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 Tips, More 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!

February 21, 2022

Tip of the Week
If You Don't Spend a Good Portion of Your Practice Developing Overwhelming Strengths, You Won't Develop Overwhelming Strengths.

USA Table Tennis Issues
This site is called TableTennisCOACHING.com, not TableTennisUSATT.com. Readers know I disagree with much of what USA Table Tennis has done over the last two years. I try to ignore much of it, and probably write only 10% of what I could. Alas, there's a lot here to write about. I really do not plan to not do any more USATT "editorials" after this for a while, other than reporting things like the results of the upcoming athlete election, etc. Skip the next five segments if you aren't interested in USATT issues. (Item #5 is about the Nationals going to Fort Worth.) 

The End of the Rubberstamping USATT Board?
The current chair, Richard Char, took office at the Feb. 26, 2020 board meeting. Since then, there have been 26 board meetings (mostly on Zoom) and 104 votes. (I'm not including votes to go into or out of executive session or votes to adjourn, which would add another 50 or so unanimous votes.) Exactly 100 of the 104 votes have been unanimous, including the first 86 votes through 21 board meetings. The first dissenting vote in this era was by Thomas Hu at the Oct. 4, 2021 meeting. The only board members who have ever dissented have been Thomas Hu (4 times), Dan Reynolds (2 times), and in this last meeting, newly elected athlete reps Lily Zhang and Nikhil Kumar once each, both joining Thomas in voting against the proposed 2022 budget. (Thomas and Dan both took office at the start of 2021, so they only started voting at that time.) Here is the USATT Minutes page. (A number of these votes are straightforward ones, but a number are not.) 

So this has been pretty much the definition of a rubberstamping board until now. There are now four who have dissented, and there will be two incoming athlete reps coming in soon - I'm told we'll have the results this Thursday. (It's a bit complicated, but due to the para requirements, it's basically Tahl Leibovitz vs. Jennifer Johnson, and Peter Li vs. Niraj Oak.) One of the ironies is that the incoming athlete reps seem rather grass-roots oriented, despite being athlete reps.

One of the reasons for this "rubberstamping" board is the change in how USATT lawyers advise the board. For decades, the previous USATT lawyers (primarily Dennis Taylor for the past 20 years, until about two years ago) would give the board options, and let the board decide. They'd make recommendations if asked, but their primary job was to give the board the options to choose from, and the advantages/disadvantages of each from a legal aspect. However, anyone attending board meetings these past two years have noticed a major change. Now it seems as if the lawyers argue a specific case, which seems to match what the USATT CEO and Chair (the ones who brought them in) seem to support. Since nearly all of the board is new, few have realized the difference. When I ask board members why they voted a certain way in various controversial decisions, invariably I'm told they did it because the lawyers recommended it.

USATT Budget Meeting
They held that meeting this past Thursday, Feb. 17. I attended, for the entire 14 minutes before the meeting was closed for executive session.

I've had two tenures on the USATT Board and have attended the vast majority of USATT board meetings since 1986. I've been to far too many budget meetings. Until the last few years, the process was straightforward - the board went over it, item by item, with the ED/CEO and others explaining each item, and board members then asking questions. The process typically takes at least three hours, often longer, and ends with each board member having a good understanding of the budget. They discuss, make compromise, and ultimately vote.

The process under this administration is very different. The budget was sent to board members, they were allowed to ask questions via email, and then they spent less than ten minutes discussing it in the Zoom meeting before the call was made to approve it. Without going over each item, most board members really don't know which parts they should ask questions about. That seems the point - rather than the board really going over the budget and then voting on it, the whole point seemed to be to rubberstamp it. How can they approve a budget they haven't really gone over?

There were objections to the budget, in particular by board member Thomas Hu. Thomas has an MBA, was a major in finance with a minor in accounting, has a long history as a financial reporter and planner, and is also CEO of the American Youth Table Tennis Organization. He said the numbers do not add up. Ironically, immediately after Thomas said, "The numbers are wrong," the chair, Richard Char, asked if there was a motion to approve the budget, and the motion was made about five seconds after that. The final vote was 7-3 in favor, with Thomas and the two incoming Athlete Representatives, Lily Zhang and Nikhil Kumar, opposed.

The fact that the vote was 7-3 was in itself "historic" as that was by far the closest vote on this board in the last two years and 104 votes. (See segment above on "rubberstamping.")  

USATT Cancels Chat Function at Board Meetings
Here's the notice from the last board meeting notice:

Process for USATT Members to Submit Questions to the Board of Directors
In an effort to enhance dialogue and transparency with the membership, the Board and USATT staff have developed a process to allow members to submit questions and comments. Questions and comments may be delivered to admin@usatt.org, and the Board will address appropriate inquiries related to topics properly before the Board at its meetings. Questions may also be directed to the Board at admin@usatt.org during the meeting but may not be responded to until after the meeting due to time and attention considerations. Given this enhanced opportunity, it should be noted that the chat function will no longer be available during Board meetings.

Why do they feel the need to mislead us about why they canceled the chat function? This misleading statement is irritating. They canceled the chat function because a number of people (including me and some prominent members of the table tennis community) complained in the chat function during the previous board meeting about certain issues. So why not just tell the truth if you believe in your reasons? (It doesn't matter who actually wrote this; it was written by or on behalf of the USATT CEO and Board Chair.)

Note that it's not an either-or thing - you can do both. Saying they cancelled the chat function because of this "enhanced" opportunity is like saying, "The sky is blue, therefore you can't have chocolate." There's no correlation or cause and effect between the two. It's just a distracting mechanism - but done so poorly that it doesn't fool anyone. Does anyone really think they canceled the chat function because of an "enhanced opportunity"?

