Blogs

Larry Hodges' Blog and Tip of the Week will normally go up on Mondays by 2:00 PM USA Eastern time. Larry is a member of the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame, a USATT Certified National Coach, a professional coach at the Maryland Table Tennis Center (USA), and author of ten books and over 2100 articles on table tennis, plus over 1900 blogs and over 600 tips. Here is his bio. (Larry was awarded the USATT Lifetime Achievement Award in July, 2018.)

Make sure to order your copy of Larry's best-selling book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers!
Finally, a tactics book on this most tactical of sports!!!

Also out - Table Tennis TipsMore Table Tennis Tips, Still More Table Tennis Tips, and Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips, which cover, in logical progression, his Tips of the Week from 2011-2023, with 150 Tips in each!

Or, for a combination of Tales of our sport and Technique articles, try Table Tennis Tales & Techniques. If you are in the mood for inspirational fiction, The Spirit of Pong is also out - a fantasy story about an American who goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis, trains with the spirits of past champions, and faces betrayal and great peril as he battles for glory but faces utter defeat. Read the First Two Chapters for free!

Tip of the Week
July 26: Don't "Guide" Your Loop.
Aug. 2: Practice Service Spin … on a Rug!

Writing and Table Tennis Advice
I just finished up a nine-day TNEO online science fiction & fantasy writing workshop, an annual event I go to nearly every year. (This was my twelfth one and ninth in a row.) It's nine days of total writer immersion, with story critiques, master classes, readings, brainstorming & problem-solving sessions, plot breakout sessions, and writing salons on various topics. (Think of it as a training camp for writers.)

There was a discussion about when a story is done. Some writers spend way too much time trying to "perfect" a story, sometimes holding onto it for years as they keep rewriting and reworking it, trying for that absolutely "perfect" story. The result is they don't write much else (and so don't improve as a writer nor have other stories to sell), and (reality check) the story doesn't actually get much better after a certain point. I spoke up and pointed out this was similar to what happens to some table tennis players. They constantly try to fix even their best shots, trying for "perfect" technique, and so never can really groove the shot, since it's always changing. Or they play a match where they keep trying find the "perfect" tactics, rather than finding and using ones that work, and so end up losing.

You should strive for "perfection" - but there is a point where it becomes counter-productive. Find the right balance.

One small tidbit - the participants keep track of funny statements made by others in the various sessions, and they are all published at the end of the week. Here are three quotes from me - all completely out of context, of course!

  • "I was glad that Diane died early." -Larry
  • "If you put a cicada named Bob on the table, you have to use him." -Larry
  • "The fastest rejection I ever got was 4 minutes." -Larry

1800th Published Table Tennis Article
One week ago I had my 1800th published table tennis article: Don't "Guide" Your Loop. It's also published on the Butterfly page.) This is in addition to over 1800 blog entries - if you include both, it's over 3600. Overall, I've had exactly 2040 published articles in 173 different publications and 17 books. Outside table tennis, the articles include 63 non-table tennis articles on various topics, including science, writing, and 33 on the Baltimore Orioles. It also includes 119 science fiction & fantasy stories (plus 40 reprints) that I've sold. The books include nine on table tennis,, eight science fiction & fantasy (four novels and four short story collections), and one travel book (Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt: Seven Weeks Following Tour Guides with Little Flags and Funny Hats, and the Quest for the Elusive Dr Pepper). That adds up to 18 books because my fantasy table tennis novel "The Spirit of Pong" counts twice, as both table tennis and SF & fantasy.

Maryland Table Tennis Center Featured in Chinese World Journal
Here are the three stories published on July 21. They are in Chinese, so I can't read them directly, alas. (I did an online translation, but it comes out poorly.) They have a number of pictures. (I put this in my previous blog, but it went up several days late.)

MDTTC Opens
After a nearly two-year break, the Maryland Table Tennis Center is back to running tournaments in Gaithersburg. (See the Maryland entry in Omnipong.) They will hold one next weekend, Aug. 7-8, and others in Sept, Oct, and Nov. I ran them for many years - I've run exactly 203 USATT tournaments (almost all of them two-day events), but I'm now retired from that. I trained Klaus Wood to take over a few years ago, but now he's off to college. So Coach Wang Qingliang has taken over as tournament director. I'll be there to help out if needed and to coach some of our players. (I'll probably be showing up coaching at various upcoming regional tournaments - not sure which ones yet.)

2021 US Open
It's August, and we still don't know when or where the US Open will be. It should be in December, usually the week or so before Christmas. I've heard rumors about five cities interested in holding it, but if I list them, I'll probably get a call from the USATT lawyer. :) Since I don't know if the list is correct, I'll hold off. I hope USATT decides on this soon - people do need to make plans, plus you get more entries if people know well in advance and you can keep advertising it.

Tragic 'Spy' Who Sparked China's Table Tennis Domination
Here's the article featuring Rong Guotuan, from barrons.com. "In 1959, Rong became China's first world champion in any sport when he won the men's table tennis title, before committing suicide in his early 30s during the country's chaotic Cultural Revolution." He was "framed as a suspected spy." (He also coached the Chinese Women's Team to their first team title in 1965.) Rong is featured in my fantasy table tennis novel, "The Spirit of Pong" - he teaches "The Mind of Pong," but extracts a heavy price in return - he forces the student to relive what he went through during the Cultural Revolution.

USA Table Tennis Olympic Coverage by Mark Thompson

Olympic Table Tennis Links

Table Tennis Links
Rather than put together a somewhat comprehensive list of all the table tennis articles and videos that went up over the last two weeks while I was away, here are links to some of the major sites that had lots of things going up during that time. Enjoy! Next week I'll go back to listing them more individually.

NCTTA’s Summer Party - Sunday, August 8th @ 8pmET!
Here's the info page for the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association party.

Coaches Corner - How to Prepare for An Important Tournament
Here's the article by Wang Qingliang.

Multiball - Elevating Your Game by Training Under Uncomfortable Realistic Conditions
Here's the video (47 sec) from Eli Baraty.

Table Tennis with an Olympic Player
Here's the video (5:16) featuring 9-time Finland Champion Benedek Olah, from Pongfinity. Some very nice drills demonstrated here, especially the ones that start with a serve.

Interview with Matt Hetherington
Here's the video (11:20) by Samson Dubina. Topic is Matt's experience with the Chinese National Team.

3 Reasons Why Table Tennis is an Awesome Sport to Watch
Here's the article by Matt Hetherington.

2021 USA National Championship VLOG
Here's the video (5:53) from Seth Pech.

Left-Handed Tom Forced into Retirement!
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

Table Menaces: Why do so many top-level athletes have a need to be the best ping-pong player in the room?
Here's the article from Sports Illustrated. I wish they had contacted me - I could have told them about the ping-pong battles that went on in the Baltimore Orioles clubhouse a few years ago, with three of them taking lessons from me - Brady Anderson, J.J. Hardy, and Darren O'Day.

Soon Yeon Lee: Table Tennis Star Turned Hollywood Celebrity Coach
Here's the article.

The Art and Sport of Table Tennis
Here's the video (1:48) featuring Scott Preiss.

Table Tennis Prank
Here's the video (15 sec)!

Snakeman Unleashed!
Here's the video (8:13) from Adam Bobrow!

China vs. Germany - Funny Table Tennis Stereotypes
Here's the video (8:37) from XOLAY! "We tried something different today. How do you like it? Please don´t take it too serious."

Comedy Table Tennis & Funniest Moments
Here's the video (8 min) from Table Tennis Central!

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Tip of the Week for July 19
What Do You Do That Threatens Your Opponent?

Tip of the Week for July 26
Don't "Guide" Your Loop.

No Blog Next Week (July 26), But There Will Be a Tip
From July 23-31 I'll be in an intensive online science fiction writing workshop, "The Never-Ending Odyssey," which I attend each year, along with other graduates of the Odyssey SF Writing Workshop. (This is my 12th TNEO, including nine in a row. They normally are in Manchester, NH, but now they are online.) As many readers know, outside table tennis I'm also a science fiction writer with four novels (including my fantasy table tennis novel, "The Spirit of Pong," which you must read) and 119 short story sales (159 if you include resales). I'll be involved in writerly activities pretty much all day and night for those nine days. Don't worry, I'll make sure to shadow practice between sessions and will even wear various table tennis/science fiction shirts I've picked up over the years, such as my Pongsaurus shirt! So next blog will be Aug. 2. However, I will put up a Tip of the Week next Monday, July 26. (And while 119 short sales may seem like a lot, but it's dwarfed by my 1799 published articles on table tennis - not including another 1800+ blog entries! Yeah, my next published TT article will be #1800. Here's my complete bibliography.)

Olympic Table Tennis
It takes place in Tokyo, July 24 - Aug. 6, though few will see it since no spectators are allowed. Here's where you can follow the table tennis action from the ITTF.

Since the ITTF hasn't yet put up the schedule, here's the schedule directly from Olympics.com. Also, see the section on Olympic Table Tennis below.

BREAKING NEWS - This NBC site will be streaming table tennis live

Long Pips and Short Pips and Antispin, Oh My!
At the Nationals, one of our top juniors, Stanley Hsu, had to play someone with antispin who he'd lost to previously in an upset. As I wrote in my blog last week, I searched the playing hall and found Dan Seemiller Jr., who lent me his backup racket with anti. I practiced with Stanley for almost half an hour with the racket, and it paid off - he went into the match comfortable against the anti this time and won easily.

But I shouldn't have had to search for an anti racket - I already had one made up. I simply hadn't packed it for the Nationals, to save on baggage. We also had several matches where our kids played against short and long pips players. I had brought long pips rackets (both with and without sponge) but not short pips. I've now made a vow to never show up at a tournament as a coach where I don't bring the entire collection. I have a large four-racket case, and I filled it up with four rackets, each with inverted on one side, and an "off" surface on the other - long pips with sponge, long pips without sponge, short pips (a new sheet I just got), and antispin. I also always have my hardbat in a separate case, in case that comes up. Including my regular inverted racket, that's six rackets I'll be bringing to all tournaments, not to mention having handy in practice. (I used to do this at major tournaments, but sometimes got lazy to save on baggage.) 

Maryland Table Tennis Center Featured in Chinese World Journal
Here are the three stories published on July 21. They are in Chinese, so I can't read them directly, alas. (I did an online translation, but it comes out poorly.) They have a number of pictures.

RIP Charles "Bubba" Butler
Here's the legacy obit. He was a top ten player in the US in the late 1970s/early 1980s before moving to Germany to play in the German leagues, and later to coach. (He also apparently played TT at halftimes with the Harlem Globetrotters.) I hadn't seen or heard of him until this came up. There's little info in the obit other than the note on lower left from Merle Grall. He's been hiding under the radar - I couldn't find a picture of him online, not even from long ago.

Tokyo Vlog #1 - My Final Preparations
Here's the video (3:25) from Timo Boll.

Backhand Topspin Your Biomechanical Description, Part 1 of 3
Here's the video (1:51) from Performance Biomechanics Table Tennis.

How to Do an ADVANCED Forehand TOPSPIN/LOOP
Here's the video (6:23) from Dublin TTC.

Why You SHOULD Be Making Excuses!
Here's the video (5:07) from Louis Levene.

Seth Pech vs Sid Naresh $3000 Open FINALS 2021
Here's the video (6:23) as Seth gives great point-by-point analysis.

Developing Tough Placement
Here's the video (34 sec) from Eli Baraty.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
Here's his video page with LOTS of new stuff this past week!

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

New from Edges and Nets

Left-Handed Challenge - Match Report 1
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

Mostly Messy Tournament Experiences
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Binghamton University Student is Table Tennis Phenom
Here's the article from the Bing U News, featuring Kai Zhang and Will Shortz. "By the time he started his freshman year at Binghamton University, Kai Zhang had been the subject of scrutiny, speculation and a story in The New Yorker. He is a table tennis phenom who started playing at age 6 in Beijing, China. At 15, he moved — by himself — to the United States to pursue greater opportunities for both his sport and his education. His guardian is Will Shortz, a man who has not missed a day playing table tennis in more than five years. And yes, he's that Will Shortz: NPR puzzle master and New York Times crossword editor."

I've Outlasted Them All': the Spectacular Life of the World's Most Powerful Crossword Editor
Here's the article from The Guardian that features Will Shortz - puzzlist and table tennis player & owner.

New Guinness World Record for Longest Table Tennis Serve Set in Pleasantville
Here's the video (1:53) from the News 12 at Westchester, featuring Eric Finkelstein.

Adam Bobrow on His Love for Table Tennis
Here's the article from The Telegraph India. "'The Voice of Table Tennis', in a candid chat opens up about his Olympics debut as a commentator."

Katy Table Tennis Academy Starts 'em Young in Hopes of Producing National Champion
Here's the article from Khou 11 in Texas.

74-year-old Table Tennis Paralympian Coaches, Inspires Younger Players
Here's the article and video (2:19) from News 7 in Miami, featuring Terese Terranova.

