Tip of the Week

Should You Use a Neutral Grip?

The Flu, Late Players, and James Bond - Oh My!

As readers know, I battled with the flu most of last week, and was pretty much out of commission from Sunday afternoon through Thursday. I was tempted to coach on Wednesday - my 53rd birthday - but I got a call from my dad, and when I answered it, my voice was a croak. (I didn't know since I hadn't talked to anyone that day.) And then it got worse, so I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for me.

It wasn't all bad - I spent part of the time watching James Bond movies which I'd borrowed from ITTF coach and student John Olsen. There are 23 James Bond movies, and I thought I had seen all but two or three. I discovered I had not seen five of them, and only had vague memories of three others. So I spent much of Tuesday through Thursday watching eight of them:

1. From Russia with Love
2. Thunderball
3. You Only Live Twice
4. On Her Majesty Secret Service
5. Diamonds are Forever
6. Live and Let Die
7. The Man with the Golden Gun
8. Moonraker

I got back into action on Saturday, running a junior session that morning and two hours of private coaching that afternoon. On Sunday I did two more hours of private coaching and ran another junior session. I also discussed with Wen Hsu plans for starting a junior team league this fall, tentatively on Saturday nights.

The junior session on Sunday was one of the more hectic ones I've run. It's a beginning junior class, so we need a higher ratio of coaches to players, with lots of multiball training. Normally we get 12-15 in this session, and I have two assistant coaches - for this session, Rocky Wang and John Hsu. The session began at 4:30PM, and there were only five players. I figured it was because we were running a tournament this weekend, and so many assumed there would be no session. I'd decided to start the session off with a short talk about the club's other programs - it seemed a good time, since the club was jammed with players for the tournament. (That's the advantage of a 16-table facility - you can run a tournament, a junior program, and have private coaching going on all at the same time!) I spoke for about five minutes to the five players and their parents. A sixth kid showed up in the middle.

I normally break the group into four smaller groups that rotate among the three coaches and the table tennis robot. However, with only five, I could pretty much run it alone, along with the robot. But since Rocky and John were already there, I decided we'd use two coaches and use two tables. So we took the robot down. Rocky volunteered to drop out, so he left. Then a strange thing happened - as we started, two more kids showed up. Then another. And then three came in - and it was now 15 minutes into the 90 minute session! I managed to grab Rocky before he left, and we hurriedly put the robot back up, but it wasted a lot of time for the others. With twelve players (beginners), I put them into four groups of three, and rotated as we always do. Since we had the late start, we only had three rotations, so not all the players worked with all the coaches or the robot. It also meant, due to lost time, we didn't get to work on all that I wanted, so we skipped pushing. After an hour of training, we played 11-point games (where they move up or down the table, depending on whether they win or lose, with 11-10 ending a game - no deuce).

Later today I'm sending out an email to the junior parents reminding them again of the importance of being on time.

MDTTC Open

I didn't get to see much of it as I was busy coaching. Wang Qing Liang (age 17, rated 2598) came from behind to defeat Chen Bo Wen (age 14, rated 2494) in the final. Wang won the first, Chen won the next three, then Wang won the last three to win 4-3. Crystal Wang, who turned 11 the week before, won Under 2250 and was up 2-0 on Raghu Nadmichettu (2366) in the Open before losing in five.

Amazon Review

Just got the first Amazon review of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers - and it's a 5-star one! Below is the review, titled "It Made Me Think!" He is correct that there are times when the book is necessarily repetitive. For example, in the chapter about choppers, some of the material covered in the chapter on non-inverted surfaces (especially long pips) is covered again, so readers don't have to page back and forth.

Very enjoyable read. The whole time I was reading this book, my mind would kind of drift off as I was picturing the aspects of my game in whatever part of the book I was reading.

Pros
The topics are laid out in a very logical order and explained in great detail.
The verbiage makes the book very conversational, so it doesn't drag on or feel like a sermon.
Many examples are used making it easy to visualize each subject.
Styles are broken down into various subsets - each containing their own goals and strategies
Excellent tactics are provided against a wide variety of styles - I highly recommend the section on non-inverted surfaces!

Cons
A little repetitive at times, but this kind of comes with the territory

Book signing

This Friday at 7PM I will be doing a book signing at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I will be selling and signing four of my books (see below) - hope to see you there! All books will cost $15, with a special - buy the Tactics book, get a copy of the Tales & Techniques book for only $5! Here's the info flyer.

• Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers
• Table Tennis: Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Pings and Pongs

Put the Ball on the Table!

Here's an article by Samson Dubina, along with a video used as an example (Ma Long vs. Ryu Seung Min, 8:02) on the importance of keeping the ball on the table, which features the importance of positioning.