I could easily make the argument for them for cancelling the chat function as a distraction. Here's what they could have said, if they'd decided to be honest and straightforward: "In a previous meeting, a number of people used the chat function to disrupt the board meeting, making it difficult for some board members to focus on the meeting. In the future, we'd prefer these comments be sent to the board in advance so board members can give them proper consideration without distracting them from the ongoing meeting." There, was that so hard?

They could simply ignore the chat - the meeting was on Zoom, where board members speak but others cannot without permission - but since they didn't like what was being said, they decided to close it down and mislead us with the reason. Why not just be honest? If you believe you are right, then make your argument, as I did above for them. If you believe you are wrong but decide to do it anyway, that's a reason to hide your real reason and talk about "enhancing dialogue" and "transparency" and pretend it's an "either-or" situation.

Do they really believe just closing down the chat function, a form of censorship, is the way to go here? How'd that work out for, say, "Maus"? All this does is draw attention to it. You can moderate a chat room without closing it down for legitimate comments and discussion. ("In January 2022, the board of trustees of McMinn County schools in Tennessee removed Maus from its schools curriculum. There was significant and widespread backlash to the decision, and Maus became the Amazon #1 best-seller." I'd never heard of it, but I just read it and am now reading the sequel.) By my judgement, only one person in the chat posted anything remotely objectionable (using the word "corruption"). 

On a side note, we've always had the ability email the board of directors - their emails are linked in the USATT board listing.

So, what was the primary issue that people were objecting in the chat room at the last board meeting? That's the next segment.

Athlete Advisory Council Representative
At the Oct. 27, 2021 board meeting, the USATT board passed a series of new bylaws. The USOPC had dictated that USATT must increase athlete representation on the board from two to four. They also said that the athletes needed to be chosen by direct vote of the athletes. (It used to be that way, but in recent times the AAC chose the athlete reps.) So, USATT ran the first athlete rep election, won by Lily Zhang and Nikhil Kumar, and we'll have the results of the other one this Thursday, with two more athlete reps. (I actually wrote a LONG article on this, but decided it was way too long and so drastically shortened it. I debated whether to even bother writing about it, but decided silence wasn't the answer.)

The controversial bylaw? The four incoming athlete reps, voted directly by the elite athletes, replaced the previous two. No problem there. But the board added a new position, the AAC Chair Representative (as designated on the USATT board listing), who represents the Athlete Advisory Council. (To be clear, before the ACC was used to choose the two athlete reps; now they themselves have a rep, representing the AAC itself, in addition to the four athlete reps elected by the athletes.)

The AAC Chair is Tara Profitt. I've known Tara for many years, including during my second tenure on the USATT board. I believe she's hard-working and well-meaning. She is a strong advocate of her fellow para players. (She is in a wheelchair.) She also was forthcoming when I asked her some question, and it helped in gathering facts. But there's one problem - who does she represent? The AAC is not a constituency; they advise a constituency, the elite athletes. Constituencies are groups that USATT might want to help, to better develop the sport of table tennis. Clubs are a constituency, and have a board rep. Colleges are a constituency, and have a board rep. Others that could be considered constituencies include coaches, officials, juniors, seniors, and so on. But the AAC itself is not a constituency; they advise a constituency. (See Article XI of the USATT bylaws for their exact purpose.)

To give an example, USATT lawyers advise USATT on certain issues, but that doesn't mean there should be a lawyer rep on the USATT board of directors. Similarly, while the AAC advises the board on certain athlete issues, that doesn't mean they themselves should have a voting member on the USATT board of directors. (If you represent the ones who voted you in, then Tara technically represents the then-majority of the board that voted to create this position. The votes are no longer there, but the "legacy" of this former 2/3 majority remains.)

So, why does the AAC have a representative? To be specific, what was the cause?

This goes right back to the "rubberstamping" board. There's nothing wrong with voting consistently with a group you agree with. At the same time, if you have voted with or for the chair, Richard Char, in 104 out of 104 votes, as Tara has, then you are obviously a very strong supporter of this administration. By creating this board position, the then-majority created a position for a strong supporter that they would need, knowing that the four incoming athlete reps are not likely to be such supporters. It is likely that in some important issues, or in attempts to change past decisions, Tara will be the deciding vote or (in some cases) would deadlock the board at 6-6, or stop bylaw changes (including the AAC rep position), that require a 2/3 vote of the entire board. (I really wish Tara had simply run for one of the fourth athlete reps. If she was representative of their views, she would have been elected. Alas, she does not seem to represent their views on most issues.)

And this is why so many people are unhappy with this. We welcome Tara's advice and hard work, but not that a then-majority used its majority to pad and try to continue its majority. (Note that they also voted for the new bylaws and had a sudden and unscheduled election for the board chair just before the athlete elections, knowing full well that the four incoming athlete reps would likely be in opposition to the then-majority on both of these.) One other source of unhappiness - I and others believe Tara should have abstained on the bylaws vote that created the position that she now occupies.

The minutes (unanimously approved by the board at the Dec. 6 meeting) say the vote was 7-2, but if you count the voters listed (see below), it's actually 6-2. (As noted at the top of the minutes, Kelly Watson arrived late, and so missed the vote.) It also leaves out who made the motion and second - but it turns out Tara made the motion and voted for it. Here's what it says in the Oct. 27 Board Minutes:

Upon Motion properly made and seconded, the following Resolution was approved by a vote of seven (Tara Profitt, Brandon Lawrence, Arjun Chowdri, Tom Feng, Will Shortz and Richard Char) to two (Thomas Hu and Dan Reynolds):

Bylaw changes need a 2/3 majority of the entire board, and since there were nine board members at the time (before the bylaw changes), that meant six votes were needed. Therefore, outgoing athlete rep and AAC Chair Tara made the motion and cast the deciding vote for new bylaws that included creating a new board position, an AAC Chair Rep, for herself. (She was an outgoing athlete rep because the USOPC had ordained that all athlete reps must be elected directly, and the very bylaws she moved and cast the deciding vote for created those direct elections - which she no longer would have to run in.) 

