U.S. would be a franchise system. How would it work? Here's a rough outline - feel free to make changes.

It would start in a populated region, with a committed Commissioner getting it started. Perhaps eight league owners would be solicited, each representing a different club or region, with each owner paying perhaps a $5000 franchise fee. What would be the owner's incentive? That owner would have perpetual rights to that franchise. If the league were to take off, they could become very rich.

Each team would have three players minimum, with team matches best of nine. If there were eight teams in the league, with each playing the other team twice, there would be 14 team matches for each team, half played at home, half played on the other teams home clubs.

Income would be generated by franchise fees, ticket sales, refreshment sales, and sponsors. The franchise fees and 20% of ticket sales would go to a Commissioner and league expenses.

The Commissioner would be in charge of...

Sidespin Loops

In the late 1970s I went to several Seemiller camps. One of the things I learned there is that looping with sidespin was a good thing, and that a natural loop generally has something like 15% sidespin. This is for two reasons. First, the natural contact point of the ball is lower than the shoulder, so the arm is tilted down, and so it naturally contacts the ball somewhat on the outside, which puts sidespin on the ball. And second, if you meet a loop straight on with pure topspin, you are going up directly against the incoming topspin, and so it's better to contact it more on the side so as not to have to go up against it directly. (Here's a Tip of the Week I wrote last year on Sidespin Loops.)

There's even more to it than that. One of the things I've pointed out to some of my students is that you get a more natural hooking sidespin on your loop if you take the ball either early or late. If you take it early, your natural contact point will be more on the outside of the ball, since your arm will be tilted forward. (This is the right side for a...