=>BEGIN OLYMPIC TABLE TENNIS

Chinese Table Tennis Team Arrives for Tokyo Olympic Games
Here's the article form Xinhua Net.

What Makes China a Dynasty in Table Tennis, Particularly at the Olympics
Here's the article from First Post.

South Korean Table Tennis Legend Ryu Tests Positive Upon Arrival for Tokyo 2020
Here's the article from Xinhua Net on the 2004 Olympic Men's Singles Gold Medalist Ryu Seung-min.

The African Table Tennis Star Hoping to End Chinese Dominance
Here's the article from DW featuring Aruna Quadri.

Aruna Quadri Makes Top 15 Seeding List In Table Tennis
Here's the article from Complete Sports. Also talks about the other top seeds.

Five Table Tennis Stars to Watch Out For
Here's the article from Sport Star: The Hindu.

Tokyo Olympics: Indian Table Tennis Players Profile, Ranking, Opponents, Form Guide
Here's the article from Sports Star: The Hindu.

India's Table-Tennis Contingent For Tokyo Olympics Best Ever, Says Sharath Kamal
Here's the article from NDTV Sports.

How Table Tennis Player Manika Batra Didn't Even Have a Table to Practice on During Lockdown
Here's the article from India Today.

Olympic Glossary: Pimpled Rubber, Acne of the Table Tennis Kind
Here's the article from the Indian Express.

=>END OLYMPIC TABLE TENNIS

New from Steve Hopkins

Table Tennis Amidst the Pandemic

Here's the article by Angie Tan.

2021 World Table Tennis Championships is Ready for Lift-off in Houston

Here's the ITTF article. They take place Nov. 23-29 - alas, during the North American Teams, where I'll be coaching, with 1000 players and lots of other coaches and parents, all missing the Worlds in the US because they scheduled the Worlds at the same time as the Teams. Tickets go on sale in August.

ITTF World Rankings

Here are the July 13 World Rankings, and here's an ITTF article that features six top players: Mima Ito (JPN, world #2), Ma Long (CHN, #3) Cheng I-Ching (TPE, #8), Dimitrij Ovtcharov (GER, #9), Petrissa Solja (GER, #20), and Prithika Pavade (FRA, #390, age 16).

COVID-19 Disruption Sees New Qualification System Adopted for World Table Tennis Championships
Here's the article from Inside the Games.

ITTF News
Here's their news pagevideo page ("World Table Tennis") and home page.

2021 Nationals Highlights from Aziz Zarehbin
Here's the video (4:35). Aziz won Under 2450, made the semifinals of Under 19 Boys, and quarterfinals of Under 17 Boys.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

8 Minutes of Drop Shots in Table Tennis
Here's the video from Rational Table Tennis Analysis.

New from Table Tennis Central

X GOAT - Greatest Of All Time
Here's the video (14:21) from XOLAY!

"I Like Table Tennis & Maybe 3 People"
Here's where you can get the shirt at Amazon!

"I Literally Do Not Even Remember What We Do Here"
Here's the cartoon!

Home Depot Pong
Here's the video (21 sec)! (While it looks like a Home Depot, the two players are wearing some uniform with what looks like the top of a hammer as a logo. Let me know if you know what store this actually is.)

Non-Table Tennis - Science Fiction & Fantasy Story Sales
I've sold three short stories in the past two weeks. They are:

  • "Madam Hitler" to New Myths Magazine. What happens if a time traveling tourist shows up as Hitler is about to shoot himself on April 30, 1945, and inadvertently gives him a device that allows him to trade bodies with someone else, allowing him to escape? Story has a huge climax with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all in a room together. (Don't worry, things won't go well for these baddies.)
  • "Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached" to Galaxy's Edge. We finally find out how and why God (and his overworked angel engineers) created gravity, dark matter, strings, and other strange things when He created the universe. Nothing controversial here!!!
  • "The Devil's Backbone" to Alternative Deathiness Anthology. What happens when an ice cream man dies and is forced to live his "afterlife" in a colony on the backbone of the Devil himself? It starts with the craziest chase scene I've ever written - the ice cream man in his truck trying to evade the huge hand and incredibly long arm of the Devil.

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Tip of the Week
Playing the Non-Adjuster. (There was no blog last week while I was at the US Nationals, but in case you missed it, there was a Tip - Changing the Pace.)

2021 US Nationals
I had a great time at the Nationals last week in Las Vegas, July 4-9. The players I coached did very well, and in between coaching I managed to squeeze in two gold medals myself!!! However, as usual, due to my coaching and hardbat, I didn't get to see as many high-level matches as others. (When they were playing the Men's and Women's Finals I had to go online to find out who they'd beaten in the semifinals.) A great thanks to the many staff who did an INCREDIBLE job, given the difficult parameters they had to work under.

Here are a few links:

I was one of the coaches from the Maryland Table Tennis Center (along with Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Qingliang Wang), which dominated the Under 13 Boys' Singles. Stanley Hsu won it, Mu Du made the Semifinals, and Ryan Lin and Winston Wu made the quarterfinals. (The latter two will still be eligible next year.) I coached many of their matches and have worked extensively with them in the past. A lot of our other players also had great results, with James Zhang and Todd Klinger both having breakthrough tournaments. Can't wait for the new ratings!!! (They might be out today.)

Temperatures hit a high of 114 F during the tournament, but we never noticed as the Mandalay Bay Hotel is connected directly to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, so it was a brisk ten-minute walk each way. (In fact, the AC was almost too high - I had to wear my warmup jacket most of the time.) There were a number of restaurants at the hotel, but more importantly an eatery a few hundred yards from the playing site, so that's where I had nearly all my breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. (Subway was open 24 hours and served breakfast, and between that, the Chinese place, and the pizza place, I was happy with the food - though it was pretty expensive.) One problem - there was no water available at the playing hall. This likely had to do with the Pandemic, but they really should find some way around this. Players had to choose between paying extremely high prices for bottles of water, or making a special trip to nearby stores for cases of water. Fortunately, I was in an entourage (ten kids, ten parents, four coaches), and the parents went out and bought everyone cases of water.

I heard there were various types of entertainment in Las Vegas, such as gambling, huge swimming pools, shows, and so on, but I will never know for sure as I was at the playing hall every day from 8AM to at least 9PM.

We arrived on Friday so the kids could get a day and a half to get used to the conditions. There was some confusion about when the playing hall would open. We were initially told setup would take place on Sunday morning, and that the hall might not be open for practice until near 1PM, which is when the first event was scheduled. So we contacted the two local full-time clubs, conveniently named the Las Vegas TTC and the Vegas TTC. We ended up doing a three-hour session at the Vegas TTC on Saturday morning and early afternoon. And then we received word that USATT had started setup early, and that the playing hall would be open Saturday after all! So we arranged a 90-minute session that night as well, along with a session on Sunday morning. Yeah, we work the kids hard!

We ran into some issues with the scheduling. We had four kids in Under 13 Boys' Singles, the primary event for all of them. Three of them were seeded out of the RR groups, but we didn't know that until I think Saturday night or Sunday morning. And so, rather than play at 1PM Sunday, as scheduled, they didn't play until Wednesday at noon! They were all primed to play, so that was a bit disappointing. So they focused on other events. This was because of the decision to run all of the RR groups in all events first, and then run the single elimination portion. This meant that players who won or were seeded out of their RR groups had to wait days before they played the SE part. In the case of Under 13 Boys, they had to wait three days. (More on this below.)

I singlehandedly averted the largest crisis ever to face USA Table Tennis. On Sunday, I had pizza for lunch. I went to the long row of tables at the back of the hall to watch a match that one of our other coaches was coaching. After finishing, I looked around and discovered there were no trash cans in the back of the hall. Others were also having lunch and had the same problem. So, what do you do when you have trash and no trash cans? Yes, it gets piled onto the floor. So, being a superhero wannabe, I emailed USATT COO Mark Thompson - and lo and behold, the following morning, there were trash cans in the back! Trashcangate was averted. Once again, I am an unsung hero.

Lots of crazy things happened in the matches I coached. I wish I could give some of the tactical stuff, but that would be giving away trade secrets that could hurt our players! Here's a rough rundown:

  • Stanley Hsu, rated 2311 at age 12, had a bad loss a couple of months ago to a shakehands player who dead-blocked everything with antispin. He had to play him again. I frantically raced about the playing hall looking for someone with an anti-racket - and found Dan Seemiller Jr.! (He's head coach at the El Paso TTC.) He lent me his spare racket. I blocked for Stanley for almost half an hour - and this time he won at 5,4,1. Yes, practice makes a difference.
  • I coached Stanley in the semifinals of Under 13 Boys, against He Xianyao. He'd beaten him at the Under 13 Team Trials a few weeks ago - I'd also coached that match - and we had a good game plan. But things didn't go quite as planned. Stanley lost the first two at 7 and 9 (leading 9-7 that last game). He won the third 11-8. In the fourth, down 6-8, I called a timeout - and once again, we picked the right serves and tactics as he won five of the next six points to win 11-9. He came alive in the fifth to win the match, -7,-9,8,9,6, and make the finals. Only - his opponent in the final, Patryk Zyworonek (2214, the second seed), had to default to catch a flight. More on that below.
  • James Zhang had been going five games over and over in recent tournaments with players rated from 2200 to 2400 but hadn't been able to pull out the fifth. He finally had his breakthrough - but in hilarious fashion! He beat a "2087" player deuce in the fifth. I was the one who got to tell him the player was actually rated 2337! (The 2087 was an old rating and the player had played a recent tournament that had just been processed.) Here's video of his match with the 2337 player (13 sec). James, Todd Klinger, and Christian Funderberg all had breakout tournaments.
  • Lance Wei (2015) played a 2189 player. He lost the first two and was down 8-10 match point. I called a timeout. After a sports psychology pep talk, I called two serves. The opponent missed both! Lance won the next point, and reused one of the serves I'd called earlier - and the opponent missed it again! (Sometimes the magic works.) It went into the fifth, with Lance up 6-2. Alas, it was not to be. But he'd later beat a 2157 player. He's going to shoot up over the next year.
  • One match I coached was a bit crazy. Suffice to say he was down 6-10 in the second and 2-8, 8-10 in the third and won both.

As I usually do, I also played in the hardbat events at the Nationals. (I'm normally a sponge player but play hardbat on the side.) I won Over 40 Hardbat Singles for the seventh time, and won Over 60 Hardbat Singles in my first time eligible. (Here are the USATT Leaderboards.) Didn't lose a game in either event, the only two I played. I've won Hardbat Open Singles twice, but that was long ago, when I was much younger. I've also won Hardbat Doubles 13 times, but due to the pandemic, they had no doubles events this year. I had to default out of Hardbat Singles due to conflicts with my coaching, and twice I came very close to getting defaulted from the other two events due to showing up late because of coaching duties.

On Thursday night I attended the USATT Hall of Fame Banquet. Inductees this year were Roman Tinyszin (contributor), Christian Lillieroos (contributor), Sebastian DeFrancesco (athlete), and Pam Fontaine (athlete). (The latter two are para athletes.) Getting the Lifetime Achievement Award was David Sakai - who, circa 1981-1985 and again in the early 1990s, I practiced regularly with. (These were actually last year's inductees, but they had to cancel the Nationals due to the pandemic, so they were honored this year.) I've been doing the Hall of Fame Program Booklet every year starting in 2009 - here is this year's! (If you want to browse all the past years, go to the USATT Hall of Fame Annual Dinner page, and scroll past the bios at the start. All of the programs are there, from 1979 to present - I scanned all the old ones myself.) The banquet went well and was efficiently run by Hall of Fame Chair Sean O'Neill. 

Covid wasn't really an issue. Most (like myself) were vaccinated, and masks were not required. Fortunately, the tournament did not enforce some of the Covid restrictions on the entry form, such as, "No more than two persons [other than tournament officials] are permitted inside the field of play while preparing for competition or actual competition play at any time," "Participants are not permitted to be closer than six feet to the Tournament Director's work area," and "No food is allowed inside the competition venue." I and pretty much everyone else broke these rules.

And now we get to the problems of the tournament - and the following is meant both as reporting and a todo list of things that USATT can do to improve their future major tournaments. (Though much of it is more about this specific tournament and the unique situation that the threat of Covid caused.)

Way back in January or February USATT decided that, because of Covid, they would run the entire tournament single elimination. The reasons given seem contradictory. (I've blogged about this.) I was initially told it was because they were worried about a small turnout because of the pandemic, and so didn't want to lock themselves into a larger hall that they couldn't afford without a large turnout. But if they rented a smaller hall and then got a large turnout, they'd be stuck trying to run it with the usual RRs. So they decided to rent a smaller hall and run it all SE. (They also scheduled most of the SEs to start early, on Sunday or Monday, which makes sense if you are running all SE events.) I argued with them at the time, pointing out that by the time of the Nationals all non-juniors who chose to would be vaccinated, and that with no Nationals or Open since 2019, there was a hunger for the Nationals and there would be a large turnout in Las Vegas if they ran it like normal. They didn't agree, and so we were stuck with a hall that had room for only 45 tables, less than half the norm. Then, at the April USATT board meeting, CEO Virginia Sung said, "The reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." This seemed to contradict the initial reason given. Communication does not seem a strength of this administration.