Table Tennista

Table Tennista is a great site for articles and videos on international table tennis. They do especially good coverage of China. I've linked to their articles many times. Their current features includes lots of coverage of the Chinese World Team Trials, as well as coverage of the German Nationals (Timo Boll was upset in the final) and Swedish Nationals (Waldner and Persson lost early).

German Nationals Highlights

Here's a video (2:45) with highlights from the German Nationals that finished this weekend. Big upset - Stefan Mengel upset Timo Boll in the Men's Singles Final!

Believe in Yourself

Here's a table tennis highlights motivational video (8:11) on the importance of believing in yourself.

Friendship Trophy for Women

Here's info from the ITTF's Women's Development Program on the Friendship Trophy, an event organized to help promote the participation of women and girls in Table Tennis. Each organizer can create a unique format to best celebrate the contribution of women and girls in Table Tennis.

Tribute to Women Players

Here's a video (59 sec) from ITTF that highlights the best women players in the world.

Hottest Chick in Table Tennis

Since we have two segments above on women, here's the hottest chick in table tennis! (Yes, I made this; blame me.)

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Flu Update

It's much better than before, but I'm still sick. I won't bore (or sicken) you with the details, so let's just say I'm singlehandedly propping up the economy with my support of NyQuil, Campbell Soup, and Kleenex Industries and. If all goes well, I expect to be coaching at the club tomorrow morning. It'll be a short blog this morning, then (after a few other items on my todo list), it's back to bed.

Off-Table Serve Practice

Here's a way to develop your serves away from the table - and it may greatly improve them. Start with a simple exercise: toss a ball in the air as if serving, and spin it with your racket. Try to do this so the ball goes straight up so you can easily catch it. After you've mastered this, try varying the spin. Try spinning it with the racket moving side-to-side, in-and-out, and in both directions. Learn to do all sorts of spins this way, where you focus on sheer spin and control. When you can do this, you are only one step away from doing this with an actual serve.

Ma Long - Superman?

Here's an article on Ma Long, the "Superman of the Chinese Team." Includes links to several videos.

Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui

Here's an article on these two titans of China, formerly superstar players and now coaches of the Chinese Men's and Women's National Teams.

LA Dodgers Ping-Pong

Here's an article from Table Tennis Nation on the LA Dodgers baseball team quickly becoming baseball's official ping-pong team.

Ping-Pong Making a Comeback

Here's an article and video (1:42) on how table tennis is "trending." Table tennis coach and player Matt Winkler is featured.

Cape Fear Table Tennis

Here's a documentary (11:26) on the Cape Fear Table Tennis Club in Fayetteville, NC.

Olympian Magazine

Here's a link to the online Olympian Magazine, both the new issue and past ones. Nothing directly table tennis related, but it might be of interest to some. One article might in particular jumped out at me (haven't read it yet) - "The Role of Deliberate Practice in Becoming an Expert Coach: Part 2 - Reflection." (Presumably there's a Part 1 in the previous issue.)

Behind the Back Training

Here's a video (19 sec) showing behind the back training on an iPong robot! That's Steven Chan doing the demo. (I'm jealous; because of stiff shoulders, behind-the-back shots are about the only "trick" shot in table tennis I've never mastered.)

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Flu

It looks like what I thought was a cold is actually the flu. The difference is I'm feeling constant muscle aches and soreness, which apparently is a flu symptom, not a cold's. So how am I feeling? Other than the constant coughing, runny nose, green stuff coming out of my lungs, entire body encased in aches, and complete exhaustion, I'm fine, thanks for asking. (I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for my coaching last night as I spent my 53rd birthday in bed.) 

Playing While Sick

Way back in the fall of 1979, when I was 19, I had my big breakthrough tournament at the North Carolina Open. I was rated about 1850, but was way under-rated, and knew it - and so I was somewhat excited in the days before the tournament, so much so that I couldn't sleep. Making it worse is I came down sick. I used to be an insomniac, and often went a night without sleeping. This time I didn't sleep the last two nights before the tournament (Thur and Fri), and I came down with a fever of 101.

Early in the tournament I pulled off a nice win, and celebrated with a quarter pounder with cheese. When I won another match, I had another quarter pounder with cheese. Eventually I found myself in the Open Singles final (despite not being among the top eight seeds). As the match began, my head was burning up - several people had put their hands to my forehand and verified it was pretty bad. I had a horrible stomachache from all the quarter pounders - something like nine of them in one day, and having to play right after eating them. I faced Fred King, who in modern ratings would have been about 2200. Anyway, down 13-17 in the fifth on Fred's serve (games were to 21 back in those days, and you served five times in a row), I scored all five on his serve, and ended up winning 21-19 in the fifth. I also won Under 22, Under 2000, and Open Doubles, all four events I'd been entered in.