ADDENDUM: I rewrote the part above about needing a 2/3 vote of the entire board to pass a bylaw, since I'd initially written it took a 2/3 vote, period. This mean that Tara cast the deciding vote, as noted above. 

I asked one USATT person if they would have created this position if Tara opposed the current administration, and this person admitted, off the record, "Not a chance." Alas, whether knowingly or not, Tara has become a pawn in a power struggle.

I will close with a quote from the USATT Board of Directors Conflict of Interest Form: "Recognize that even the appearance of misconduct or impropriety can be very damaging to the reputation of the USATT and act accordingly."

2022 US National Table Tennis Championships Headed to Fort Worth
Here's the USATT news item. It'll be held July 2-7. They had 730 players when they ran the US Open there in 2019. We'll see how they do this time. 

Weekend Coaching
Last Monday I acted for two hours as a practice partner for Group 1 of our junior program. (We have four groups, with Group 1 the highest.) My stomach was queasy going in, but I did fine at the start, even had a good 20-minute session with Mu Du (13, 2286). But then the stomach got worse and worse, and by the end of the session I was almost dying. I spent the next day mostly in bed and got over it - but my stomach has been queasy all week. I lived on cream of wheat for a couple of days.

Over the weekend I helped run four more group sessions. We had a lot of focus on placement ("Go to the wide corners, not middle backhand or middle forehand!") and serve and attack ("Always follow your serve with an attack unless the receiver does something to stop it"). I also fed a lot of multiball. My arm was starting to get sore from it, so I went back to wearing the arm band that protects it.

It's become almost a tradition that we end the Novice junior group with Simon Says. A few of them are getting really good at it!!! I'm not sure what they like best, that or smacking cups! (The latter is better overall, since it's a table tennis activity - but Simon Says teaches kids to listen, pay attention, and react properly. Plus it's a fun activity that makes them want to keep coming back!)

Naresh and Jalli Make Waves in Metz, France
Here's the article by Steve Hopkins. Here's video (2:12) of Sarah's final!

Butterfly Training Tips

New from Samson Dubina

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from Coach Jon

New from Matt Hetherington

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Destroy Your Opponents With Liam Pitchford’s Table Tennis Serves
Here's the video (5:14) from Table Tennis Daily.

How important is the Center of Gravity in Table Tennis?
Here's the video (9:30) from Ti Long.

Footwork in Table Tennis
Here's the video (8:05) from New Level TT. "Ma Long illustrating 3 main actions in table tennis during long rally. Split step, Ball approaching and Resetting to ready position."

Ask the Coach
Here are the latest questions from PingSkills.

Fundraiser for Bronze Medalist Jenson Van Emburgh to Prepare for World Championships
Here's the GoFundMe page. "Hi everyone!! I am happy to announce that I am preparing for the World Championships which will take place on November 6th in Granada, Spain. I am trying to raise funds to cover my training and travel expenses for this year leading up to the World Championships. No donation is too small and every little bit will help me be at my best at Worlds!"

National Collegiate Regional Championships - Deadlines
Here's the article from NCTTA.

New From Steve Hopkins

USATT Tournament Results and Announcements

ITTF News

Jimmy Butler Plays TT with Basketball Stars Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and Rudy Tomjanovich
Here's the video (7 min) by Jimmy Butler!

The Mayor of Dunellen Visits Lily Yip's Table Tennis Center!
Here's the video (5:36).

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

I'm Awesome at Ping Pong
Here's the shirt to prove it!

Big Orange Pong Eyes and Big Red Pong Ears
Here's the picture!

Zach King's Best Ping Pong Tricks
Here's the video (5:04) from Pongfinity!

TT Umpiring is a Dangerous Pastime
Here's the video (11 sec)!

"The Office" Table Tennis
Here's the video (73 sec) - it starts with a rather long forehand to forehand sequence, but at 55 seconds, we get "All of my heroes are table tennis players," and he starts naming real players!

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February 14, 2022

Tip of the Week
The Most Important Technique in Table Tennis.

Coaching at the MDTTC Open and Weekend Coaching
I spent Saturday coaching players from our junior program at the MDTTC Open. It wasn't easy - I had a secret I kept from everyone. I woke up with an intense headache, probably from reading late the night before. It never went away - I spent the whole day with a jackhammer in my head. But I didn't tell anyone, and hopefully none of the kids I coached noticed anything different. I still had the headache this morning, and almost postponed the blog, but it's a bit better now. Yeah, that late-night reading habit can be a headache!!! (I might need new reading glasses - I have an eye appointment Feb. 24.) 

Here are the complete results of the tournament, care of Omnipong. There were 102 players in the tournament, run by Coach Wang Qingliang, with Liam Draper, Kevin Yang, Mu Du, James Zhang, and other kids in our junior program helping out. I coached matches for Stanley & Kurtus Hsu, Mu Du, James Zhang, Todd Klinger, and Christian Funderberg. (I mostly coach those who ask me to coach them.) I could write a book about the various tactics used. (But I'll only write about things that don't give things away.) Many, probably most players are easy to coach against - most players fit into a "textbook" case with standard strengths and weaknesses, so it's just a matter of finding them, and not overusing the best tactics so they don't get used to them. Others are harder to coach against because they adjust their tactics on the fly as you or your student changes theirs.