Since they were not running doubles events (due to Covid), that helped with time scheduling. Players were limited to only six events, which was disappointing to players who wanted to play both age and rating events and had to pick which ones to skip. However, about a week before the deadline to enter, with entries very low, they decided to go RR after all. There was a last-minute influx of entries, which brought them to the current listing of 526 players. (Earlier the listing had 557 or more, but apparently many of those were regional winners who never entered the Nationals and so were taken out after email queries, though others were left in since USATT wasn't sure if they meant to play or not and were not able to contact them.) The ratings show that there were 490 players in the tournament (which included players who only played in hardbat or sandpaper events). Historically, this makes it the second smallest Nationals ever, less than the 502 at the 2011 Nationals in Virginia Beach, but more than the 335 at the 1986 Nationals in Pittsburgh, and by far the least ever at Las Vegas, where it is traditionally held. (The ratings aren't actually up as I write this, but it appears in the rating list with the number of players. Presumably, it will be processed today. I'll link to them in the bullet list above when they go up.)

But now they were stuck trying to run all of these events, with RR, with about 500 players on just 45 tables, with most of the events starting early in the tournament rather than spaced throughout, as was usually done. Normally, an RR event is followed closely by the SE portion, so that most events start and finish within two days.

Since all of the junior events started on Sunday and Monday, it was assumed they'd be done on by Tuesday or Wednesday. So the rest of my "entourage" (ten kids, ten parents, and the other three coaches) were all scheduled to fly home on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I was the only one scheduled to stay to the end, on Friday, since I was planning on playing in the hardbat events scheduled to start on Thursday. Alas, the only way the tournament could stay on time, with the scheduling from when they planned all SE, was to run all the RR groups first, and then run the SE's. And so many of the events our kids were playing on Monday wouldn't finish until Thursday! Result - I was the only one in my entourage who didn't have to change his flight. The other 23 all had to change theirs, often paying additional fees to do so. The same thing was happening to players, parents, and coaches from all over the country.

Initially, two players were to advance from each group. But due to the table shortage, they had to change that to only one advancing, which made a lot of people unhappy. Also, to save time, a lot of top seeds were seeded out of the preliminaries.

Suffice to say that all of these changes left a number of people unhappy. One player told me he was entered in two senior events, both on Sunday. He was seeded out of the preliminaries in both. He had to fly out on Wednesday morning, which was when the SE started, and so had to default both events. Others had similar problems. As noted above, Patryk Zyworonek and his parents assumed that Under 13 Boys, starting at 1PM on Sunday, would finish by Wednesday afternoon, and when it didn't, they had to default the final. I didn't mark down the exact times of the match, but like many events, it was held up due to conflicts, and the final, scheduled for 4PM Wednesday, didn't play until I think a few hours later.

Other problems include:

  • No live streaming. This had become the norm for major USATT tournaments, so this left a lot of USATT members unhappy. USATT did later upload videos of the Men's and Women's final, which I linked to above.
  • Not enough chairs. (Many of us spent six days battling for chairs.) We need about 1.5 times as many as provided.
  • As noted above, water should be provided.
  • As noted above, players were limited to only six events in a tournament that lasts six days. Most players want to play about two events per day. The limit used to be much higher - the limit was nine in 2016, for example, and at one time it was ten. In 2018 and 2019 they lowered this to seven, and now six. Why not let players play more events? They were able to do this before, and it means more revenue for USATT, and a better experience for the players.
  • With only 45 tables and about 500 players, finding a table to practice on was difficult. Four to a table became the norm. The entry form restricted play to two to a table, due to Covid, but fortunately that was not enforced.
  • Players who were competitive in multiple events often had to play almost continuously, often with no lunch break. (Because of this, I twice went without lunch as I was coaching continuously.) Sarah Jalli was scheduled to play 18 matches in 6 hours. The kids I coached mostly relied on snacking throughout the day rather than an actual lunch.
  • Matches were played rather late at night. Our junior players were at the playing hall at 8AM, practicing for their 9AM matches, played matches throughout the day, and often were sent out again at 7PM for RR matches that often didn't end until near 10PM. The Under 17 Boys final (Sid Naresh over Darryl Tsao) was scheduled for 8PM but (according to Sid's Facebook posting) didn't finish until after midnight. These late-night matches had a dramatic effect on some players, especially those from the east coast - kids who normally go to bed at 9:30PM were often playing at what, to them, was 1AM or later, after being at the hall for up to 14 hours. (This tournament had unique problems that required this, but normally all play at Opens and Nationals has been done by dinner time, other than a few times where they've scheduled doubles events afterwards.)
  • New schedules were given out on Wednesday for Thursday and Friday. This caused problems for some, and for me in my coaching schedule. Twice on Thursday I found myself committed to coaching a match at the same time as I was scheduled to play a hardbat match and (as noted above) I came within minutes of getting defaulted.
  • They no longer separated junior and adult rating events. That had been done for a reason - up-and-coming juniors are often way underrated, often much better than the rating cutoff, and so completely dominate rating events. There were years where juniors swept all the rating events, despite making up less than half the entries. And this year, boy did they dominate! There were eight rating events. Of the 16 finalists, 14 were junior players. The two non-juniors? Top-seeded (2541) Earl James Alto won the highest event, Under 2550, which is a tough event for juniors to win - congrats to Earl! (He beat Under 17 Boys' Champion Sid Naresh in the final.) Under 2000 was won by Diego Gallardo, an obvious ringer from Mexico. (He'd played only one USATT tournament and got a rating of 1891, despite going five games with players rated 2179 and 2138, and getting games off players rated 2284 and 2146 - though he also somehow lost to a 1919 player. Addendum: He came out rated 2133.)

And now we get to a serious problem that USATT needs to really investigate and fix. I've been going to US Nationals and Opens since 1976 and have been to every one starting in 1984 - and (other than the disastrous 1990 US Open), have never seen so many defaults. A parent told me that while the events were run mostly with groups of four, they were essentially groups of three, since so many defaulted. He was right.

For example, in Under 2200, there were 53 groups with 209 players entered - but 46 didn't show (22%). When they got to the SE stage, 16 of the 52 players defaulted (31%). For perspective, at the 2019 US Open (the last major USATT tournament), in Under 2200 there were 208 players, and only 13 didn't show (6%). In the SE portion, of 52 players, only one defaulted (2%). The number of defaults this year were insane!

I checked a few other events, and while Under 2200 was one of the worst, there were other similar events, especially in the SE stage. In Under 2300, in the SE stage, 16 of the 52 players defaulted (31%). It wasn't just rating events. In Men's Singles, in the SE stage, 10 of 49 players defaulted (20%). In Under 11 Boys' Singles in the SE stage, 4 of the 15 players defaulted (27%).

Keep in mind players don't generally pay for an event and fly across the country for it with the intent to default. So what was happening here? It was a combination of the following:

  • Players flew in for the RR groups but didn't realize the SEs would come several days later, and so had to default to make their flights - either they couldn't change their flight, couldn't afford the fees to do so, or had other commitments.
  • Players were too exhausted from playing multiple events and so defaulted some to focus on others. For example, as noted above, Sarah Jalli was scheduled to play 18 matches in six hours (!), and there's no way you can do that while playing at a high level. So she ended up defaulting out of the 2550 SE stage to focus on her other events. (She ended up winning Under 17 and Under 15 Girls, and made the semifinals of Women's Singles, Under 21 Women, and Under 19 Girls - but she might have done even better if she hadn't had to play so many high-level matches almost back-to-back.)
  • I'm told that a number of players who won regional events were automatically entered into the Nationals, even if they did not enter or pay and had no intention of playing. Around the deadline and afterwards USATT was contacting these players, trying to find out if they were playing or not, but couldn't reach them all. Some may have noticed that at one point, entries for the Nationals hit 557 (and I think higher) - but then dropped down to the current listing of 526, and the actual total of 490, as noted above. I'm told this was the reason.

Given the situation, the staff did a great job in keeping things going properly. Scratch that; they did an INCREDIBLE job in keeping things going. What I heard over and over from staff members, worded in various ways, was essentially, "It is what it is." (Which is a direct word-for-word quote from two of them.) Given the parameters (only 45 tables for about 500 players, with starting days and times mostly set months earlier when they planned for all SE), there was no way to schedule in a way that wouldn't cause many of the problems outlined above.

The irony is that, with all the defaults and the rescheduling for Thursday and Friday, everything finished by around 1PM or so on Friday. I don't have the exact time as I was done coaching by that time and already on my way to the airport.

Thanks again to all the people who put this together and ran it, and congrats to all the new Champions, including new Men's and Women's Singles Champions Xin Zhou and Amy Wang! And now, it's on to the Teams in November and the US Open in December - can't wait to find out where and when it'll be.

[Meanwhile, while I was away, in my other world, I sold two science fiction/fantasy stories, one to New Myths Magazine and one to Galaxy's Edge Magazine. I can afford to eat now!!! The first, "Madam Hitler," is about a bumbling time-traveling tourist who shows up as Hitler is about to commit suicide in 1945 (asking for his autograph and a snippet of his mustache) and inadvertently gives him access to a device that allows him to switch bodies with his secretary (Traudl Junge, his actual secretary) - leading to the secretary (in Hitler's body) being captured by Stalin, who thinks he/she is the real Hitler, while Hitler (in the secretary's body), goes on to become chancellor of West Germany. Don't worry, things do not end well for Hitler, or for Stalin and Chairman Mao either. The other story, "Prototype Solar System with Strings Attached," is a humorous satire on the creation of the universe, and how and why God and a harried angel created gravity, string theory, and other marvels of the universe. Yeah, one's about Hitler, the other a satire on God - nothing controversial here, right?]

ITTF Hopes Around the Clock
Here's the USATT article by Joshua Dyke, featuring USATT Under 12 stars Mandy Yu (Rochester TTC), Tashiya Piyadasa (CA Table Tennis), Ryan Lin (MDTTC), and Charles Shen (Topspin TTC). I assisted with the first online session on Tuesday, June 29, as the coach/practice partner for Ryan Lin (US #1 Under 12). Basically, we alternated between listening to the ITTF coaches (including Massimo Costantini) as they gave instructions, then we'd go out to the table and do the drills as instructed, with a camera on us and all the other players around the world, with the ITTF coaches watching. Periodically they'd call us over with suggestions. The two-hour session was pretty rigorous - I was exhausted afterwards, while Ryan was still jumping up and down. The second session is tomorrow - not sure yet if I'll be doing it or Coach Wang Qingliang. The timing is tricky as the sessions take place during our summer camps, when all or most of the tables are in use and the coaches are rather busy. Winston Wu, the US #2 rated in Under 12 and also from MDTTC, may join in and do the drills with Ryan Lin.

Navin Kumar Training Session with Wang Cheng
Wang Cheng (rated 2417, a coach in Virginia) is getting his ITTF certification, but part of it involves coaching para players. And so he joined me and Navin Kumar for a session just before the US Nationals. (Navin is a silver in doubles and bronze in singles medalist at the Parkinson's World Championships, plus has a partially artificial heart.) Here's the Facebook posting by Navin, with links to three videos: video1 (37 sec), video2 (6 sec), video3 (20 sec).

How to Watch Tokyo Olympics Table Tennis: TV & Live Streaming Schedule
Here's the article from NBC Sports.

Table Tennis Legend Vladimir Samsonov Retires
Here's the article from Belta.

New from Timo Boll

New from Samson Dubina

New from Louis Levene

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Videos (some overlap with the above)

Seth Pech vs Jabdiel Torres 2021 AND Sneaky serve by Lin Yun-Ju Tutorial
Here's the video (10:23) from Seth Pech.

New from Ti Long

Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis
They have a number of new videos.

Bay Area Table Tennis Olympians Ready for Tokyo
Here's the video (1:53) from NBC Bay Area, featuring Nikhil Kumar and Kanak Jha.

Indian Americans Paddle US' Table Tennis Dream at Tokyo Olympics
Here's the article from The Quint featuring Nikhil Kumar and Kanak Jha.

Ojo Onalapo in Action!

Eleven Years and Counting
Here's the article by Joanna Sung.

2021 National U19 Team Trials
Here's the article by Rachel Sung.

Aditya Sareen Captured Under 2500 Title at Westchester
Here's the article, photos, and video (6 sec).

New from Coach Jon

New from Steve Hopkins

New from Edges and Nets

Table Tennis Top
Here's their new blog (8 entries) and skills section (one entry so far, Table Tennis Skills for Beginners). It's in English, and run by Petroj Sorin, a top player and coach in Serbia. It also has a lot of equipment reviews.

ITTF News
Here's their news pagevideo page ("World Table Tennis") and home page. It's been two weeks since I blogged, so they have a lot of new stuff. Perhaps the most interesting is The History of CHO (5:41)!

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Flowery Table Tennis "Nature" Shirt
Here it is - wear this to a party, work, wedding, you know you want to! And don't forget the matching shorts!