I spent the next few days in bed recuperating - I was pretty sick. I also became so sick at the idea of eating hamburgers that I've never eaten another hamburger or cheeseburger since, except at the 2000 Junior Olympics. The kids knew about my aversion to hamburgers, so I made a deal with them before the tournament: if they won over half the gold medals, I'd eat a cheeseburger. They did, and I did. That was the only one I've had since 1979.

Now that I'm as sick as I was that day back in 1979, perhaps I should enter a tournament this weekend?

Paris 2013

Here's the table used at the Chinese Team Trials for the upcoming World Championships in Paris.

Pongcast Episode 24

Here's another Pongcast (15:24). "In this episode: Results and analysis of the 2013 Qatar Open, Project Runway finds style in table tennis, Extra TV gets their pong on, and find out what it's like to be Timo Boll in practice!"

Wang Hao's Around the Net Loop

Here's a video (22 sec) of Wang Hao doing an around-the-net no-bounce loop at the Qatar Open against Germany's Patrick Baum.

Spin Move and Backhand Counterloop

Here's a video (27 sec) showing Kenta Matsudaira who both does a complete 360 spin after one shot, and a few shots later pulls out a winning backhand counterloop.

Trick Shots

Here's a video (2:29) of trick shots.

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm 53 today and sick in bed. Terrific. I'm still undecided whether I can do three hours of scheduled coaching tonight, 6-9PM. (Usually I have a 5PM as well, but she's out of town.) So today's blog will be a bit short.

Freezing Up

Here's an interesting psychological study. When I serve short backspin to top players, I instinctively prepare to follow up against three possible receives: short push, long push, or flip. This past weekend at the end of a lesson I played a practice game with a student who really could only push long off this serve. But a strange thing happened. I served and instinctively prepared for his long push - and instead, he pushed short! I was so caught off guard I literally froze in mid-backswing as the ball bounced twice on my side of the table.

I had mentioned short pushes to him before, but hadn't really taught him how to do them yet. He'd just picked it up on his own, and he realized he needed to push short to stop my loop. Meanwhile, my subconscious mind was so set on the idea that he could only push long that it not only anticipated it, it froze up when the push went short, as if to say, "That does not compute."

New Players/Practice Partners/Assistant Coaches

Two new players/practice partners/assistant coaches arrived at MDTTC from China on Monday. They are Zhang Liang Bojun, 17, a right-handed shakehander from the Hunan Province Team, and Chen Jie, 16, a lefty shakehander from the Guanxi Province who was training at the Shandong Luneng School. Here's their picture, with Zhang on the left. We're not yet sure of their level, but probably somewhere in the 2500-2600 range; we'll see. They join the two other players/practice partners/assistant coaches that joined us a year ago - Wang Qing Liang (17, rated 2598, Men's Singles Semifinalist at the 2012 U.S. Open, a chopper/looper) and Chen Bo Wen (14, rated 2494, a two-winged penhold looper), and coaches Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Rocky Wang, Raghu Nadmichettu, Jeffrey Zeng Xun (currently in Taiwan but returning this summer) and myself.

MDTTC Open

The MDTTC March Open is this weekend, March 2-3.  Come play and watch as the new Chinese players and others battle for the title.

Chuang Chih-Yuan Smashes Lob

Here's a composite photo of Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan smashing a lob. From a coaching point of view, the key thing to note is how he backswings as if the ball were low, and then raises his racket, all in one continuous motion. Some players raise their racket too early, leading to an off-balance shot.

Shot of the Year?

Here's a video (40 sec) showing a shot by Koki Niwa at the Japan Top Twelve this past weekend. As one commenter wrote, "What in gods name possessed him to even attempt to hit that shot? It's madness, MADNESS I SAY!" One interesting thing to note is how Koki returned the short serve with a backhand from the wide forehand side, a growing trend these days.

Topspin Charity Event

Here's a video (3:19) of the MarblespinTV Topspin Charity Event.

Waldner Jump-the-Barriers No-Look Lob

Here's the video (1:06).

Colorful Tables?

Here's the photo - yellow, blue, green, and red tables.

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week

Should You Hit or Loop the Backhand?

Two Weeks in a Desk

I'm still fighting off the cold I've had the last two days. However, I was already out of shape before I caught it.

The two weeks working on Tim's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. XIII, left me way, way out of shape. Sitting at a desk 12-16 hours/day for two weeks can do that to you. On Saturday, after coaching all day (arriving at the club at 10AM), I was a practice partner for a 4:30-6:30 match session. By this point I was exhausted as well as out of shape and stiff as neutronium. I was also probably tired from the early stages of the cold I would not realize I had until the next day.

Yet, by playing sound tactics, I was able to beat a 2300 player, and mow down a whole bunch of 1800-2000 players all 3-0. Here's a summary of tactics I used to make up for slow feet, an erratic forehand, and general exhaustion.