One interesting tactical issue that came up several times was players who start the rally as "forehand" players, where you attack the wide corners. But once the rally starts, they become more two-winged, and then you want to attack both the corners and their middle, roughly the elbow, the transition between forehand and backhand. It becomes tricky with players who switch back and forth and so the player has to constantly adjust. I used to be one of those players - if you go after my middle, I'm an all-out forehand player and you were just giving me forehands; if you attack the corners then I became a wall on both sides, since I didn't have to cover the middle. Smart players, of course, went back and forth, and then I'd crumble a bit, alas. But so do other opponents if you learn to make these adjustments on the fly.

One tactic that came up a few times was flipping short serves to the middle. Most players only practice flipping to wide angles, and so aren't comfortable or able to consistently flip to the middle. In one big match, it was the key to winning - and if the player I coached hadn't been able to do that he probably would have lost.

One tactical question came up, a common that's sometimes tricky to decide. It came up when I coached Stanley Hsu (US #1 in 13 and Under, rated 2400 even and a finalist in Open Singles here). He has a devastating close-to-table forehand loop that's almost become his trademark. But sometimes the opponent is able to make a strong counterloop from mid-court. When that happens, Stanly (and other players like him) normally keep counterlooping. But in such a rally, a simple forehand block down the line to the backhand would catch the opponent out of position as well as throw off their timing, plus it's a more consistent shot than trying to counterloop. However, there's a problem. If the player knows that once he starts looping, he's basically going to keep looping until the point is over, then there's no hesitation and the looping becomes very strong and pretty consistent. Once you add the decision of whether to loop or block, that can cause the player to hesitate and the loop becomes more erratic. So it's a judgement call on by the player and the coach on whether it's better to keep coming at them with loops or to throw in occasional forehand blocks based on the situation. It's sort of like comparing Ma Long (who would likely keep ripping forehand loops until the point is over) or Jan-Ove Waldner (who would tactically forehand block a ball if the situation called for it). In the modern game, you lean toward the continuous attack . . . but an occasional forehand block can really work wonders.

On Sunday, toward the end, we had a two-hour Novice Class, with 13 players, mostly ages 7-8. At the start, Coach Wang ran it while I took over at the tournament desk for him (with junior star Mu Du helping), but once the session started he asked if I could feed multiball, so I did for an hour while he ran the tournament. One problem that came up was two kids who kept changing their grip drastically between forehand and backhand. We worked on that.

The last half hour was "fun time." First we played the cup game, where the kids built pyramids out of paper cups, and then took turns knocking them down as I fed multiball. We finished with a round of Simon Says - I'm getting good at doing it rapid fire! My favorite tactic is to say "Simon says" something, but act out something different. So I might say "Simon says clap your hands" as I jump in the air. But the kids quickly pick up on these things. I got a lot of them when I said, "Simon says clap your hands once" and I clap them twice. I also got a bunch of them when I said, "All those who haven't missed yet move over there," and of course I didn't say "Simon says," so those who moved over lost! This video (5:58) is my inspiration.

Stanley Hsu assisted in the session - here's a Facebook picture of him helping, with me in the background. See my comment under it. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

The Spirit of Pong
I thought I'd give a plug for my fantasy table tennis novel The Spirit of Pong. It's an easy read, only 100 pages, plus features a short humorous fantasy table tennis story at the end, "Ping-Pong Ambition." You can read the first two chapters (17 pages) for FREE! Here's a Review at MH Table Tennis. Here's the Amazon description:

Andy "Shoes" Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Japan's Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness), Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and others, and must face the mysterious "Dragon." Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis?

From the Amazon reviews:

  • "This lovely little book is loaded with a lot of information about the giants of the game."
  • "...if you cried during the ending scene of 'Rudy', then this book is for you."
  • "I was hijacked away by this book almost from its beginning looking forward each new paragraph."
  • "A fascinating story of an American wanting to be the best in the world of table tennis, going to China for some magical and intriguing training sessions, and how he eventually achieved his hard-earned success."
  • "This was a real page-turner, and was one of the best binges I've been on."
  • "An enjoyable and amusing read, Larry Hodges writes in a capturing style."

Here are all of my books - 17 in all, with two more coming out later this year.

Valentine's Day Table Tennis
Here's what you get if you put this headline into Google:

ITTF Hopes Squad
I wrote about this last week, but the links went up late, so I'm reposting them. Congrats to Ryan Lin, Mandy Yu, and Tashiya Piyadasa, who each made the ITTF's ten-player World Hopes Squad - ten boys and ten girls, all ages 12 and under. (Links to these articles are repeated elsewhere in the blog, under the ITTF, USATT, and Steve Hopkins/Butterfly news links.)

USATT Board Meeting This Thursday, Feb. 17
Here is the USATT Agenda and Notices page. It will be a Zoom meeting, at 8PM eastern time, and USATT members may attend, but only to watch and listen. One big change you will see in the notice - they are disabling the chat feature, and requiring any questions to be made in advance via email. Why? Because at the last board meeting (Feb. 7), several people, including me, complained about certain USATT issues. This is their way of dealing with that. Alas. There are three things on the agenda:

  • 2022 Budget
  • Proposed Amendments to Bylaws as Required Under USOPC Audit Implementation Guide
  • Proposed Amendments to USATT Board Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy (Executive Session)

Timos Week #5 - Back on Track
Here's the video (3:06) from Timo Boll. He just got over Covid.

Kanak Jha Talks Playing Timo Boll, Lin Yun Ju and Tactics Against Lefties
Here's the video (25:27) from Seth Pech, featuring USA Olympian and four-time USA Men's Singles Champion Kanak Jha.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich
I normally avoid linking to equipment articles and reviews - I'm sponsored by Butterfly and so have a conflict of interest. But besides the below, EmRatThich reviews a series of Butterfly blades in his PingSunday blog this past week, including the Falcima, Timo Boll CAF, Timo Boll ZLF, Lin Gaoyuan ALC, Timo Boll ZLC, Viscaria, and the Timo Boll ALC. What I find interesting is he called the Timo Boll ALC "the best Butterfly blade" - and it's the blade I've used for the last eight years or so! I had a student who I coached at the National Team Trials, Tong Tong Gong, who by upset made the National Cadet Team by pulling off a series of upsets. As a bonus, he gave me the very blade he used to make the team, a Timo Boll ALC, and I fell in love with it! I still use it that very same blade, though I have a newer backup in my bag.

