USA Nationals
So . . . are you going? Here's the entry form! Online registration will open later at the 2016 USA Nationals home page.

This year there is a record 100 events, something for everyone. They include "Championship Events" (Men's and Women's Singles, Doubles, Mixed Doubles, and singles and doubles age events ranging from 10 & Under to Over 85); Rating Events (ranging from Unrated and Under 1000 to Under 2400, often split into Adult and Junior events, plus rating doubles events from Under 2700 to Under 4200); ten Hardbat and two Sandpaper events; and five Paralympic events. All entries get a free USA Nationals t-shirt.

One of the nice features of the Nationals are the venders. There'll be a lot of them! Sure, you can do your shopping online, but there's something different about being there in person, where you can browse over the merchandise in your hands. Lots and Lots and LOTS of table tennis stuff on sale! Just browsing the lines and lines of rackets and sponge can take half a day, and then there's all the other stuff – balls, shoes, clothing, towels, books (BOOKS!!!), videos, and all sorts of miscellaneous stuff – including my books. (I can autograph them.)

Next to playing, probably the best thing about the Nationals is the 1000 other table tennis people who will be there - those you know personally, those you will meet, and the many table tennis legends who will be there. Most will be happy to hobnob with you and sign autographs. USATT officials will also be there if you have anything to discuss.

Down-the-Line Pushes, Chop Blocks, and Other Adventures
Yesterday I was showing a student how you can mess up an opponent when receiving a short backspin serve to the backhand by, at the last second, dropping the racket tip and pushing short or long to the forehand. The server reacts to your racket aiming to his backhand, and so is caught off guard when you make the last-second change. Why more players don't do this I've never figured out; it's incredibly effective.

But then he began experimenting, and when I served sidespin-topspin to his backhand, he did the same thing, chop-blocking the ball down the line. It's another effective shot that few use. I found myself struggling to react to the shot, even though it was right there, to my forehand, and I've got a pretty good forehand. I've used the same shot against others, but only occasionally have others tried it against me.

Why was it so effective? Three things are happening, all causing varying degrees of calamity. First, as noted above, he'd aim to my backhand until the last second, and then change directions to the forehand. This causes the muscle memory to prematurely react to a ball to the backhand, and so you get caught off guard when it goes to the forehand. Second, since we're mostly expecting a topspin return, muscle memory again misdirects us, leading us to move to a position a step or so off the table – but since it's instead a softer backspin return (with the backspin further deadening the shot), we end up too far off the table, and so are stuck reaching for a ball dropping in front of us. And third, since we're not expecting backspin, we're caught with our racket too high, and have to last-second drop it.

USATT National Team System
Here's the new document with the USATT Statement of Core Beliefs, Team Selection Procedures, and National Team Funding Methodology. The document is 10 pages long. Pages 2-9 are about the selection procedures for the USA National Junior, Cadet, and Mini Cadet Teams, and page 10 is about funding for team members. The first page is perhaps of most interest to readers. Below is the text from page 1, starting with the Henry Ford quote.

Perhaps the most important of these is #3, about creating a "team first" culture. At various times in the past, countries such as Hungary, Sweden, Korean, and Japan challenged and beat the Chinese – and they did so by working as a team. It's somewhat eyebrow-raising, for example, that I can give a lecture on how to play most of the top USA junior players that juniors from my club often face, but have no real idea about the top juniors from China, Japan, Germany, etc. Why? Because the focus right now is on beating other USA players. That's not going to completely go away, but once we have a core group of up-and-coming players who really can challenge their rivals from around the world, it's key that our top coaches know these rivals so they can train our players to beat them, both strategically (long-term development) and tactically (tactics at the table).

Tip of the Week
React to Opponent's Swing.

Serve, Loop, and Follow Drill
Here's a basic drill I'm having a number of students do. It's a basic serve & attack drill, with minor restrictions. Starting at the intermediate level, the most common rally is where the server serves backspin, the receiver pushes, and the server loops. Let's take that one shot further.

The basic drill is similar. Server serves short backspin. Receiver pushes long to the side the server needs practice on (forehand or backhand). Server then loops, usually to a pre-arranged spot. Receiver's first block is also (not always) pre-arranged, often to the wide forehand. Then you POP – play out point. (POP is the shorthand I've used for decades.)

For example, server may serve backspin short to backhand; receiver pushes to middle; server loops forehand to receiver's backhand; receiver blocks to wide forehand; server moves wide and loops or smashes, and then POP.

There are endless variations. One important one is where receiver randomly pushes to either side, so server can practice looping from both wings (or all forehand if he's very, very fast), and learn to react to different placements. Receiver can also push quick to the middle, so server has to make a quick decision between forehand or backhand attack.

Other variations include the server's first loop going down the line, or looping anywhere. Sometimes receiver might throw in a short push so server has to react to that as well. There are endless variations. But before choosing which variation to do, ask yourself what exactly in your game needs work, and work that into the drill.