Adam vs. The What Happened Guy
Here's the video (10:30) from Adam Bobrow!

Pongfinity's Otto vs Miikka
Here's the video (10:51) from Pongfinity - "Otto and Miikka battle against each other in a ping pong game where they add a piece of clothing after each won point!"

Best Player in Europe
Here's the cartoon! (Timo Boll fans will like this.)

Ping Pong Funny
Here's the video (15 sec) - it's only peripherally TT, but those are ping-pong ball heads!

New from Table Tennis Central

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Send us your own coaching news!

No Blog Next Week . . . But There'll be a Tip!
I'll be at the US Nationals in Las Vegas coaching away . . . but there will be a Tip of the Week!!! (It's already written, I'll put it up on Sunday night, July 4.) The next blog will go up on Monday, July 12. See you then!

Note - the July 5 Tip of the Week is up, "Changing the Pace." 

And note the new look - I just migrated from Drupal 6 to Drupal 9!

Tip of the Week
Forehand Attackers Should Serve & Backhand Attack.

US Nationals
I leave this Friday for the US Nationals in Las Vegas, along with about 30 others from my club (players, parents, coaches). It's 2800-mile flight. Originally I'd expected to coach only the first few days, since all of the junior events start on Sunday and Monday, with some rating events on Tuesday. (Nationals is July 4-9, Sun-Fri.)

So I figured they'd all be done by Wednesday, and on Thursday I'd play the three Hardbat events - Hardbat Singles, Over 40 Hardbat, and Over 60 Hardbat. (I'm normally a sponge player, but play hardbat on the side.) Alas, it's not likely.

We just got the USATT Notice on the scheduling at the US Nationals. I also contacted them directly about scheduling, and was told, "Basically, the first few days will be all round robins, with the single elimination rounds to come several days later. So events that start on Sunday might not finish until Thursday or Friday." I wish we'd know this earlier! So I'll almost for certain be coaching Thursday. Goodbye $240 I spent in entry fees!

But it's not just me that's facing problems. Historically, events end within a day or at most two of when they start. (I've been playing US Opens and Nationals since 1976, and all of them since 1984. Men's and Women's Singles are sometimes an exception to this.) Most of the kids and parents going have all or most of their events on Sunday and Monday. So most were flying home on Wednesday night. This morning they are frantically changing their flight and hotel plans to stay until Friday night. They are not happy. (The MDTTC parents and coaches stay in contact via a large WeChat group. The messages this morning are non-stop.) I expect this is happening all over the country - and will happen even more once people learn that events that start on Sunday or Monday may go until Friday. (I only know because I asked. I'm told more detailed schedules are to be emailed to all the players soon, and then we'll have a better idea of the scheduling.)

The root of the problem is simple - they are trying to run a US Nationals on 45 tables, when historically they have normally had at least twice that many. The result? No matter how they schedule, there are going to be problems. Events may fall behind. They may have to call matches late into the night after dinnertime. They may have events starting on Sunday and not finishing until Friday, possibly with entire days with no matches in the event. We just don't know - but we'll find out soon. Hopefully, we'll be pleasantly surprised. If so, that's what I'll report when I return.

So let's just say I'm a bit nervous about what's going to happen next week. 

The playing site is the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, "...the fifth largest convention center in the U.S., with 2.1 million gross square feet of meeting and exhibit space." For perspective, let's assume USATT has 45 full-sized courts (40'x20'), though they are likely to be smaller than that. That's 36,000 square feet. Double that to make room for the control desk, aisles, lounges, equipment booths, etc. and we're at 72,000 square feet. Let's round that up to 100,000 square feet. That's 1/21 of the space at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center - and with the pandemic, they are likely to have lots of space available, and cheaper than normal. All we have to do is rent, say, another 1/21 and we'd have a first-class Nationals. We'd be able to have larger RR groups, with two advancing (only one will advance this year), with events finishing within a day of their starting time, and events would safely be on time, etc. So the first thing I'll be looking at when I get there is if there's lots of space that's just sitting there, unused, while we're all jammed into half the space of a normal Nationals.

The USATT notice says that the rescheduling is being done, "In order to accommodate higher than anticipated level of participation in the US Nationals." Putting aside that this is actually one of the lower turnouts for a Nationals (552, compared to the normal 700+), this also means that there will be more revenue "than anticipated." So use that extra revenue to rent more space. Yes, it cost money for a larger hall, but the alternative is the risk of doing a halfway job.

If you are going to run a Nationals, then you have to rent enough space to run a Nationals.

'Chess At Light Speed': 3 MD Kids Make National Table Tennis Team
Here's the article from patch.com! I'm proud of these kids - they've put in an incredible amount of training - at the table, physical training, and mental training. (After the Junior Trials, I sent out a press release, and this was one result. The other? We have a reporter coming in on Wednesday afternoon from the China World Journal, the largest Chinese newspaper in the US.)

Historical Table Tennis Stuff
I spent much of the last week going through old boxes and shelves and cataloguing all my old table tennis stuff. Here's my complete collection! (I may be donating or trading some of it to Will Shortz this Thursday - see below.)

Busy Week
This is a busy week. Putting aside that I'm in the middle of preparation for my annual nine-day science fiction writing workshop (which means reading and writing extensive critiques of a total of 17 stories, which average over 4000 words each), we're also preparing our players for the Nationals. Here are other table tennis activities this week, starting yesterday:

  • Sunday: We had a big party for the junior program at the club on Sunday night. It started with an award ceremony, where we gave out numerous prizes for things like Most Improved, Hardest Worker, and Best Teammate. Then, while some of the coaches and staff met with parents, my job was to take 30+ kids and lead them in various activities! So I taught them table tennis tricks: speed bouncing on the table; racket twirling; smacking a ball out of the air; and a series of "trick" serves (i.e. illegal ones that are fun to do in practice), such as double hit serves, fingertip serves, under the leg serves, long distance serves, and so on. Then we played "King/Queen of the Table" - but with gnip-gnop (where you hit the ball down on your side and over the net, rather than directly over the net). Twelve of our top juniors also got together and played sextuples - and before you get any ideas, that's just double, except with six on a side! Then everyone had ice cream. I ate way too much.
  • Monday: After I finish this blog, I'll be pending at least an hour with a coach at the club who is working on his ITTF coaching certification.
  • Tuesday: Two hours at the club (starting at 4PM) with Ryan Lin (US #1 in Under 12), who is in an ITTF online program that I'll be helping with and observing.
  • Wednesday: A reporter and photographers from a major national media will be at the club 3-6PM to do a feature both on the three MDTTC kids who made the USATT Under 13 Boys' Team, and the club in general. More on this later.
  • Thursday: Will Shortz is stopping by MDTTC during one of our training sessions, circa 3PM. Besides hitting some with me or others (to continue his 3,193 day streak of playing table tennis every day), we'll be doing some trades/donations to each other's table tennis collections. I recently did an extensive inventory of all my table tennis historical stuff, and we've compared notes. So I'm going to donate a bunch to him, and hopefully vice versa!
  • Friday: Fly to Las Vegas for the Nationals!

Kanak Jha Discusses Olympic Preparations, New Club, and More
Here's the interview at Edges and Nets. (This went up a few days late, but it's timely.)

USATT Announced 2021 US National Youth Teams
Here's the news item. I'm especially proud of Stanley Hsu, Mu Du, and Ryan Lin, who all made the Under 13 Boys' Team - all three are from my club and I've worked extensively with all three. (It's a team effort - Wang Qingliang, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Lidney Castro are the MDTTC full-time coaches, and since these days I'm semi-retired, they spend more time with them than I do.) Here's a news article on the three! (See segment above on this.)

Adjustments to 2021 US National Table Tennis Championships Preliminary Round Schedule
Here's the USATT news item. See also my commentary above.

Grand Opening Team Challenge at 888
Here's the info page with complete results of their tournament held this past weekend.

New from Timo Boll

Top 5 Secrets of Chinese Table Tennis Forehand Topspin Contact and End
Here's the video (7:15) from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

Timing Points for 3rd & 5th Ball Attack Forehand
Here's the video (32 sec) from Eli Baraty.

New from Samson Dubina

Seth Pech vs Daniely Ríos 2021 Paddle Palace June Open
Here's the video (6:37) where Seth gives expert point-by-point commentary.

Zhang Jike's Reverse Pendulum Serve
Here's the video (6:57) from Ti Long.

New from Edges and Nets

Can I Win With My Left Hand?
Here's the article from Tom Lodziak.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Association

Sally Moyland Trip to the U15 and U19 US Team Trials
Here's the article by Sally Moyland.

The LYTTC Main Event Final Four Highlights
Here's the video (6:05) from Jim Butler. Here's the Butler-Leibovitz match (7:09).

"Tahl Tales": The Life of the United States Most Decorated Para-Table Tennis Athlete
Here's the article from Wheelchair Sports Federation Media (though Tahl is Standing Disabled, not Wheelchair).  

Liebherr 2020 ITTF European Individual Championships
Here's the ITTF info page for the event held June 22-27 in Warsaw, Poland, with complete results and news articles. Hard to believe - 40-year-old Timo Boll won men's singles for the eighth time!

New from Steve Hopkins

ITTF News
Here's their news pagevideo page ("World Table Tennis") and home page.

No Specific Medal Target for Singapore's Table Tennis Team at Olympics, But Expectations Remain 'High'
Here's the article and video (2:54) from Channel New Asia.

Nepalese Table Tennis Player Smashes Traditional Gender Roles
Here's the article from SportandDev.com.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Paddles from Pretty Pattern Gifts
Here they are! (Not high-level stuff, just souvenir ones with funny or interesting pictures.)

Meeting The What Happened Guy
Here's the video (10:16) from Adam Bobrow! This is a follow-up to last week's Finding The What Happened Guy (12:57).

Beer Pong Table Tennis 2.0
Here's the video (10:56) from XOLAY!

Football vs. Ping Pong
Here's the video (4:02) from Pongfinity!

New from Table Tennis Central

***
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Tip of the Week
Don't Start a Point Until You Have a Game Plan.

US Junior Team Trials
I got back late last night from four days at the Westchester TTC in New York, where they held the US Team Trials for Under 17, Under 13, and Under 11, for boys and girls. Here are some links:

  • Complete results, care of TTLive
  • Final Standings for all six events
  • Live Streaming of Under 13 from Day Three/Sunday (6hr 24min). Ryan Lin (2037) is playing at the very start (far side), with Coach Jack Huang coaching. Toward the end, at 5:29:00, you can see Stanley Hsu (2311) playing He Xianyao (2160), with me coaching Stanley (in red shirt on far right). At 6:03:00, you can see Stanley against Patryck Zyworonek (2196), with Wang Qingliang coaching Stanley, as the top two seeds in U13 battle it out.

A great thanks for setting up and running this event goes to USATT, Westchester TTC and Will Shortz, High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, Referee Roman Tinyszin, all the other volunteers whose names I don't have, and all the players, parents, and coaches! The trophies are especially nice - they weigh a ton and the kids love them. (See pictures below.)

Our contingent from the Maryland junior program at MDTTC included eight boys and four coaches (Wang Qingliang, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and me, Larry Hodges). Strangely, we have no girls in our current junior program who were competitive in these events, and so none came to these trials. (We have some really promising ones coming up, however!) The eight ranged in age from 11 to 14. Four of them were in Under 13. All eight played in Under 17 - but since our oldest were 14, they have several years of eligibility left. I mostly coached Stanley Hsu, Mu Du, and Lance Wei.

On Thursday morning we had a two-hour practice session at MDTTC, 9-11AM. And then we all left in multiple cars for the roughly five-hour drive, meeting together halfway for lunch. We then had a 90-minute session at the Westchester TTC from 5:30-7:00PM. Play began all three days at 9AM, so we met for warmup each morning at 8AM.

Stanley Hsu (#1 in US at 12 and Under at 2311) had already made the US Under 15 Team at those Trials two weeks ago at the ICC TTC in California (finishing fifth with a 3-4 record in the Final 8 against older players). Now he was trying to make the Under 17 and Under 13 Teams - and he made both! In Under 17, he finished seventh, going 2-5 in the Final 8 against much older players. In Under 13, he finished first, going 7-0 in the Final Eight, and 11-0 overall. So he is now on three teams, Under 17, 15, and 13 Boys.

Two of our other players made the Under 13 Team, Mu Du (recently turned 13, rated 2121) and Ryan Lin (11, rated 2037). Mu Du finished third with a 5-2 record in the Final 8, and 9-2 overall. Ryan finished sixth with a 2-5 record in the Final 8, and 6-5 overall. He will still be eligible to play next year. (Ages are taken as of Jan. 1.) Under 13 Boys is our strongest age group, and or players finished #1, 3, and 6. (We also had the #8 seed, Winston Wu, 11 and rated 1973, but he missed making the Final 8 by one match - but he's still eligible next year.)