Butterfly Training Tips

New from Matt Hetherington

New from Samson Dubina

New from Coach Aabid
Here's his latest coaching article, and links to his previous ones and videos.

Camouflaging Your Serves
Here's the article by Vikash Sahu

How Your Grip Might Be Destroying Your Loop
Here's the video (5:37) from Coach Jon.

Defeats, Despair and Big Lessons Learnt in My Veteran Tournament Debut
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis
Lots of new videos here! (Alas, they no longer seem to date them, so it's tricky trying to figure out which ones are new.)

Ask the Coach
Here are the latest questions from PingSkills.

New from USA Table Tennis

New from Steve Hopkins

New from the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association

Indian Coach Guilty of Match Fixing, Table Tennis Federation of India Executive Committee Suspended
There seem to be some scandals going on in Indian table tennis. Here are five different reports. I tried to choose just one, but they seem to take different angles, so here are all five, which all came out on Friday. (Thanks to Ray Arditi for finding these.)

ITTF News

2021 US National Champion Men's Under 21 Champion and Men's Singles Finalist - Sharon Alguetti Highlights
Here's the video (4:10).

Adam Bobrow vs. Homeless Paralympic Champion
Here's the video (11:21) featuring Tahl Leibovitz - playing lefty!

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

Freestyle Pong
Here's the video (20 sec) from Lin Yun!

Wow Clips
Here are links.

Surrender Pong
Here's the picture!

The Bad Guys in My Next Science Fiction Horror Story?
Here's the picture!

Our New Ping Pong Paddles Make Funny Sounds
Here's the video (1:31)!

Waldner's Trick Serve
Here's the video (12 sec)!

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February 7, 2022

Tip of the Week
Go After Your Opponent's Weaknesses - But Not Too Much!

Weekend Coaching, Push Depth, and Improvised Games
I had another busy weekend, coaching in five junior group sessions. As usual, the focus for beginning to intermediate players was fundamentals, so lots of standard stroking and footwork drills. We still keep it fun - I ended two sessions with impromptu "Simon Says" competitions for the whole group.

One interesting drill, where they kept score, was done by the top group is the standard push short drill, where both players push short until one accidentally pushes long, and then the other player loops and they play out the point. One variation is a player can flip if the push goes high. (If you want to focus on pushing short and judging if it's long enough to loop, while keeping score, then you can have the rule that a player who flips must score on that one shot, i.e. a flip kill against a popped-up push.) Done properly, this is likely the most tiring drill in table tennis - you don't just stand there, you have to step in, push short, and step back so as to be ready to loop a deep push - and then instantly step back in for the short ball. This type of in and out is exhausting! The players played to 11, moving up/down tables. As usual, the "rules" for the improvised games varied, which forces the players focus on various aspects of their game.

One player in the second highest of our four groups was the highest rated in the group - and yet he kept losing in the improvised games. But when we went to regular games at the end, he went back to winning. As I pointed out to him, this meant that while his level was pretty good, the drills showed weaknesses in his game he needed to work on or he'd get stuck at a lower level.

I also had a private coaching session with Navin Kumar. We'd stopped for a few months as we were both traveling a lot, plus Covid was a concern. This was our second recent session.) He may be going to some upcoming international tournaments for Parkinson's players, in Bad Homburg, Germany and the World Parkinson's Championships in Croatia. (I may go along to coach.)

ITTF Hopes Squad
Three USA players made the ITTF Hopes Squad! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) Ryan Lin, Mandy Yu, and Tashiya Piyadasa all attended and competed at the ITTF Hopes Camp and Tournament held in Jordan in December - here's my USATT writeup. It was announced by ITTF via email two days ago, though the "official" ITTF news item on it hasn't gone up yet. This is a group of ten boys and ten girls from around the world who will be invited to attend upcoming ITTF camps and tournaments. I may go to some to coach Ryan, as I did in Jordan and in the Americas Hopes in Ecuador in October, where Ryan finished second. (The same goes for Wei Qi and Thilina Piyadasa, who coach Mandy and Tashiya, respectively, and were also in Ecuador and Jordan.) Ryan, 12, is rated 2216, and was #1 in Under 12 until he recently turned 12, and is now #2 in Under 13 - but will likely take over the #1 spot in a few weeks when current #1 Patryk Zyworonek turns 13. Ryan, Mandy, Tashiya - CONGRATS!!!

Here's the USATT News item on this, which went up on Monday night.

USATT Board Meeting TONIGHT
The board of directors for USA Table Tennis has a Zoom meeting tonight at 8PM eastern time. Full info is at the USATT Agendas and Notices page; here's the direct link to the agenda, which includes info on how to attend. All USATT members are welcome to attend, though they can only speak with permission of the chair. However, anyone can type comments in the comment section. 

New from USA Table Tennis

Possible Supreme Court Nominee Julianna Michelle Childs and Table Tennis
Who is this Julianna Michelle Childs (who usually goes by "J. Michelle Childs") and what does she have to do with table tennis? Her father (RIP) was Ralph "Pete" Childs, a top junior star in the early 1960s. A quick check of the USA Table Tennis Results History shows the following US Open Results - and yes, they kept changing the names of the various titles:

  • 1961 Midget Boys Champion
  • 1962 Boys' Singles Champion
  • 1963 Boys' Singles & Doubles Champion, Junior Doubles Champion, Junior Mixed Doubles Finalist (with Connie Sweeris nee Stace)
  • 1964 Junior Singles & Doubles (with Dell Sweeris) Champion, Junior Mixed Doubles Finalist (with Connie Sweeris nee Stace)
  • 1965 Boys Under 17 Singles and Doubles Champion

J. Michelle Childs is considered by many to be the favorite to get the nomination, and has been endorsed even by a number of Republicans from her home state of South Carolina, including Senator Lindsey Graham, as well as influential Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn, also of South Carolina. (Here's an article from NPR on the possibilities.)