• On my serve, ended points quickly by forcing winners off my serve, either with the serve directly or an easy put-away afterwards. I threw everything at them - I call it "cycling my serves": short to the forehand (backspin, side-back, sidespin both ways, no-spin), long to the backhand (mostly breaking away, usually with a reverse forehand pendulum fake motion), fast no-spin at the elbow, and others short to the backhand or middle, or long to the forehand (either very long or barely long). Often I'd do my infamous "twitch" serve, which looks like backspin but a very small upward twitch right at contact puts light topspin on the ball.
• Mixed up the receives to mess them up quickly in the rally, with a mixture of short pushes, quick long pushes, and banana backhand flips, all done with last-second changes of direction.
• On their serve, forced backhand-to-backhand rallies where I just stood there hitting backhands until and unless they went to my forehand, in which case I'd loop or hit. By keeping the ball wide to their backhands, they had no angle into my forehand so I didn't have to move much to cover those balls.
• Slow, spinny opening loops, followed either by easy put-aways or more backhand to backhand rallies.
• When they attacked my forehand I'd go wide to their forehand, and then come back to their backhand, and then we'd be right back to backhand-to-backhand exchanges, except they'd start the rally out of position.
• Occasional quick and heavy pushes to the wide corner. If done infrequently, they lead to miss after miss.

USA Team to the Worlds

Here's USATT's official announcement of the USA Team to the World Championships coming up in Paris, May 13-20. (Peter Li qualified for the fourth unfunded spot on the Men's Team, but turned it down. The fifth spots were coach's picks - Chodri and Lin.)

• Men's Team - Timothy Wang, Yahao Zhang, Khoa Nguyen, Jim Butler, Kunal Chodri; Coach Stefan Feth
• Women's Team – Lily Zhang, Erica Wu, Ariel Hsing, Prachi Jha, Tina Lin; Coach Doru Gheorghe

ITTF Education Platform

Here's the page - "the new learning platform for the International Table Tennis Federation."

Ping-Pong: Head Game

Here's an article in the New York Times on table tennis this past weekend. The author writes, "This is not the kids’ game I grew up playing in my dorm at school."

Qatar Open

Here's the home page for the Qatar Open that was played this weekend, with results, articles, and pictures. Here's a video (8:24, with time between points removed) of the all-Chinese Men's Final between Ma Long and An Yan. Here's a video (6:23, also with time between points removed) of the all-Chinese Women's Final between Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen.

Zhang Jike: Fully Recovered?

Here's an article on Zhang Jike's recovery from a series of poor performances.

Interview with Joo Saehyuk

Here's an interview with the South Korean defensive star.  

New York City Table Tennis Academy

Here's a video (4:26) featuring the NYCTTA and Coach Ernesto Ebuen.

Wang Liqin Tricks

Here's an article on Wang Liqin, which includes a 21-second video of him doing table tennis tricks, including showing how tacky his rubber is. (It holds the ball upside-down.)

World's Perfect Vacation?

Here's beach table tennis.

***
Send us your own coaching news!

I came down sick yesterday, and had to get others to substitute for me for yesterday afternoon's coaching rather than infect everyone. It's probably just a cold. I'm taking today off. So no blog this morning, and the Tip of the Week will go up tomorrow. After all, I wouldn't want to infect anyone. (If you are reading this, you might already have caught my cold.) If you are really desperate for something TT to read, why not explore www.usatt.org or www.ittf.com?

Forehand or Backhand Receive in Doubles?

More and more these days top players receive short balls with their backhand whenever possible. In doubles, where players only have to cover half the court on the receive, most players used to return everything with their forehands, so that they'd be ready to forehand loop anything that went long. But that paradigm has changed.

Here's a video (4:21, with time between points removed, not all points shown) of the all-Chinese Men's Doubles Final at the Kuwait Open this past weekend, where Xu Xin and Yan An defeated Zhang Jike and Ma Long, -6,9,10,4. The video showed 44 points; below is the breakdown on receives. Overall, players received forehand 24 times and backhand 20 times. However, these results were skewed by Yan An, who received forehand 12 times, backhand once. Take him out, and the other three had 12 forehand receives to 19 backhand ones.

• Ma Long: FH 4, BH 8
• Zhang Jike: FH 2, BH 7
• Xu Xin: FH 6, BH 4
• Yan An: FH 12, BH 1

Make sure to see the nifty ducking move by Ma Long in the point starting around 46 seconds in. Also, see where Zhang Jike and Ma Long accidentally bump into each other, about 65 seconds in. (Xu is the lefty penholder; Yan An his righty shakehands partner. I sometimes had trouble telling Zhang Jike and Ma Long apart in the video, especially on the far side where you couldn't see their names on their backs - they are dressed identically right down to their shoes, both have black on their forehands, have nearly the same haircuts, are about the same height, and from a distance look similar (at least to me on the video). I did so by keeping track of who was serving to who. In game one, Ma Long served to Xu Xin, and you can work out the rest from that.)