It's sometimes tempting to go over all the coaching that takes place at these tournaments, but that would be giving away secrets! But sometimes the magic works. For example, in one match, it was 1-1 in games. Between games I told the player to focus on three things - a specific type of serve he should use at least half the time and how to follow it up; a specific serve he should mostly stop using; to focus on staying at the table; and one very important rallying tactic. (I wish I could be more specific, but the opposing coach might be reading this and would recognize it!) He won the next two games by a combined score of 22-5.

I went up and back with Steve Hsu's six-passenger van, along with Stanley and his brother, Kurtus (15). On the way back Mu Du and Ryan Lin joined us - and it was video games (and some brain teasers) the whole way! It's a pretty exciting time for the three who made the Under 13 team. Meanwhile, training for the Nationals (starting July 4) started today!!! (Stanley, Mu Du, and Ryan may get a rest day.)

Since the #1 spot in each Trials is reserved for whoever wins that age event at the Nationals, the #1 finisher here is actually #2 on the team, and so on down, so Stanley is officially #8 on the Under 17 Team and #2 on the Under 13 Team, while Mu Du and Ryan Lin are officially #4 and #7. If any of the players who finish in the #2 to #7 spots here wins that event at the Nationals, they not only move to the #1 position, but everyone below that person moves up a spot. In each Trials, the player who finished #8 - and so is currently at #9 and so not on the team - would then move up a spot to #8, thereby making the team. So, for example, for Stanley to be #1 on the Under 13 Boys' Team, he will need to win that event at the Nationals. Most likely, one of the players here will win that event, and so Mu Du and Ryan will move up to at least #3 and #6.

There were some scheduling problems at the tournament that led to delays, especially on the first day, Friday, when things fell two hours behind. But as I told our kids, always remember that both sides have to deal with such problems, and whoever handles them best has an advantage. There are some things they can do to improve, and I'll be in contact with those in charge on some of these.

Westchester TTC owner, player, NY Times crossword editor, and world-famous puzzlist Will Shortz showed me his table tennis collection of books and vintage equipment, and we talked table tennis for over an hour. We may be doing some trading as I collect table tennis books!

Here are some pictures taken by Steven Hsu:

Liebherr 2020 ITTF European Individual Championships
Here's the ITTF info page for the event to be held June 22-27 in Warsaw, Poland.

Coaches Who Do Video Coaching
Here's the listing! I've blogged a few times about coaches who do video coaching, and listed those who did. I finally buckled down and put together a page dedicated to this. Please email me if I there are any corrections or additions I should add. Here's the current listing:

The following coaches will analyze your videos - contact them directly. 

  • LearnPong, with Kai Zhang, Brad Robbins, Chase Bockoven, Vlad Farcas, Andrew Williams, Christian Stelting, Bjorn Stelting, and Alfred Dela Pena.
  • Samson Dubina (OH), USATT Certified National Coach and multiple Coach-of-the-Year awards, and 2009 US Men's Singles Finalist. See his web page (scroll to the bottom of the products page).
  • Cory Eider (NJ), former USATT High Performance Director and 2013 US Men's Singles finalist, 2014 Men's Doubles Champion.  
  • Kevin Finn (NJ), Peak Performance Table Tennis
  • Pieke Franssen (CA), USATT Certified National Coach and chair of the USATT Coaching Committee. See his USATT about page
  • Matt Hetherington (MD), member of New Zealand National Team, now coaching in the US, ITTF Level 2 coach. See also his web page.
  • Judy Hugh (NJ), former member of US National Team. See her USATT about page
  • Christian Lillieroos (OR), ITTF Level 3 coach. 
  • Sean O'Neill (OR), five-time US Men's Singles Champion and two-time Olympian, USATT Certified National Coach, and current USATT High Performance Director. See his USATT about page
  • Tim Wang (CO), three-time US Men's Singles Champion. See his USATT about page

The Gentleman Honorary President: Xu Yinsheng Pens New Book
Here's the ITTF page on it. It's in Chinese - I'm hoping for an English translation. He was a member of the Chinese National Team from at least 1959-1965, making the semifinals of Men's Singles at the 1961 Worlds, and winning gold in Men's Teams three straight times (1961, 1963, 1965) and Men's Doubles in 1965, with a silver in Men's Doubles in 1965. But he was better known as the ITTF President from 1995-1999, where he pioneered going from the 38mm ball to the current 40mm one. He was also the long-time president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association. Some of you may remember his son, Xu Huazhang, another former Chinese team member who lived in the US for about ten years, training at MDTTC and going to college, and at one point achieving a 2777 rating.

Vlog - The Quadruple Triple - Playoff Final
Here's the video (24:55) from Timo Boll. "Follow me behind the scenes to my fourth triple with Borussia Düsseldorf! What a fantastic journey we had this season. This vlog is about the last step, the Playoff-final vs. our toughest opponent in this season, 1.FC Saarbrücken!"

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Videos (some overlap with the above)

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

Correcting Technical Errors
Here's the video (34 sec) from Eli Baraty.

How Harimoto Built a 3-1 Lead and How Ma Long Came Back at the 2020 World Cup
Here's the article from Edges and Nets.

True Power - Secret of China Technique
Here's the video (2:17) with Coach Li Sun.

Forehand Topspin Rotation (Loop) and Speed
Here's the video (3:42) from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

Defense vs. Attack
Here's the video (6:21) of Dimitrij Ovtcharov (world #9, world #1 in Jan & Feb 2018) training with chopper Ruwen Filus (world #35), both of Germany.

The Players Perspective
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Review: A Late Return by William Rees
Here's the review by Tom Lodziak of the upcoming book (available Nov. 5). I just pre-ordered my copy at Amazon.

New from Steve Hopkins

2021 USATT Hall of Fame Cup Final
Here's the video (87 min) - NC International Table Tennis Club - (Kai Zhang/Jishan Liang) vs Nison's Table Tennis Club - (Mishel Levinski/Adar Alguetti/Sharon Alguetti).

Jan Ove Waldner | The GOAT of Table Tennis | Career in Numbers
Here's the video (3:27). So, who is the Greatest Of All Time (for men, anyway), Waldner, Ma Long, or someone else? Here's a contrary view, arguing for Ma Long, by Matt Hetherington. (It was written in 2018, updated in 2019 after Ma won his third straight men's singles at the Worlds.)

Jun Mizutani Discusses Olympics, Harimoto, Ito, and More
Here's the article from Sportiva.

ITTF News
Here's their news pagevideo page ("World Table Tennis") and home page.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

King of the Ping Shirt
Here it is!

Romeo Ping Pong Ball and Juliet Golf Ball
Here's the cartoon!

Table Tennis . . . Literally
Here's the video (5 sec) - and yes, that's Novak Djokovic on far side against Rafael Nadal on the near side.

Table Tennis Trick Shots, Part 2
Here's the video (3:14) from Able Tennis, where he has other trick shot videos.

Funny Table Tennis Tutorial Low Budget
Here's the video (1:54)!

Ma Lin is Very Funny and Loves to Drink Beer
Here's the video (2:04) of Mima Ito talking about Ma Lin!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Tournament Experience vs. Practice.

Weekend Coaching,  Larry's Six-Month Rule, and the Junior Trials in Westchester
Most of our junior training sessions are done for the season, with our summer training camps starting up on June 21. But our Group A juniors, who mostly all went to the US Junior Trials at the ICC TTC in California last weekend (for Under 19 and 15) had a make-up session. I spent most of the session just watching, especially when they played games at the end, to prepare for coaching them at the US Junior Trials at the Westchester TTC in NY this coming weekend (for Under 17, 13, and 11). I also had a session with Navin Kumar, where the focus was on fundamentals (since we hadn't had a session in several weeks) and serves. Here's video (30 sec) with a humorous finish! Overall, it's been a slow week for me, coaching-wise. (I also did a sports psychology session with one of our kids on Wednesday.) Things will pick up dramatically in the summer.

One issue that's come up quite a bit recently is Larry's Six-Month Rule. A number of our junior players have dramatically improved from training during the pandemic - and when they played tournaments, it showed, as they battled with much stronger players than before. But far too often they lost these matches, often losing in deuce or in five games. What's happening? It's simple - they are new to this higher level, while their opponent are experienced at that level, both psychologically and tactically. As I wrote above, it can take up to six months of tournaments before the improvement full kicks in - but they key words are "up to," as it can happen much quick that that.

We leave for the Westchester US Junior Team Trials on Thursday morning, after a morning session at our club (MDTTC). We also will have a session at Westchester, but just one hour - we don't want to tire them out, just get used to the facility. We have nine players and four coaches going, many of the kids the best or among the best of their age in the country. In the Under 13 Trials, we have the #1, 4, 6, and 8 seeds. (If it were Under 12 Trials, we'd have #1 and #2 in the country!)

US Nationals
The deadline to enter the US Nationals is tomorrow (Tuesday, June 15). Hope to see you there! I'll be there, as one of the four MDTTC coaches. We have eleven of our kids going. The schedule is good for me - most junior events start on Day 1 (Sunday) and most of our kids will be done playing by the end of Wednesday. And so I get to play the hardbat events on Thursday - Hardbat Singles (2-time champion, but that was long ago), Over 40 Hardbat (6-time and defending champion) and Over 60 Hardbat (first time and top seed!). I'm normally a sponge player, but have played hardbat on the side for years - including winning Hardbat Doubles at the Nationals or Open 13 times! (Alas, no doubles events this year.) I pulled out my hardbat yesterday for the first time since the pre-pandemic 2019 US Open (where I won Over 40 Hardbat) and hit with it some with Navin Kumar. The forehand was there but running forehands, my specialty, are back to being a work in progress.

USATT has had only two news items since June 2 on their news page, and both were on the Nationals:

As I write this, there are 410 entries. This would top the all-time low for the Nationals, the 335 at the 1986 Nationals in Pittsburgh (sort of an aberration), but they are unlikely to top the second lowest, the 502 at the 2011 Nationals in Virginia Beach. (But there could be a last-minute surge, due to the return to RR format.

BREAKING NEWS - there was a last-minute surge, likely due to going to RR. As of Wed morning they were at 557, "topping" Virginia Beach. The norm in Las Vegas, of course, is over 700, but 557 is better than what it was looking like before they went back to RR. Over and over players tell me they were skipping this year, not because of Covid, but because of the original single elimination format, which was done to "better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." They changed that last week, one week before the deadline, but for many, it was too late, plus many don't go to the USATT news page and so don't know about the change. I'll write about this more probably next week.

Garbage on the Home and Tips Home Pages
Some of you might have noticed all the error messages at the top of the Home Page and the Tips Home Page. I'm aware of the problem - it's apparently because I need to update to Drupal 7, which turns out to be a complicated process. I will likely be hiring someone to take care of this in the next few days. But if you happen to be a Drupal expert and can do this (volunteer or pay!), let me know.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Fundraiser
NCTTA is coordinating a National Fundraiser where all donations are doubled (thanks to a generous NCTTA Alum). Can you help them reach their goal of $200,000?

USATT Minutes for June 7 Meeting
Here are the minutes from the USATT Minutes Page. Lots of interesting stuff - I'd love to know what the four cities are that are bidding for the US Open in December. (Why is that a secret?) One thing of note - see the section titled, "Athletes Advisory Council – First and Second Athletes – Third and Fourth Athletes." It says: "The USOPC also noted that the USATT Bylaws are currently in violation of the Ted Stevens Act with respect to the selection of the First and Second athletes and that USATT’s Bylaws must be revised to ensure two separate fair elections of (i) the First and Second Athlete; and (ii) the Third and Fourth Athletes." I've blogged about this problem so I'm glad it's being fixed.

Kanak Jha - Nikhil Kumar Footwork
Here's the video (10 sec) of the two USA Olympians, with Kanak blocking on the left. You can watch the ball hypnotically go back and forth, or you can watch their looping and blocking technique and learn from that. But the thing you can learn the most from, and the first thing good coaches will look at, is their feet. Study it!

The Chinese Drill
Here's the video (3:11) from Timo Boll. "Today we're going to talk about an exercise that I learned when I participated in the Chinese Super League. This exercise is always part of a classical Chinese training session. It is one of my favorite drills."

New from Samson Dubina

New from Tom Lodziak

Top 5 secrets of Chinese Table Tennis on Forehand Topspin Forward
Here's the video (4:58) from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

Table Tennis - Irregular footwork (In & Out)
Here's the video (52 sec) from Eli Baraty.

When Good Beats Great
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Off-Season with PechPong Vlog!
Here's the video (3:03) from Seth Pech, and set to music. "A fun video about how I spend time during breaks or vacations to stay in shape and rest my mind to come back and practice twice as hard as I did before!"

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Videos (some overlap with the above)

New from Steve Hopkins

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

ITTF News
Here's their news pagevideo page ("World Table Tennis") and home page.

Five Nations Interested in Hosting 2024 World Table Tennis Championships
Here's the article from Inside the Games. "Sweden, South Korea, Portugal, Argentina and India have all entered the race to host the tournament."

Great Britain Table Tennis Squad Named for Tokyo 2020
Here's the article from Team GB - and yeah, they are calling it Tokyo 2020, though it was postponed to 2021.