5 Skills That Separate Beginner & Advanced Table Tennis Players
Here's the video (7:53) from Table Tennis Daily.

Butterfly Training Tips

New from Matt Hetherington
He's been busy!

New from Samson Dubina

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Liu Shiwen's Upgraded Techniques
Here's the video (11 min) from PandaPong.

Full Body Serves
Here's the article by Vikash Sahu

Long or Short Multiball
Here's the video (27 sec) of a nice drill from "Punny Boy," where the coach feeds either a short or long backspin, and the player has to make a quick judgment on whether to flip or loop.

New from Coach Jon

Ask the Coach
Here are the latest questions from PingSkills.

New from Sally Moyland

Steven Moreno Europe Training
Here's the article.

Denver Just Got a Club That's Solely For Playing Ping-Pong
Here's the article in the Denver Post, featuring the new club created by former USATT CEO Gordon Kaye.

New from Steve Hopkins

'Sports Can Open Up Doors': How Winter Olympic Games Could Improve U.S.-China Ties
Here's the article and video (2:17) from USA Today that features table tennis. "In 1971 at the World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, a butterfly flapped its wings, then nine Americans parted China's Communist Red Curtain."

Crazy Point Between Alguetti Brothers
Here's the video (20 sec) of the point between Gal (on left) and Sharon (who even switches hands) in the final this past weekend of the Butterfly Open in Columbus, OH! (Gal, 2614, would go on to pull off the minor upset over his brother, 2657.)

Gal Alguetti Table Tennis Highlights
Here's the video (2:18)!

Jimmy Butler and the Chinese New Year
Here's the video (4:44).

WTTC Interviews:

ITTF News

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

Custom Caricature Portrait From Your Photo / Table Tennis Player
Here's where you can get yours!

You're the Ping to My Pong
Here's the perfect Valentine's t-shirt present!

Home Improvement Store Pong
Here's the video (21 sec)!

Return My Serve, Win $100
Here's the video (6:14) from Pongfinity!

***
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January 31, 2022

Tip of the Week
Use Top Players as Models For Your Technique.

Weekend Coaching, Placement, and Receiving a Short Serve
I coached in four group sessions this weekend. I focused a lot on placement. I remember something Ricky Seemiller (eight-time US Men's Doubles Champion with brother Danny and a long-time US team member) once told me at one of my first training camps: "Amateurs practice to the middle forehand and middle backhand. Professionals practice to the wide angles." What does that mean? Many players get in the habit of practicing their shots to exactly what Ricky said - the middle of their partner's forehand or backhand sides, typically 6-12 inches inside the corner. Top players don't generally practice or play to this area - why would they make things easy for their opponents? Instead, keep the ball to the wide corners in drills, with just as many balls landing outside the corner as inside. If you do it in practice, you'll do it in matches. (A version of this will likely become a weekly Tip.)

A mom and her son (about 1750, just turned 13) had a question for me. He had been struggling in practice matches against a player who would serve short to the middle, he'd push it back long to the backhand, and no matter how good the push was, the opponent would step around and forehand loop it. The problem, of course, was that while the push was "good," it was predictable and very loopable. I went over the options with them. Here are ways to improve and vary the push:

  • Make sure any long pushes went very wide to the corners so opponent has to move more.
  • Push quicker off the bounce so as to rush the opponent.
  • Load up the backspin.
  • Long pushes should go as long as possible, to jam the opponent.
  • Aim to the backhand and at the last second quick push to the wide forehand.
  • Aim to the wide forehand and at the last second quick push to the wide backhand.
  • Learn to push the serve back short, so that (given the chance) it would bounce twice, and opponent couldn't loop it.
  • Learn to flip the serve, to the wide backhand, wide forehand, and middle (opponent's elbow).

Omnipong and the US Open & Nationals
I keep hearing rumors about whether or not USATT will continue to use this software at the US Open or Nationals. I think some people might be misunderstanding the scheduling lessons from the last three US Opens and Nationals, where things didn't go well. The problem isn't primarily what's in the current software, which I've used to run about a hundred tournaments - the software works great at that level. (There are a few small issues that would streamline the software, but those are smaller issues.) The problem is the lack of scheduling software or procedures to recover when an event falls behind. Without that, in a tournament with 700 players and dozens of events, it often cascades into other events, and pretty quickly everything falls behind. So what's needed are some additions to the software or procedures. Switching to another software that also lacks this scheduling software or procedures doesn't help; it's just reshuffling the chairs on the Titanic and hoping things magically improve. The reality is the best answer is probably to simply work out procedures for how to deal with these issues so they don't cascade. They were able to do this for nearly every US Open and Nationals going back to the time I started in 1976 (we'll ignore the 1990 and 1994 US Open disasters), since those running those tournaments understood and dealt with the problem in advance.

Table Tennis and Science Fiction - Stop Conflicting!!!
As readers here know, I live in two worlds, the worlds of table tennis and science fiction, which I also write professionally. Last year the World Science Fiction Convention was held 30 minutes from my house, in Washington DC - but at the same time as the US Open Table Tennis Championships in Las Vegas!!! Since I'm committed to coaching our kids at these big tournaments (as well as playing for my own titles - I won Hardbat Doubles for the 14th time and made the final of Hardbat Singles, which I've won twice before) I had to miss the World SF Convention. (And as I always remind people, I'm primarily a sponge player and coach, but play hardbat on the side.)