I did a similar analysis of an early-round match at the Qatar Open, which started yesterday. Here's a video (3:14, with time between points removed, not all points shown) from the Qatar Open just yesterday showing most of the points in a match in Men's Doubles in the round of 32 where Xu Xin (the same lefty penholder from the match above) and Fan Zhendong (righty shakehander) of China defeated Hungary's Janos Jakab (all-blue shirt) and Czech Republic's Michal Obeslo (blue shirt with orange sleeves), -10,4,8,6. The video showed 39 points; below is the breakdown on receives. Overall there were 27 forehand receives and 12 backhand, but the stats are again skewed, this time by Jakab's 11-1 stats. Take him out, and the other three had 16 forehand receives to 11 backhand ones.

• Xu Xin: FH 4, BH 4
• Fan Zhendong: FH 7, BH 3
• Janos Jakab: FH 11, BH 1
• Michal Obeslo: FH 5, BH 4

You could say that Yan An and Janos Jakab are "old school," in that they received nearly everything forehand, just as players in the past (including myself) were taught to do, so as to be ready to loop anything deep. However, newer players like to receive short serves with the backhand whenever possible, using banana flips with heavy topspin and often sidespin. (As I've blogged about before, this is also true in singles.)

In most cases, the players set up in advance to receive forehand or backhand. However, often you'd see them switch, based on the incoming serve. Ma Long and Zhang Jike in particular would sometimes set up forehand and switch to backhand as the serve was coming in. It looks like they were trying to receive long serves with their forehands, and would switch to backhand as soon as they saw the serve was short. Late in the match in the Kuwait Final, there are two points where Zhang Jike looped two serves in with his forehand against Yan An's serve - they were the only forehand receives he used that match, and probably the only long serves he saw.

Xu Xin, the lefty penholder, was tricky to watch. Sometimes it was hard telling if he was receiving forehand or backhand when he pushed (almost always short).

Qingdao Great Personality Award for the year 2012

Zhang Jike has been named the Qingdao Personality of the Year for 2012. Here's the article.

Who is Liu Guoliang's Favorite Player?

Answer: Chen Qi. Here's an article on what the Chinese Men's Coach and former star said. (Actually, despite the article's headline, what he really said was "Chen Qi is one of my favorite players on the National Team."  He also said that fans call him a "cute murderer.")

Mario vs. Maria

Here's a video (1:23) of a three-point challenge match between Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos from Extra TV, with "pro" table tennis players Elie Mehl and Adam Bobrow first giving a demo.

Ryder Cup Table Tennis

Here's a video (1:30) of Ryder Cup Golf players discussing table tennis. Players interviewed include Webb Simpson, Bubba Watson, and the reigning table tennis champion, Matt Kuchar. They make fun of Phil Mickelson, who was the best until Kuchar came along. Some quotes:

• "The Ryder Cup is all about ping-pong."
• "Bubba thinks he's good, but he just plays defense."
• "I think it's clear that Matt Kuchar is the best. Phil Mickelson's not quite ready to admit it. I think he's in denial."
• "When you bring your own paddles and cases, and a briefcase with a paddle, then it's obviously about ping-pong. Phil Mickelson and Matt Kuchar have their own cases for their paddles. It's nuts."
• "Phil Mickelson pouts every time we make him play Matt Kuchar. Love you Phil!"

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Preparing for Tournaments

Yesterday I coached two junior players who were getting ready for their first USATT tournament. (The MDTTC Open on March 2-3.) Neither have actual USATT ratings, but both have league ratings under 1000 - I'm not sure if they will use those or treat them as unrated. I coached a third this past weekend who is also getting ready for his first tournament, and who also has a league rating under 1000. What did I tell these players to do to prepare?

Sam, 11, a lefty, has a good forehand smash, and can forehand loop against backspin, though he's not too confident in the shot. He pushes and blocks well, and has decent serves, though he tends to have a short toss (under six inches) on his backhand serve, his best serve - we're working on that. Recently he's been learning to backhand loop. I told him to focus on practicing his serves, on steadiness with his backhand (pushing and blocking), and on steady hitting on the forehand side. Since he doesn't have great confidence in his forehand loop, I told him to focus on looping only on pushes to his forehand side. We also agreed to drop the backhand loop from his game for now. After the tournament, we'll get back to backhand looping, and work to increase his confidence in his forehand loop.