1 Hour Ping Pong Challenge
Here's the video (14:57) from Pongfinity! "We invited Finnish YouTube Star @Roni Back and Pop Star @Robin Packalen to compete in the first ever Pongfinity Showdown match! How good did they get after a 1 hour coaching session by Emil and Miikka and who was the champion?"

Is That The Longest Table Tennis Serve In History?
Here's the video (5:14) from XOLAY!

Ping Pong Stereotypes!!!!
Here's the video (3:51)!

Alive For Table Tennis
Here's the video (21 sec) - and this is just weird!

Space Pong
Here's the cartoon!

Jesus Pong
Here's the cartoon!

King Pong Shirts
You know you want one - and you have ten choices, each with a different design!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
What to Do in the "Big Points."

BREAKING NEWS - 2021 US Nationals Preliminary Rounds to Play RR Format, Masks Not Required
Here's the news item that went up Tuesday night. Deadline to enter the US Nationals is in one week, June 15. Note the changes in starting days and times listed at the end. (At the time this went up, there were only 328 entries. I'll write more about this next week.)

US Junior Team Trials - Under 19 and Under 15
I spent last week at the US Junior Trials at the ICC Table Tennis Center in Milpitas, CA, in the Bay area, June 3-6. Here are complete results, care of TTLive. (Besides the Trials, for boys and girls, they also had separate events for Under 17 and a combined Under 11/Under 13.) Here is the USATT graphic showing the members and names of the players making the four teams. A total of 101 players competed in 516 matches. (The rating results are already up.)

Special thanks for the event goes to USATT, ICC, to the staff who put it together: High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, Tournament Director Gao Jun, Referee Yelena Karshtedt, Josh Dyke (who did the streaming and helped with results), Umpires Steve Lee and Sophie Chen, Tiffany Lam and Purvi Soni (who helped at the control desk), and the many scorekeepers, many of them players in the tournament - I don't have a complete listing, but email me of others you know or of any corrections: Sid & Nandan Naresh (who would come 1-2 in the Under 19 Trials, with Nandan winning the Under 15 Trials), Nicole Deng, James Zhang, Winston Wu, Isabella Xu, and others.

I arrived along with most of the Maryland Table Tennis Center contingent on Tuesday night after a 2800-mile flight (about six hours). On Wednesday, we had two training sessions. Since they were running a training camp at ICC and using all the tables, we had arranged in advance to train at nearby Table Tennis America. The second session was at ICC. Throughout out stay, we ate a lot of Chinese food for lunch and dinner; one of our players, Mu Du, who "lives" for McDonalds, lamented at the lack of McDonalds cuisine, saying, "This is a slight disaster." Then the action began on Thursday morning!!! Since the six boys from MDTTC were all in the Under 15 event, that was their primary focus, but the Under 19 event was a great training and a warmup for them.

The MDTTC players were Stanley Hsu (12, 2313), Ryan Lee (14, 2216), Mu Du (13, 2139), Nicole Deng (15, 2125), James Zhang (14, 2091), William Wu (15, 2061), and Winston Wu (11, 2018). The coaches were Wang Qingliang, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Wang Cheng, and Larry Hodges (me!). Including parents, we had 17 in our group.  

Stanley Hsu, 12, rated 2313 coming in, had a nice tournament, making the Under 15 team as the youngest member - all the others are 14 or 15, except for Daniel Tran, who turns 14 in July. Stanley finished fifth, which actually makes him the #6 player on the team - see explanation below. But he had a weird tournament. He lost deuce in the fifth in Under 19 to Kai Zarehbin (2420), and beat a number of others in the 2250-2350 range, and mostly played like a 2400 player. Against Under 15 #1 Nandan Naresh (2442), he was up 10-8 in the fourth and missed a pair of forehands or it would have gone into the fifth. But the truly weird match was against Keenan Zhou (way, Way, WAY underrated at 2091 - more accurately rated afterwards at 2254). Stanley wins the first 11-5 and goes up 9-0 in the second . . . and lets up. As I later told Stanley, that was the worst thing that could happen - because right then, at the same time, as Stanley started to let up, Keenan, having nothing to lose, started to play really well. Stanley had to take a timeout to win that game, 11-8. Keenan continued to pour it on while Stanley struggled to regain his focus, with Keenan winning the third, 11-4. At this point, Stanley had outscored Keenan 20-5 at the start, but been outscored 19-6 since! In the fourth, Stanley goes up 7-3 and is coasting, but in this streaky match, Keenan wins eight in a row. In the fifth, at 4-4, in this (did I say streaky? Make that SUPER-streaky) match, Keenan wins seven in a row to win. The final scores, -5,-8,4,7,4, don't really tell the tale. (Keenan would also go on to make the team, finishing seventh.) Later I would discuss with Stanley the idea that, when you are in the lead, your thinking needs to be, "Take it!," not "Let's be careful."

Each team will (usually) have eight players. The winner of the age event at the upcoming US Nationals will get the #1 spot. The Trials here are for spots 2-8. What that means is that whoever finishes first here is #2 on the team; second place is #3; and seventh place is #8. Since all four Trials had a Final Eight, it means that whoever finishes eighth is #9, and so technically isn't on the team - yet. If any of those eight players wins at the Nationals - and the odds are extremely high that that will happen - then that player moves up to the #1 spot, and all those who finished behind that player move up a spot - meaning the number eight finisher moves from #9 to #8, and becomes an official member of the team.

Here are some photos taken by Lingda Hsu, Stanley Hsu's mom. L-R: Stanley's Under 15 Team trophy (it weighs a ton!); most of the Maryland players and coaches; the US Under 15 Boys' Team; Stanley; Stanley and me; Stanley with Coach Wang Qingliang and me; Coach Wang and Stanley; MDTTC players Stanley Hsu, James Zhang, and Mu Du; and three more pictures of Stanley with Coach Wang.

Alas, it's not all roses for MDTTC. Nicole Deng I believe had at least one match point before losing 15-13 in the fifth against Kayla Goodwin - if she wins that match, she's in the Final Eight and almost for certain on the National Team. James Zhang was up 10-8 match point on Ryan Wu (2266) in the match to make the Final 12. But they'll have many more chances, including the Under 17 Trials in ten days, where Nicole is currently seeded #5. 

I did have one serious gripe about the Trials - the rules said there would be no geographic separation. This has been an ongoing issue for me - I think it's silly not to do so. And this time, it seriously affected our team, which seemingly flew 3000 miles to play each other! In Under 15, we had six players in the nine groups of four - and three of them were in the same group, as the top three seeds! (And sure enough, one of our players was knocked out of the event by another of our players in an upset win.) In Under 19, we also had six players in the eleven groups of four - and two groups had two of our players! In Under 17, we only had three players in the initial six groups, and two of them were together! (That event was later redrawn, with the MDTTC players in separate groups.) The groups were done legally, strictly by the "snake" method, and it just so happened that it kept putting MDTTC players together.

I sent an email to the USATT High Performance Director and High Performance Committee on Thursday night, asking that they use geographic separation at the upcoming Trials in NY (Under 17, 13, 11). After a number of messages, it was agreed, and we won't have to deal with this again. Players from the same club or family will be separated in preliminary groups. They will also play first in subsequent rounds, which I agree with. I don't want some kid to be in the position where, after he's clinched his spot on the team or is no longer in contention, he plays a teammate who needs to win to make the team. That kid could be under pressure to dump that match to his teammate.

On Saturday, since most of our players were done, we headed back over to Table Tennis America for a joint training session of six of our players and about a zillion of theirs. MDTTC Coach Wang Qingliang was the guest head coach for the session, which I and the other MDTTC coaches also assisted in. On Sunday afternoon, after the Trials were done, we headed over for a tour of the new 888 Training center, which opens in the next two weeks. It'll be huge, with about 40 tables. Our kids ended up playing fun matches with some of the locals, including an improvised Brazilian Teams (players take turns at the table playing one game that starts at deuce, stay up until you lose), and then, for about half an hour, we played with smart phones, kindles, driver's licenses, a roll of tape, and whatever items we could dig up! (You can chop pretty well with a kindle.)

Most of our contingent left on a red-eye flight at midnight on Sunday, landing at 8:06AM at Dulles Airport. I got home at 9:45AM. And now we start training for the US Junior Trials for Under 17, 13, and 11, to be held at the Westchester TTC in NY in ten days, June 18-20 - and we have an even larger contingent going! I even bought up and donated to our club all the leftover Nittaku Premiums from the Trials (47 of them, 36 new) for our kids to train with, since they'll be using those at the NT Trials.

USATT Board Meeting and Minutes
There was a USATT board meeting on Zoom last night. I attended most of it. Nothing ground-shattering happened, and I only took a few notes. Here was the agenda:

  • CEO Report. [I missed the start, but there was mention of four bids for the next US Open.]
  • [High Performance Director Report - came next but wasn't on the agenda. Sean spoke about various past and upcoming events.]
  • Update re: Proposed Amendments to the Bylaws Update re: Athletes Advisory Council – First and Second Athletes – Third and Fourth Athletes [Lots of discussion on this, but the two main points: they will all be elected, no more appointments; and the elections will take place after the Olympics, so as not to interfere with players training for that.]
  • Consideration for Approval of Proposed Committee Assignments and Chairs: (including new Chairs for Juniors Committee – Diversity, Equity Inclusion Committee – Tournament Committee) (including new members on Nominating and Governance Committee – Tournament Committee). [There was also talk of creating a committee to oversee the abuse of USATT intellectual property - specifically, distributors and manufacturers who use the USATT logo without authorization.]
  • Consideration of Issues Related to Officiating and Tournaments

I also noticed that the minutes for the April USATT board meeting are up - see the USATT Minutes Page.

New from Samson Dubina

3rd Ball Attack From The Backhand
Here's the video (1:58) by Rachid El Boubou

The Secret of My hand Switch - the Most Difficult Shot in Table Tennis
Here's the video (4:29) from Timo Boll.

Importance of Practicing the Basic Fundamentals
Here's the video (29 sec) from Eli Baraty.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

New from Seth Pech
Here are his latest expert commentaries.

New from Ti Long

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Videos (some overlap with the above)

New from Edges and Nets

ITTF High Performance & Development Webinar 48 - Para Table Tennis Coaching
Here's the ITTF Webinar (94 min).

USATT News

New from Steve Hopkins

Lily Yip Table Tennis Center
Here's the video (6:05) by Jimmy Butler on his visit.

A Holiday From Holidays
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Meet Navin P. Kumar: Movie Actor & USA Table Tennis Athlete & Motivational Speaker
Here's the article from Shout Out LA. He's one of my students!

What Is Table Tennis?
Here's the slideshow, created by Hina Sheikh, daughter of Coach Aabid. (Click on icons on left one at a time, or click on "Present" for slideshow. There are 18 slides.)

Jan-Ove Waldner Talks About Ma Long, Fan Zendong, and World Table Tennis Championships
Here's the video (4:57).

ITTF News
They are back to their pre-pandemic activity, so rather than my link to all of their news items, why not browse over their news page?

The Factors Behind China's Olympic Table Tennis Dominance Ahead of Tokyo 2020
Here's the article from Nation.

Top Indian Table Tennis Players Prefer to Train Individually
Here's the article from the Business Standard.

Timo Boll vs Shang Kun | MT-FINAL | German League 2021
Here's the video (10:11).  

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Top 50 Incredible Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (9:14)!

Finding The What Happened Guy
Here's the video (12:57) from Adam Bobrow!

One of These Shirts Should Be Yours!
So . . . which are you?

Cat Playing Ping Pong !!
Here's the latest (51 sec)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
How to Play the Attacker/Blocker with Dead Rubber.

Have a Happy Memorial Day
But remember who are being memorialized. 

Recovering from Injuries - an Opportunity!!!
Recently, a top junior hurt his wrist and so his table tennis play became limited - he couldn't loop forehand or backhand without aggravating the wrist, which made things tricky, since he's a two-winged looper. But I pointed out to him and his dad (via Facebook) that this is really an opportunity! This is what I posted.

He definitely should see a sports medicine doctor and/or therapist, and take time to let the wrist heal. But that doesn't mean taking a break from training. It means he'll finally have time to really focus on the aspects that don't involve the movements that hurt his wrist. He can get himself into top-notch physical shape; work on his pushing (short and long); forehand flipping (less wrist needed than backhand flip); work on his blocking; do footwork drills where the opponent is looping and he's blocking; shadow-practice; and if the motion doesn't hurt the wrist, work on his serves. He should experiment and list all the table tennis moves he can do that don't hurt the wrist, and work on those - but be absolutely certain to avoid those that do. (It could also be a time to have a little fun and practice chopping and lobbing.) It's not lost time; it's an opportunity!!!

Weekend Coaching
On Saturday I went to the club and just got to sit around and watch. Why? They were having the Elite League, so I came in to watch our top juniors play, since I'll be coaching them this next week at the Junior Trials. (See segment below.) I had a few tips for them in helping them prepare, but mostly took notes, especially on serve and receive.