Well, they've done it again! The 2022 World Science Fiction Convention is in Chicago, Sept. 1-5 - which coincides with the 2022 Global Table Tennis Championships in Orlando, FL, Sept. 1-4!!! Since I'll be coaching at the latter, I'll have to miss another World SF Convention. Meanwhile, they've also scheduled the 2022 Cary Cup Championships in Cary, NC, March 17-20, with the 2022 St. Joseph Valley Open in in South Bend, IN, March 19-20. AAAAAHHHHH! Most of our kids go to the Cary Cup every year, which is driving distance (4.5 hours), while we'd have to fly to Indiana, a nine-hour drive. So I guess it'll be Cary Cup. Alas. (One strange thing - the Cary Cup has $10,000 in prize money and is played in a huge facility with dozens of tables. And yet it's listed as a USATT zero-star tournament, both on the entry form and info, and on the USATT tournament listing! It really should be 4-star, of course, but who knows what's going on.)

Want to Work for Paddle Palace?
Here are two help wanted notices they just put out.

Inside Truls Möregårdh's Run to the World Championship Finals: Interview with Coach Stellan Bengtsson
Here's the interview from Edges and Nets.

Training with Stellan Bengtsson
Here's the video (2:28) from Victor Moraga Table Tennis. If you aren't in awe as you watch Stellan rally or feed multiball, you don't know table tennis history. (He's the 1971 Men's Singles World Champion from Sweden and one of the most celebrated coaches in the world. He now coaches in San Diego.)

Butterfly Training Tips

New from Samson Dubina

Upgrade Your Game The Backhand Flip
Here's the video (15:16) from Seth Pech.

Fan Zhendong's Reverse Serve and Strategy
Here's the video (8:43) from Ti Long.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Gym Free Home Workout for Table Tennis
Here's the video (9:21) from Kevin Finn from Peak Performance Table Tennis.

The Most Basic Ping Pong Serve for New Beginners or Recreational Players
Here's the video (1:42) from Matt Hetherington.

New from Coach Jon

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Ask the Coach
Here are the latest questions from PingSkills.

New from Steve Hopkins

USATT News

How China’s Ping-Pong Prowess Explains Its Economy
Here's the article by Tom Orlik at Bloomberg.com. Tom is a USATT member with a 2055 rating, and plays at my club, MDTTC. His daughter, Josephine, is part of the MDTTC junior program that I coach at. (Somehow I missed this article when it first came out.)

8 Minutes of Backhand Fireworks from Lin Gaoyuan
Here's the video (8:08) from Street TT.

Jimmy Butler Takes on the 2021 US Open Women's Doubles Champions
Here's the video (4 min). Nikki Deng also made the final of Women's Singles while teaming up with Amber Lin to win Women's Doubles. Both attend Texas Wesleyan.

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

FastPong Featured on BBC
Here's the video (3:33).

Bob The Ping Pong Hitman Funniest Match
Here's the video (2:59)!

Toddler on Table Pong
Here's the video (18 sec)!

Funny Table Tennis Fails
Here's the video (7 sec)! Yes, that's former world #1 Xu Xin of China looking like an acrobatic basement player.

Ping-Pong Funny Moment
Here's the video (26 sec) from Matt Hetherington (far side). US #1 13-year-old Stanley Hsu's reaction is hilarious!

Trick Shots
Here's the video (24 sec)!

Adam vs. USA Top Chopper
Here's the video (14:28) from Adam Bobrow. The chopper is the entertaining Kazuyuki "Kaz" Yokoyama, currently rated 2298 but once as high as 2563.

Cat Pong
Here's the video (9 sec) - this cat's pretty good! It's been a while since I've linked to a cat table tennis video, but this one seems a new one.

***
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January 24, 2022

Tip of the Week
Focus on the Next Point.

Weekend Coaching
Had a pretty busy weekend coaching group sessions with my fellow coaches, Wang Qingliang and Lidney Castro. (Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang were also there, but doing private coaching.) I had an interesting experience on Sunday. I was only scheduled to coaching one session that day, 12:00-1:30 PM. Afterwards, I went to Panera's to do some writing. I left my playing bag in the trunk of my car. It was cold out, below freezing. At 3:40PM I got a text from Wang, asking if I could come in at 4PM. The problem was that my racket was now ice cold! What did I do? I cranked the heat on full blast while driving back to the club, and held my racket in front of it most of the way! I roasted both sides, and the racket was nice and toasty by the time I got to the club. (A cold racket plays dead.)

I had an interesting thought. A good coach should be able to name every player's shoes at the end of a session! Okay, not really, since he's not paying attention to that specifically, but we do spend much of our time just watching players' feet to make sure they are moving and moving properly. After thinking about this, I started to notice all the different shoe types and colors. One good thing - there were about 20 kids in the session I was coaching at the time, and every one of them had on table tennis shoes.

Some things I focused a lot on include:

  • Keep the ball to wide angles. If you do this in practice, you'll do it in games. Some of the players were letting their balls wander in to the middle backhand or middle forehand, which makes things easy for the opponent. Go to the very wide corners on every shot unless you are going for the middle (opponent's playing elbow).
  • I reminded several of the kids that you NEVER have to decide whether to move. You only decide where and how far. (Maybe once in a hundred shots you move zero inches, but the key is that you are prepared to move, whether it's an inch or five feet.
  • A spinny serve that misses in practice is better than a weak serve that's consistent. The latter is just practicing bad serves, while you can learn to keep a spinny serve on the table.

How to Teach Beginning Kids
The question came up on Facebook, and so I wrote the following (with a few minor edits). Here's the process I've used for decades with younger beginning kids. 