TJ, 12, a righty, likes to loop, and does so pretty well from both sides. I was at first unsure if he was ready to unleash his backhand loop in matches, but he has confidence in it, so he's going to be looping from both sides against most deep pushes in the tournament. He still has trouble controlling his serve when he puts spin on it, so we're going to focus on that more than anything else until the tournament. Because he's only recently learned to loop - though he has great confidence in the shot - he has trouble going from looping to hitting on both sides, so between now and the tournament we're going to focus on backhand hitting and forehand smashing. After the tournament we're going to focus more and more on mostly looping on the forehand side, while working his backhand loop into his game more and more. He already likes to spin the backhand even against fast incoming topspins, so he's undoubtedly going to become a two-winged looper.

Sameer, 11, a righty, most practices at home, where there's only about five feet behind each side of the table. Because of this he's mostly a hitter, though he has a decent loop against backspin. (He uses inverted on both sides, though I've considered having him try pips-out.) He's developing pretty good serves and a good follow-up loop or smash. Recently his backhand has gotten a lot better. In drills, his backhand loop is pretty good against backspin, but because he's so forehand oriented, he rarely uses it in games yet. For the tournament, I told him to focus on serves and following up his serve with his forehand (looping or smashing), which he has great confidence in. Once in rallies he needs to play a steady backhand until he gets a weak one to smash from either side. He's probably not going to be backhand looping at the tournament, but we'll work on that later. We worked a lot on his backhand push, since he can't step around to loop every ball with his forehand. We're also working on his balance - he tends to go off balance a bit when forehand looping from the backhand side, and so leaves the wide forehand open. (If he stays balanced, he'd be able to recover quickly to cover that shot with his forehand smash.)

What should YOU do to prepare for tournaments? Here's my Ten-Point Plan to Tournament Success.

Amazon Reviews

I'm still waiting for the first Amazon review of my new book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. If you really liked the book, what are you waiting for??? I will not eat or sleep until I get a great review there, at least until I get hungry or sleepy.  

Extraordinary Nets & Edges Match

I once blogged about how nets and edges don't really even out - some styles simply get more than others. Unfortunately, I have the type of style that rarely gets either. My shots are very clean - a mostly steady and arcing forehand (until I get the right shot), and a steady backhand. This past weekend I had a rather crazy match with one of our juniors. When she began getting net after net in the first game, we (or at least I!) began keeping track. For the match (four games), she got 17 net balls and zero edges, winning 15 of those points. I got zero nets or edges. Now I normally get a few, so my getting zero was rare, but 17-0? In one game she got eight nets, winning all eight of them.

How to Hold the Racket

Here's a video from PingSkills (4:03) on how to hold the racket, both shakehands and penhold.

The Power of Sweden

Here's a highlights video (10:48) that features the great Swedish players of the past.

Susan Sarandon: Ping-Pong Queen

Here's a feature article from England's The Guardian on Susan Sarandon and table tennis.

The Dodgers Playing Table Tennis

Here's an article in the LA Times on the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team having a table tennis doubles tournament.

NBA All-Star Week

Here are ten pictures at NBA All-Star Weekend, where they invited members of the Houston TTC to play table tennis. Included are pictures of Houston player Jim Butler and NBA star Jeremy Lin.

Mario Lopez Plays Ping-Pong

Here's a picture of actor and TV host Mario Lopez (middle) posing with his paddle and table tennis player/actor/stand-up comedian Adam Bobrow (left) and no-doubt a famous woman (or top table tennis player?) on the right who I don't recognize.

Harlem Shake

Here's a video (33 sec.) of . . . um . . . if I could figure out what is going on here, I will die happy. A bunch of people dancing around and on ping-pong tables.

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Consistency

The most under-rated and probably most important skill in table tennis is consistency. Players may develop high-level shots, but if they can't do those - or the more fundamental ones - with consistency in a match, they will likely lose to more consistent players with less technical games.

This is why it's important to do drills at a pace you can do consistently, so you hone these skills until you can do them in your sleep. Many players try to drill or play at a pace like a world-class player, and only end up scattering the ball all over the table and court, never learning control. Practice at a pace where you can control the ball with good fundamentals, and increase the speed as you get better. You should push yourself to playing faster, but if your shots start to fall apart due to the pace, slow down.

It's good to develop shots by seeing how many you can do in a row. Beginners and intermediate players should see how many forehands and backhands they can do, aiming for nice round numbers like 10, 20, 50, or 100 or more in a row. More advanced players can do the same, but with more advanced shots, such as seeing how many times they can loop in a row while moving side to side, or looping off a randomly placed ball.

When I teach beginners, as soon as they can hit ten in a row I tell them that they don't really have a forehand or backhand until they can hit 100 in a row. That gives them a goal to strive for. It always pays off - I've yet to have a student who, once challenged, didn't get to that magical 100. Most keep track of their current record for forehands and backhands.