On Sunday, in our Group 3 Session (players up to 1200), I was mostly a walk-around coach. It's been an amazing year, watching these players improve - and a number of the Group 3 players from a year ago are now in Group 2. I worked extensively with one promising player who still tends to use too much arm instead of body on looping, but he picked up on it quick, after some extensive shadow-practice. (See segment below on Muscle Memory and Saturation Training.)

In the Group 2 session (players up to 2000), I spent half as a walk-around coach, and half as a practice partner. For the latter, I did two drills with each player as they rotated to my table. Either they'd serve short backspin, I'd push back deep anywhere, they loop (forehand or backhand), and we play out the point; or they serve short backspin, and I had to either drop it short or flip, they attack, and then play out the point.

For the Group 4 session, we now have seven kids in the 6-8 age group. We did a lot of serve practice, lots of footwork drills, lots of shadow practice, and then target practice games - and lots of toy frogs and cups were smacked with pong-pong missiles. (This session runs at the same time as the Group 1 session - juniors up to 2350 - but nearly all of the advanced ones started out in the beginning group sessions, where I helped develop their foundation, and still coach them at tournaments, on serves, and on sports psychology. They regularly come by to watch, nostalgically missing the simple days where the primary goal was to knock over a stack of cups.)

US Under 19 and 15 Team Trials
I'll be coaching at the US Team Trials for Under 19 and Under 15 this next week, to be held at the ICC Table Tennis Center in Milpitas, CA. (They also have Under 13 and Under 17 events.) We have seven junior players from MDTTC going (ages 12-14, ranging from an even 2000 up to 2313), along with five coaches, four of them MDTTC coaches (myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Wang Qingliang) plus Wang Cheng. We have a training camp at MDTTC today (Monday) along with a USATT info Zoom meeting at 3PM, then on Tuesday, nearly the entire contingent (including parents) fly out of Dulles at 6:35PM. On Wednesday, we train at ICC. Then the Trials begin - four consecutive days, Thur-Sun, June 3-6. Here are some helpful links.

Butterfly Bio
Here's my new Butterfly Bio! Regarding my Butterfly sponsorship, I'm often in this tricky position in that I'm sponsored by Butterfly, but my club switched to JOOLA a few years ago. They also sponsor our junior team. I have a long relationship with the owners of both. I was a one-time practice partner with both Bowie Martins (Sr. and Jr.), way back in 1979-81, and have been sponsored by them semi-continuously since that time. On the other hand, I was one of Richard Lee's coaches/practice partners when he was winning nearly every age group (singles and doubles) at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals back in the 1990s, and he now owns JOOLA (worldwide, not just in the US) - and as noted, they now sponsor my club and the junior program I coach at. So I'm always walking a tightrope!

USA Nationals Entries
As I write this the morning of May 31, there are only 242 entries to the upcoming US Nationals. The deadline is June 15, so they have 15 more days. As I've blogged about in the past, I think there would have been a huge turnout if they had run a "normal" Nationals instead of all single elimination - there's a huge hunger out there for a US Nationals and/or US Open, since we haven't had one since 2019. Essentially everyone over age 13 or so who wants to would be vaccinated before the tournament. The reason they went single elimination, according to the USATT CEO at the April board meeting, had nothing to do with the pandemic, saying "The reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." 

Historically, the lowest entries we've ever had were the 335 at the 1986 US Nationals in Pittsburgh. That year was an aberration - the next lowest were the 502 at the 2011 Nationals in Milwaukee. This year, of course, is in the usual Las Vegas, where the norm is usually over 700 more. So, as the entries come in, we'll see if they can top those "magic" numbers of 335 (maybe) and 502 (highly unlikely).

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
Here's the review by Samson Dubina! Here's where you can buy it from Amazon (read the reviews) or Butterfly. (I didn't know about this until I saw it on his page this morning as I put this blog together.)

Top 35 Table Tennis Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2021
Here's the listing from feedspot.com. I'm not sure if I should say, "Yes, I'm #11" or "What, I'm only #11???" Of course, this is a mixing of actual blogs, and websites with news items, which are different things.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Fundraiser
NCTTA is coordinating a National Fundraiser where all donations are doubled (thanks to a generous NCTTA Alum). Can you help them reach their goal of $200,000?

Muscle Memory Application to Tennis
Here's the article, which also applies to table tennis. It's similar to my tip, Saturation Training.

Quick Tip - How to Start After a Break
Here's the video (1:56) from Timo Boll (world #11, formerly world #1). "I hope many of you are currently returning to the halls to play table tennis. In the video you will find some short tips how to start again after a longer break."

New from Samson Dubina

New from Eli Baraty

New from Ti Long

New Drills from Huijing Wang

Transition From Underspin To Topspin
Here's the video (2:37) from Yu Di.

Stroke Chemistry & Footwork
Here's the video (1:48) from Gabriel Perez.

Seth Pech vs Jeremy Hazin Akron Barbara Wurster Memorial Open
Here's the video (7:13) with Seth's expert commentary.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

How To Assemble Your Own Table Tennis Racket
Here's the video (2:09).

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

USATT News

New from Steve Hopkins

Photos by Grant Bergmann in Fort Worth, TX

Welcome to 888 (Triple Eight) Table Tennis
Here's the article by 888 TTC Director and former USATT High Performance Director Jörg Bitzigeio: "A new International training center in the Bay Area."

One Size Fits All Table Tennis
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

My Table Tennis Experience in Poland
Here's the article by Patryk Zyworonek (US #2 12 and Under, rated 2196)

Table Tennis Pins and Coins
Alexander Klimoff of Russia sent me the links to his table tennis pins and table tennis coins collections. Nice collections!

New from Edges and Nets

ITTF News

Gionis Panagiotis vs Jakub Dyjas | MT-FINAL | 2021 Polish Super League
Here's the video (7:49) of this nice chopper vs. attacker match.

INSANE Table Tennis Shot After Shot
Here's the video (24 sec) - Ding Ning vs. Zhu Yuling.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

'The Butterfly Lady' of Paralympic Table Tennis
Here's the article and video (3:26) from CNN.

3-Year-Old Playing with a Table Tennis Robot
Here's the video (31 sec)! Just think, she has five more years of training before she's eight, a typical age many start playing.

Ping Pong is Life
Here's the simple shirt at Amazon!

Impossible Ping Pong Trickshot
Here's the video (8:13) from XOLAY!

Frozen Ping Pong Ball Challenge
Here's the video (5:17) from Pongfinity!

Crazy Cat Playing Table Tennis
Here's the new cat video (14 sec)!

Poochpong - Me And My Poddle Ping-Pong Play Time !!
Here's the new dog video (24 sec)!

Funniest Ping Pong Game Ever
Here's video (1:44) of this golden oldie! I ran this ten years ago when I first started this blog, but now a new generation gets to see it. Here's a new version (1:46) with sharper images.

***
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Tip of the Week
Inside-Out Backhands.

Olympian Lily Zhang at MDTTC
On Sunday, May 24 (yesterday), at 5PM, Olympian and 5-time (and current) US National Women's Singles Champion Lily Zhang visited the Maryland Table Tennis Center to give a talk, answer questions, do a demonstration and exhibition, and signed autographs. It was arranged by Richard Lee (owner of JOOLA and part-owner of MDTTC). The event went off great, with about 100 spectators. Here are pictures:

After a short talk, Lily took questions from the audience, and there were many! I even asked one - "Since you are about to play a chopper/looper in an exhibition, in general, how would you advise players on how to play a chopper?" She answered that playing choppers was not her strength, but that the key was patience. After the Q&A, she and MDTTC Coach Wang Qingliang did an exhibition, best two out of three to 11. It was spectacular!!! Wang won game one, 11-8; Lily game two, 11-9. They started the third game at deuce. Lily won the first point to have match point, but Wang won, 13-11. (But remember, this was an exhibition. But they really went at it - some points featured Lily attacking and Wang chopping, others had Wang ripping forehands while Lily blocked, plus a few counterlooping rallies.)

Afterwards, there was a LONG line for autographs. Everyone got a free autographed paddle and table tennis keychain. Lily personalized each autograph. She also spoke at length with each player, asking them about their table tennis, how long they've played, who their coach was, and so on. She was extremely gracious and made a lot of new fans! (There might be a video up soon - if so, I'll post it here.)

Weekend Coaching
I ran or helped run three group sessions. In the first (Group 3, players up to about 1200), they sent players to me, three at a time. I put one on the robot, one on ball pickup, and did multiball with the other - with the focus on forehand and backhand looping against backspin. Each got about four minutes, rotating. So I fed nothing but backspin for about an hour, side to side. If a player had trouble on one side, then we'd focus on that. Once I was done with a group of three, three others rotated in. I think we are going to run more sessions this way, where three are sent to me for multiball, while the rest do drills run by Lidney Castro. Also assisting, as always, was practice partner Mu Du (just turned 13, rated 2139).

Next up was Group 2 (players up to about 2000). I acted as a practice partner for this one, with players rotating to my table every five minutes or so. Lots of footwork drills!!!

Next up was the Lily Zhang event - see above!

Next up was Group Four, which is five girls, all ages 7-8, plus a 6-year-old boy who joined the session and may be permanent. All six of them had been there for the Lily Zhang exhibition and all six had gotten autographs, and were still in awe!!! Helping out as a practice partner was Kurtus Hsu. The focus for the session was forehands down the line, which always give beginning kids trouble - unless taught otherwise, they almost always want to tilt their racket back with their wrist and just pat the ball rather than stroke it. (Key: rotate shoulders back, contact ball a little later, in front of right leg for righties.) They also each had a turn with Kurtus, where they had a competition to see who could get the most forehands or backhands (their choice) in a row - the winner got 98, while most of the rest got at least 30.

USATT Hall of Fame Program Book
I spent much of last week putting together the 2021 USATT Hall of Fame Program Book. (Actually, it's for those selected for induction in 2020, but postponed because of the pandemic.) The induction will take place on Thursday, July 8, at the US Nationals. Here's info on the induction banquette and the five honorees - David Sakai (Lifetime Achievement Award) and Hall of Fame inductees Sebastian DeFrancesco (athlete), Pam Fontaine (athlete), Christian Lillieroos (contributor) and Roman Tinyszin (contributor).

This is the eleventh year in a row (starting in 2009) I've done the program book, which I do for free, other than a ticket to the banquet. (Technically, I get paid $100, but I donate that to the Hall of Fame Boosters.) This year's was the most difficult to put together since the first time. First, for years I've been doing it in Pagemaker, using the previous year's as a template. (I used Pagemaker to do all 71 issues of USATT Magazine when I was editor.) But not only has Pagemaker been phased out, but it's so out of date it doesn't even run on my new computer. Plus, no one else can make changes to the program when I did it in Pagemaker. So I had to redo it from scratch in Word. Second, the profiles for the inductees were very long, and so I had to do a lot of cutting and consolidating - which is tricky and tedious. But it got done!

2021 National Team & 2021 Pan Am Junior Games Team Trials
They are going on right now, May 21-26 in Fort Worth, TX. A number of videos and live play are on the USATT Facebook page. Here's the info flyer. Men's and Women's Trials are first, ending today, with the Pan Am Junior Games Trials starting today. (Kanak Jha and Lily zhang made the team automatically as the #1 players by their world ranking and so didn't need to try out. A number of other top players didn't try out, including Xin Zhou, Yijun Feng, Juan Liu, and Wu Yue.)

Breaking News - here's the top four finishers in Men's and Women's:

  • Men's: 1st Sharon Alguetti; 2nd Nikhil Kumar; 3rd: Jishan Liang; 4th Dan Liu.
  • Women's: 1st Amy Wang; 2nd Sarah Jalli; 3rd Huijing Wang; 4th Tiffany Ke.

Here's a graphic from USATT showing the Men's and Women's National Team - 8 men, 8 women. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

The National Under 19 and Under 15 Team Trials will be held at ICC in Milpitas, CA, June 3-6, and the National Under 11, 13, and 17 Team Trials will be held at the Westchester TTC in Pleasantville, NY, June 18-21. Info is at the top under USATT Events at Omnipong. I'll be coaching at both of these events.

Kanak Jha vs Benedikt Duda | FINAL | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters V
Here's the video (9:23).

USATT Announces Updated Policy and Protocol for 2021 US Nationals
Here's the USATT news item. Spectators will now be allowed.

Help NCTTC Raise $200,000 to Strengthen College Table Tennis in North America!
Here's the GoFundMe fundraiser.

New from Timo Boll

Managing Sports Aggression: Four Tips for Athletes
Here's the article by Dora Kurimay.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
He has many new items on his Video and Articles pages.

Forehand Loop From Underspin
Here's the article and video (1:26) from Jabdiel Torres, narration by Brian Pace.

Tips on Reading Service Spin
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

How to Learn & Play the Forehand Flick
Here's the video (7:33) from Dublin TTC. (Note - flick and flip are the same thing.)

New from Eli Baraty

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Table Tennis Exercises At Home
Here's the video (90 seconds) from Huijing Wang.