No blog today - while out of town this weekend (since Friday morning), I broke an old tooth filling, and so am off to see the dentist this morning. Plus I have a todo list longer than the Great Wall of China (which I visited in less busy times), and it didn't help that my three-hour car drive back from Williamsburg took 6.5 hours (due to 16-car pileup on I-95), and I had to then rush over to the club to coach, and so didn't get home until late last night...I'll be back to blogging tomorrow!

No Blog on Friday
I'll be out of town at Ravencon - see segment below under "Now the science fiction stuff…"

Happenings
First the serious stuff…

• I wrote about how Sameer had a great tournament this past weekend, going from 1528 to 1826. He dominated with his serves, but I see a great opening for him if he develops his reverse pendulum serves – which we're going to focus on in today's session. He also had some trouble with players who played aggressively with deader surfaces, and so I'm going to pull out a sheet of short pips for him to practice against. There's a couple of other things he needs work on, but I can't write about them here or others might tactically use them against him!
• Another student, Matt, is developing an inside-out backhand sidespin loop that you have to see to believe. Every time he pulls off this shot I practically freeze, as I'm not used to seeing it, and my muscle memory doesn't know what to do. I keep telling him this shot will make him world champion, and that the shot has no future. That way I'm covered no matter what happens.
• Recently a number of up-and-coming players at MDTTC have discovered the adjustable serving bar John Olsen had made for me a few years ago. You set the bar at various heights and serve under it, which forces you to learn to serve low to the net. (Here's a picture at a high setting, and here at a low setting.) Now they bring it out every day to practice with.

Now the funny stuff…

No Safe Lead
Here are some comebacks I've seen or heard about, including some recent ones. The key to a great comeback? Mental strength; good serve and receive choices; and general tactical play. You're near the end of a long match, so at that point if you don't know what serves, receives, and other tactics to use, you haven't been paying attention.

No blog today - as is my norm, when schools are out, I'm out! And today's election day here in Maryland. Let's all go out and vote for Donald Trump for the entertainment value, and so that in a few years, amidst the crumbling remnants of civilization, we can all smugly say to his supporters, "I told you so!" It's tempting, but I'm a moderate Democrat, so naah. 

Tip of the Week
Clean Your Racket.

Saturday Coaching at Cassels Giant Round Robin
I spent Saturday at SmashTT in Virginia at the Cassels Giant RR, coaching one of my students, 14-year-old Sameer Shaikh. Here's the tournament write-up and results, care of Director Michael Levene, who also runs and coaches at SmashTT. Sameer is featured in the writeup. The tournament ran well, and we had a great time! 

Sameer went in rated 1528, and looking for the breakthrough that he's been on the verge of for many months. The first step was getting into a good division. The format started with groups of four, with the top two going to Division A (two groups of ten players), and the next two to Division B. Sameer was seeded third, and so seeded for Division B. He faced a 1613-rated player to get into Division A. Complication #1 was that the player had short pips on the backhand, something Sameer wasn't used to playing. (How the sport has changed…) But with a few adjustments for these quick, dead shots, and a focus on keeping the ball deep (that's key when playing non-inverted surfaces), he won the match 3-1, and so advanced into Division A – where he'd be the lowest rated player. In fact, other than a 1650 player (122 points higher), the next lowest was 1813. So began his nine matches in Division A.

Things did not start well – in fact, after four matches, I was rather worried he was in for a disastrous day with his 0-4 start. Two of them were somewhat meaningless, against the top two seeds (both over 2200). Then he lost to an 1813 player who he had recently beaten at the MDTTC league. It was a match he thought he could win, so it was hard to get over it.

USATT National Coaching Program Update
Here's the USATT news item on these big changes to our national team coaching system. If you are interested in applying as a coach for one of the National Teams – I believe these would include Men, Women, Junior Boys, Junior Girls, Cadet Boys, Cadet Girls, Paralympic - you need to apply by this Monday. I'll blog about this probably next week. (I'm putting this first because of that deadline. I may move this down later on.)

USATT Board of Directors Minutes and Illegal Hidden Serves
Our long national nightmare is over . . . the minutes to the USATT Board Meeting at the USA Nationals in December is finally up – four months later! So are the minutes to USATT Board Teleconferences in January and April. They are all linked from the USATT Minutes page.

Readers of this blog and anyone who's been paying attention to the sport knows about the problem we're having with illegal hidden serves. Our sport has developed a culture of cheating, where umpires allow players to illegally hide their serves, making receive very difficult, and giving the cheating player a big advantage. (Yes, hiding your serve to gain unfair advantage is cheating, and if you don't see that, you are in denial.) Nearly every major title at the USA Nationals, U.S. Open, and major events around the world are decided by illegally hidden serves. Because players cannot fairly compete when the umpire allows an opponent to hide their serves, nearly every top player, and now nearly every top cadet (under age 15) has been forced to learn to cheat hide their serve.