In the late 1970s I went to several Seemiller camp in Pittsburgh, with coaches Dan, Rick, and Randy Seemiller, and Perry Schwartzberg. At a camp in 1978 when I was 18 and around 1800 level, Dan ended the morning session by having a contest to see who could hit the most shots in a row. Most were going forehand to forehand, but because I was hitting with a lefty - Ben Nisbet - I hit backhands. When they finished the session and prepared to go to lunch, I was still going. So Dan told me to keep hitting and they'd bring back my lunch. A long time later they returned with my lunch - and I was still going! (There were a number of witnesses as some were eating at the club.) I ended up hitting 2755 backhands in a row. (An easy number to remember - exactly 2000 more than Hank Aaron hit home runs.)

You can challenge beginners in other ways like this. I always start of beginning kids with ball bouncing, where they see how many times they can bounce the ball on their racket, starting with the forehand side. Then I have them do it on the backhand side, then alternating. When they master these, I have them alternate forehand and off the edge of their racket! Some of the kids really get into these things. The current ball-bouncing record is 1218, held by T.J., who did it in the lobby at MDTTC a few months ago.

So how many can you get in a row for any given shot? Consistency is why even players with poor strokes can often beat players with better strokes. A poor stroke might not lead to a strong attack, but it can still be grooved to great consistency.

Here's a video from PingSkills (2:58) on this most important skill - keeping the ball on the table!

Chinese National Training Center

Here's a video (1:26) of training at the Chinese National Training Center in Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province, taken in December, 2010.

Guo Yuehua vs. Liang Geliang

Here's an exhibition match (2:56) from 1978 between Chinese starts Guo Yuehua - 1981 & 1983 World Men's Singles Champion, runner-up in 1977 & 1979 - and Liang Geliang - the best chopper in the world at the time, and two-time World Mixed Doubles Champion, and one-time World Men's Doubles Champion (the latter in 1977 with Li Zhenshi, now coaching at the World Champions Club in California).

Return Board Training

Here's a video (8:15) showing some rather interesting training techniques with a return board. And here's a video (3:25) with a rather innovative return board game - hit the target or run around the table!

"The Internship"

Here's a preview (2:30) of "The Internship" (starring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and John Goodman, coming June 7). Almost exactly 60 seconds in you see Vince Vaughn playing table tennis with an Asian woman at Google Headquarters. Here are two screen shots: a wide view (that's Owen Wilson sitting down in the background), and a close-up showing Vaughn with a big forehand follow-through. Then, at 1:50, there's another sort of table tennis scene, where a group of people applying for an internship at Google use ping-pong paddles to indicate choices on questions given to the group - green for yes, red for no. They were asked if it's okay to ask your boss out for a drink, and only the Wilson and Vaughn characters flashed green for yes. Here's a screen shot of that.

Pong to the People!

Just a nice ping-pong graphic.

What Table Tennis Really Looks Like

Here's a gif video of table tennis videoed from Google glasses worn by a player!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 13 - DONE!!!

Yes, I'm finally cleared of TB, as Tim Boggan drove home late last night after we finished everything yesterday afternoon. He was at my house about nine hours short of two weeks while we put together the 29 chapters and 448 pages. I did the page layouts and photo work (fixing up, placing, and captioning 918 graphics) while he sat next to me directing the action. ("No, you fool, the Seemiller photo goes there!!!") I FTPed the PDFs to the printer last night, and copies should be available within a month.

USATT's Default Policy in Team Trials

USATT has what I consider a silly default policy in their Team Trials. From the USA National Team Trials Prospectus (bolding is mine):

"In the event any player is unable to finish all matches in the RR stage, all of his or her matches shall be vacated and not taken into account for final results, and the individual deemed disqualified from the event. However the match results shall count for ratings. In the event of such withdrawal, the player must submit within seven (7) days from the close of competition, a written notice from a certified medical doctor stating the nature of illness or injury that prevented the player from completing the event. In the event the withdrawal from event was without justified basis such as illness or injury, or the athlete fails to provide the High Performance Director with a doctor’s note stating so, then that athlete shall become ineligible from the 2014 USA National Team without any further notice."

The key here is that even in the last round, a player can withdraw, and suddenly none of his matches count. In the case of the USA Men's and Women's Team Trials, where there's a final round robin of 12 players, that means that a player could play ten matches, default the last one (due to a real or faked injury), and none of his matches count - which could dramatically and retroactively affect the results. After ten rounds (out of eleven), players might already have "clinched" a spot on the team - only to have it "unclinched" simply because a player they beat doesn't play their last match, making all ten of that person's matches not count.

The argument for this is that whoever gets the default in the last match has an unfair advantage. But that doesn't make sense - we're talking one match versus ten! The problem is that in the last round, this system could put in the hands of a player already out of contention the power to dramatically affect the results simply by not playing due to injury (real or faked). Imagine "clinching" your spot on the team, only to lose your spot because some other player who's not in contention cannot or decides not to continue!