New from the ITTF

New from Steve Hopkins

Tremendous, Terrific, Tournament Time
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

$5000 Barbara Wurster Memorial Open Recap
Here's the article by Jabdiel Torres.

Goodbye Ding Ning - She's Retiring
Here's the new video (9:16) that highlights her career, from inMotion Table Tennis.

China Table Tennis Facing 'Unprecedented Threat' at Olympics
Here's the article from Yahoo Sports. "China have won 28 of 32 table tennis gold medals awarded at the Olympics, but their supremacy could face its biggest test yet in Tokyo this summer." "Home advantage for fierce rivals Japan, inconsistent form among China's top players and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic suggest the world's most populous country might not have it all their own way when the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics start in just over two months."

Four-Year-Old Talent in Chengdu Practices Table Tennis Blindfolded
Here's the article and video (2:22) from ecns.cn - but the key thing to note here isn't when he does the blindfold thing, but that he's playing on a raised platform, allowing him to start at a much younger age than most kids, who usually aren't tall enough to play on a normal-sized table until they are at least five or six years old.

Catching Up with Michael Godfreys: Swinging for the Games
Here's the article from Pro Rodeo, on this former pro bronc and bull rider's journey to wheelchair table tennis.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Stashka - Dreams in One Ball
Here's the table tennis music video (3:23).

My Lucky Ping-Pong Shirt (Do Not Wash)
Here's where you can buy this at Amazon!

Funny Table Tennis Fight Anime Style VFX
Here's the video (2:45)!

Actin'Funny
These are somewhat funny as three kids battle it out in what is the very definition of basement ping pong.

Jan-Ove Waldner Imitates Liu Guoliang
Here's the video (20 sec). I'm guessing some will find his facial expressions offensive, but the movements are dead-on, with only a bit of exaggeration. Waldner and Liu were huge rivals in the 1990s, and Liu is now the head coach for China.

Kangaroo Pong
There is a serious shortage of kangaroo table tennis pictures or videos. This is all I could find. I'm very disappointed.

***
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Tip of the Week
Patient Decisiveness.

The Subconscious and Table Tennis
One of the hardest things to convince up-and-coming players to do is to just let go, and let their training take over. What that really means is letting your subconscious do what it was trained to do.

Your brain has about 90 billion neurons. On average, each connects to 7,000 others, for a total of roughly 70 trillion connections. Nearly all of that is your subconscious. If I say, "Who was the first US president?", those neurons immediately cough up George Washington. When you tie your shoe, you don't consciously think about each movement - the movements are stored in your subconscious, ready to be brought up on command by your conscious mind.

Similarly, every time you train at table tennis, those neurons are making connections as they learn what they are supposed to do. Once they learn, they are pretty good doing it, as long as you don't interfere. Who is the "you"? That's the conscious mind, which doesn't have all these neurons that instantly do things the way they are taught. Once you bring the conscious mind into it, you start a fight as your conscious mind tries to take control of a process it isn't well trained at, while the subconscious is trying to do what it is well trained at. Here are some examples.

When I teach the forehand, I'll often set up a filled water bottle on the far side of the table. Then I'll systematically grab balls and, from across the table, smack ball after ball into it, almost never missing, the whole time giving a lecture on the stroke. The key thing is that I can only do this if I do not aim at the water bottle - at least not consciously. All I have to do is decide to hit the bottle, and watch it, and the subconscious takes over - and it's really good! I get all the credit, when all I (the conscious me) is doing is watching the bottle and trying hard to do nothing, while the subconscious, which is smacking the bottle over and over, gets no credit. I almost feel guilty! The key I try to get across to students is that you first learn the stroke, which means training the subconscious. And then you let go, and let it take over.

Another example is my serve. For 45 years I've had this habit as I'm about to serve of pulling my racket arm back and then forward. If I don't do that, I lose most of the control and precision on my serves. But as soon as I bring my arm back and forward, the subconscious part of my brain that has learned to serve lights up, and the rest is easy - I decide what serve to do, visualize what I want it to  do, and then just watch it happen.

I used to play tennis. Because of table tennis, I have very good placement. If I see an opening, my subconscious jumps on it, and I smack the ball there. But I made a bad discovery - when I go to the net to volley, whatever part of my subconscious that controls this doesn't turn on! It was frustrating for at time - I felt like an amateur. Then I made good discovery - when I do a swinging volley, that part of my subconscious immediately turned on, and once again I had great placement! What I realized is that, after all these decades of table tennis, it was my backswing on any given shot that alerted my subconscious that I was about to hit a shot, and could it please find the best spot to aim for? Normally, when volleying in tennis, you don't backswing - you often don't have time, and it's harder to control. But for me, except on pure reflex volleys, I started to use swinging volleys all the time, which drove my coaches crazy, but worked for me.

Many years ago I learned about the power of the subconscious in a completely non-table tennis way. Circa 1983, the famous math puzzlist Martin Gardner posed a challenge to college math students in the US - five different math problems where you had to find an algorithm that could be put into a computer to solve the problem. If I remember correctly, two were soon solved by students at MIT and Caltech. Three remained unsolved. I believe I was a sophomore math major at University of Maryland when I took a class from Dr. Harold Reiter, a visiting professor from University of North Carolina. (I was so active in local table tennis I didn't apply for any other colleges than U of M, five minutes' drive from my parent's house where I grew up.) He told the class that if anyone wanted, they could join a research group that was trying to solve the remaining Gardner problems. He promised three things: 1) You will learn a lot about math research; 2) there was roughly a 0% chance of us solving the problem; and 3) if anyone solved any of the problems, they'd get an automatic A for the course.

I signed up and spent a lot of time going over one of the problems. Nothing really came to mind. Then, one night (or rather morning), at 2AM, I literally sat up in bed - the entire solution had just popped into my head! I had no idea where it came from; when questioned about it, I was unable to explain the step-by-step process that got to the solution. I just know that at 8AM, when Dr. Reiter came in, I was at his office door, probably slurring my words and talking 500 mph, yelling, "I solved it! I solved it!" (I had a printout from the computer with the solution from my algorithm.) I got the automatic A. The article with the solution (by myself and Dr. Reiter) was published a few years later (these things take time!) in a math journal, the Spring, 1986 issue of Mathematics and Computer Science Education. (The article was titled, "Magic Rectangles Revisited," since they had done a previous article on a similar topic.)

Where did the solution come from? While my conscious mind was inputting the needed info to solve the problem, my subconscious had been hard at work. I had no clue until the entire solution just popped into my head! But just as you must training your subconscious in table tennis, I had to first spend a lot of time studying the problem, so the subconcious had what was needed to solve the problem. (Alas, little of this is online - there was no public Internet back then. But I have a copy of the math journal.)

So it's no different than table tennis. Train your subconscious - that's why you do table tennis drills and perhaps work with a coach - and then let it go to work! 

Weekend Coaching
As usual, Sunday was my busy day - I'm at the club from 11AM to 7:30PM. Things started with the Group 3 session, with players up to about 1200 level. I alternated between being a roving coach and being a practice partner for some of the kids. I put a lot of them through the usual footwork drills.

After a quick lunch, that was followed by a session with Navin Kumar. (As mentioned before, I'm retired from private coaching, but made an exception for Navin.) Here are two videos:

  • Backhands (30 sec, backhands, a shot off the face, and a forehand smash)
  • More Backhands (22 sec, where he blocks with the pips and then switches to inverted to smash)

Next up was a sports psychology session with one of our players, where we focused on specific issues from the recent tournament in Cary, NC, and on specific situations.

Next up was the Group 2 session (players up to about 2000), where I acted as a practice partner for one hour. The first half were lots of footwork drills, where I blocked side to side. The second half was mostly the player serving backspin, I push to a specific spot, they loop, and play out the point. I worked with several players on improving their opening and follow-up loop, including one who too often just rolled the ball, guiding the shot instead of just letting the shot go.

Next up was the weekly circus, or rather, the Group of Five, or rather the five girls, all ages 7-8. Most coaches are terrorized by such a group, but I know the secret - I constantly banter with them, keep it interesting, and that holds their attention. Plus, of course, regular water breaks so they can do selfies. We always do an hour of practice and then 30 minutes of games. For the games, I started off by setting the robot at full speed, both velocity and feed speed, and let them take turns trying to return it. Surprisingly, they all got the hang of it! Then, as always, we finished with cups - they built the usual pyramids, walls, and forts, and then they knocked them down as I fed multiball. One small change - I brought in "Draggy the Dragon" a stuffed dragon that's about the size of a toaster. Besides using it for target practice while on the robot, they built a fort around him with the cups. At the end, after all the cups had been knocked down and all that was left was Draggy, I stuck a ping-pong ball - a nuclear bomb - under one of his arms and gave them sixty seconds to knock it off before it exploded. Took them 42 seconds, so we were saved from desolation by 18 seconds.

USATT Coaches Meeting
Here's the video (48 min) of the meeting this past Friday. (They meet every Friday at noon eastern time, run by USATT High Performance Director Sean O'Neill - info is posted in advance each week at the USA Table Tennis Coaches Facebook Page.) This week's main topic was "Keeping it fun!" I shared the picture at the top of the MDTTC Group Classes page as an example. I have the kids create huge pyramids and walls of paper cups, and then, as I feed multiball, they take turns knocking it down! (See all those open mouths!) I may do a video later, but I'm a little leery as I'm told I should get permission from all the parents of all the kids in the video, and that's quite a hassle.

California Recall Election
C'mon, people - if there's going to be a recall election and it only takes $4000 and 75 signatures to get on the ballot, we need someone to run on a Table Tennis Platform! The publicity from that stunt would be well worth the $4000!

The Lost Legend And Secret Legacy Of Table Tennis Master Rong Guotuan
Here's the article. Rong Guotuan was the 1959 World Men's Singles Champion - China's first world table tennis champion - and coach of the 1965 Chinese Women's Team that won the Worlds for the first time. But it ended in tragedy during the Cultural Revolution, ending with his suicide. His story is featured in one chapter of my 100-page table tennis fantasy novel, The Spirit of Pong. (You can read the first two chapters - 17 pages - for free.)

USATT Weekly Pongcast Ep 5
Here's the video (13:43) where USATT COO Mark Thompson and HPD Sean O'Neill talk RQT, Hall of Fame Cup, and more.

Para Table Tennis Coaching
Here's the ITTF info page and registration page. It takes place at 7AM Eastern time (yes, 4AM Pacific time) on Tuesday, May 19 - that's tomorrow. "Join us for our webinar on “Para Table Tennis Coaching”. We will be joined by panelists Alois Rosario (AUS), Gorazd Vecko (ENG) and Ela Madejska (GER)."

New from Brian Pace

New from Samson Dubina

Have You Discovered the Benefits of Mindfulness Techniques Yet?
Here's the article by Dora Kurimay.

Half-Long Ball - Effective Backhand and Forehand Topspin Off a Backspin Ball
Here's the video (42 sec) from Eli Baraty.

Serve Position in Table Tennis
Here's the video (2:46) with Truls Moregard (SWE, world #102, #18 in 2019) from PingPonged TV.

Seth Pech vs Martin Jezo 2021 Presper Financial Architects Open Quarterfinals
Here's the video (7:50) with point-by-point analysis from Seth.

Defensive Specialist – Drill #4
Here's the video (1:37) from Rachel Yang.

USATT 1300 Table Tennis VOD Review - Feeding Your Opponent!
Here's the video (34 min) from Louis Levene as he coaches a 1300 player, with commentary.

New from Ti Long

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
(Some of the videos are repeats from the articles.)

Taking Aim at the Georgia Games
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

My Table Tennis Journey
Here's the article by Aabid Sheikh from Massachusetts.

New from Steve Hopkins

2021 Butterfly Sandhills Open Tournament Summary
Here's the article and video by Tony Murnahan.

New from the ITTF

Final Point in Under 2650 Final
Here's the video (16 sec) between Jishan Liang (far side) and Jeremy Hazin (CAN) from the $5000 Barbara Wurster Memorial Open in Akron, OH this past weekend. Why do the best points so often come at the end of a match?

The Best Table Tennis Rally You'll See All Week
Here's the video (38 sec).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Amateur vs. Semi-Pro
Here's the video (11:35) from Adam Bobrow. "Josiah is way better than most people and in table tennis there are so many levels. When you discover spin the game completely changes."

Funny Table Tennis with Syrian Woman, Loop vs. Block, and Some Multiball
Here's the video (64 sec)!

Zhang Jike VS Ren Jialun on Entertainment Show
Here's the video (9 min) - it's in Chinese but you can pretty much see what's going on.

World's Longest Ping Pong Shot? Pongfinity vs. XOLAY Challenge
Here's the video (4:42)!

Extremely Hard Ping Pong
Here's the video (11:29) from Pongfinity! "We drilled a table full of holes and tried playing a table tennis match on it"!

1 VS 4 Tennis Challenge Blind Fold
Here's the video (7 sec)!

Your Serve
Here's the cartoon! (Choo-choo pong?)

Cheater!
Here's the cartoon!

***
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