I'm told that overseas the norm is that if a player plays defaults after playing over half his matches, then all his matches count. If he defaults before playing over half his matches, then none of his results count. This makes sense to me.

Here's an example using the recently held USA Men's Trials. I don't have the actual order of scheduling, but we'll assume they used the official order of play from chapter seven the USATT Tournament Guide. Based on that, Peter Li would have been 7-3 going into the final round, while Jim Butler and Mark Hazinski were both 6-4. Assuming Butler wins his last match against the #12 seed (he would, against Kanak Jha), he'd be 7-4, and even if Li loses his last match to Yahao Zhang (he did), he'd also be 7-4, but with a head-to-head win against Butler - and so he'd advance in a two-way tie. If Hazinski wins his last match against #1 seed Timothy Wang (he wouldn't), then he'd also be 7-4, but in any three-way tie between Li, Butler, and Hazinski, Li would win because he lost 3-4 to Hazinski while beating Butler 4-1, and so he'd be 7-5, to Hazinski's 5-5 and Butler's 5-7. (If Butler were to lose to Jha, then Hazinski would win in a two-way tie with Li.) In the end, Li and Butler did finish 7-4, with Li coming in 4th (the last spot that makes the team), while Butler 5th (also 7-4, but losing to Li head-to-head), while Hazinski finished 6th at 6-5.

But there's a wild card here - Razvan Cretu. Cretu beat Butler, but lost to Li. Going into the final round he was 2-8, and out of contention. (He'd win his last match to finish 3-8.) Suppose, after playing ten rounds, he didn't play the last round, due to injury (real or faked)? Then his ten previous matches wouldn't count, and suddenly Butler is 4th, while Li is 5th. So Cretu was in a position to change the entire Trials by simply not playing, thereby retroactively canceling out his previous ten matches. (No, he didn't do this, and likely never considered it.)

(ADDENDUM added two hours later - In the case here, the fourth spot was an unfunded spot (only top three are funded), and Peter Li turned it down. So Jim Butler took the spot.)

This isn't the first time this has happened - I've pointed out past scenarios like this. There was a Trials about ten years ago where a player had injury problems and ended up losing deuce in the fifth in the next-to-last round. If he had pulled out that match, he wouldn't have been in contention to make the team - but if he had won that deuce-in-the-fifth  match, and then defaulted his last match due to injury, his previous ten matches wouldn't have counted, which would have dramatically and retroactively changed the order of finish, including knocking one player - who had already "clinched" his spot - off the team, and (if I remember correctly) another would have gone from a funded to a non-funded position.

I'm sure there are many other examples. We've been lucky so far. Imagine an unscrupulous player who is out of contention but in a position to dramatically affect the results in this way! If I were trying out for the National Team, I'd find these scenarios rather scary.

There are no truly fair ways to run a Trials - there are even mathematical proofs that show this - but there are ways of running them to improve the fairness. This would be one of those ways.

USATT's Giving Campaign

If USATT can raise $35,000, then USOC will match it. Here's the letter on the USATT page on this from USATT Executive Director Mike Cavanaugh.

USATT Budget

Here is USATT Budget info:

• Programmatic Summary
• Income Statement Summary
• Income Statement Detail

Kong Linghui on Chinese Women's Team

Here's an article on Kong Linghui's assessment of the Chinese Women's Team for the 2016 Olympics. (Kong, the former all-time great, is the Chinese Women's Coach.)

Timo Boll Training with Headcam

Here's a video (1:04) of Timo Boll of Germany (world #5, former #1) training with a headcam, so you can hear what goes on as he trains. It sounds pretty intense!

Kuwait Open

Here's a video of the Final between Zhang Jike and Ma Long (10:38), with time between points removed so it's non-stop action.

Grammy Table Tennis

Here are pictures from what apparently started out as an interview with Grammy winners, but a ping-pong game erupted, as it always does.

President's Day

In honor of President's Day (yesterday), here are pictures of Presidents playing table tennis. (Here are other pictures of world leaders playing table tennis, as well as other celebrities on the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis page.)

• Barack Obama
• photo1 photo2 photo3 (Photos 2 and 3 are from a picture on the wall at the White House)
• Obama and David Cameron, Prime Minister of England: photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6 photo7 photo8 photo9
• Bill and Hillary Clinton
• George H.W. Bush
• George W. Bush
• Ronald Reagan and former wife Jane Wyman
• Richard Nixon
• o   photo1 photo2 (with Chairman Mao) photo3 (L-R: Chou En-lai, Chiang Kai-shek, Richard Nixon) photo4 (George McGovern on right) photo5 (with Chairman Mao) photo6(with Chairman Mao) 

***
Send us your own coaching news!