  • Make sure they have a good grip. A bad grip is like twisting a rubber band - it warps everything.
  • Do some ball bouncing on the paddle, to develop hand-eye coordination and control.
  • Shadow practice the shot to be learned, so they can learn the strokes without also trying to hit the ball.
  • Then move to multiball and robot play. Put the ball in the same place over and over and they'll quickly be able to hit it on the table, even as young as age five. (Their arm muscles will tire quickly on backhand, so go back and forth.) 
  • Put targets on the table. Watch their eyes light up as they try to hit them. While they are having fun, they are learning the strokes, timing, and ball control. I often use Froggy and water bottles.

I also like to finish sessions with beginning kids by asking if they like to build things ("Yes!") and asking if they like to destroy things ("YES!"). Then I have them stack paper cups into pyramids and walls, and they take turns knocking them down as I feed multiball. 

Some of the current top junior stars who started out in my beginning classes or in my summer camp groups include Stanley Hsu (13, 2400), Mu Du (13, 2289), and Ryan Lin (12, 2216), and many others from the past. 

Butterfly Training Tips

JOOLA Coaching Videos
Here's the page.

Learn the Basic Backhand Drive Table Tennis Technique
Here's the video (1:22) from Matt Hetherington.

New from Ping Sunday/EmRatThich

New from Samson Dubina

How to Play Backhand Drive for Beginners
Here's the video (5:06) from Reynald Table Tennis.

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Ask the Coach
Here's the latest questions for PingSkills.

Training Experience in Taiwan
Here's the article by Darryl Tsao.

Houston/World Championship Report
Here's the article by Sally Moyland.

Sean O'Neill in Action, 1978 to Present
Here's the video (4:12) by Jim Butler.

Samson Dubina Table Tennis Academy on TV
Here's the video (9:43) from FOX 8 News.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy Player Discusses Significance of Sports Exchange
Here's the video (3:20) featuring Judy Hoarfrost, a member of the US Team during Ping-Pong Diplomacy in 1971-72.

New from Coach Jon

New from USATT

  • Updated Contact Information for USATT National Headquarters. "USA Table Tennis has relocated its National Headquarters office to the US Olympic & Paralympic Sport House in Colorado Springs, Colorado."
  • Marguerite Cheung of Austin, Texas, Named USATT Volunteer of the Year. "Here's what I wrote about Marguerite in my Dec. 29 blog about the US Open: "However, when problems arise, sometimes a hero emerges. In this case, it was experienced volunteer Marguerite Cheung at the control desk. Many of the volunteers at the control desk were inexperienced, and when things fell behind, they weren't sure what to do. Marguerite is an experienced tournament director, and when things fell behind, she was the one who basically started getting matches out, calling them individually on the loudspeaker. I watched, and she was doing the work of about five others. I told her that, if not for her, instead of four hours behind it would have been eight! (This is not to disparage others, who also worked hard, including some experienced ones. But Marguerite was like Wonder Woman this tournament.)"
  • USATT Announces the ‘Everyone In’ Umpire Development Program. (This went in late in last week's blog.) One thing I don't get - it says the program encourages everyone to be an umpire "Regardless of Age...." But then it says it's "targeting all genders under age 40."

New from Steve Hopkins

WTTC Interviews

ITTF News

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

Come-Back Serve and Cup Smash
Here's the video (41 sec)!

Bob The Ping Pong Hitman
Here's the video (3 min)!

Great Point with Unbelievable Ending
Here's the video (29 sec)!

Wanna Buy a $7000 Ping-Pong Table?
Here you go - with some as cheap as $5115!

Wanna Buy Some Interesting Table Tennis Posters?
Here's the Zazzle page! (No, I don't get any percentage from this!)

The Founding Fathers Were Clear, You Must Win By Two
Here's the cartoon!

You're Not Taking This Policy Meeting Seriously Enough
Here's the cartoon!

I Wish This Game Gave Me Some Opportunity for Cardio
Here's the cartoon!

***
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January 17, 2022

Tip of the Week
The Most Important Reason for a Match Coach.

Junior Ratings and Rankings
One of my pet peeves is when the junior rankings include non-juniors because of database mistakes. I don't blame USATT or others for this, but I do like to see them fixed up. When I find them, I periodically email USATT to let them know, and they always fix them up. I emailed about a number of new ones on Dec. 27, and I'm sure they'll fix them up soon. But until then, here's what you find if you do an age search - and what sponsors see when considering sponsoring a junior player. (These mistakes often happen when players or tournament directors mistakenly put in the current date for DOB.) 

Let's start by going to the USATT Ratings page, and click on Browse Individual Ratings. Set Citizenship to USA. Set Gender to Male (for now). Set Max Age to 13. The click on Search. I like this listing - it includes Stanley Hsu, Mu Du, Ryan Lin, and Winston Wu (ranked #1, 5, 6, 12), all from my club. But wait . . . what's Hiep Tran (2136) doing at #8? I know him - he's 50 years old and has played USATT tournaments since 1998!!! (So move Winston up to #11, and everyone else below Hiep moves up a spot.) But how far does this go down?

ADDENDUM: USATT has acted on some of these. Hiep Tran and some of the others below no longer appear. 

Let's set Max Age to 12. Hiep is now #4 in the country! (Take him out, and Ryan and Winston are #2 and #5. Patryk Zyworonek turns 13 in February, Charles Shen in April, after which they move up to #1 and #3 - with Winston one point behind Kef Noorani.)

Let's set Max Age to 11. Hiep, it took you five decades, but you are now #1 in the country in Under 11!!! But wait a minute - who is this Wesley Pritchett at #3? He's been playing USATT tournaments since 2012, about the year he supposedly was born!!! (Kef, you are sandwiched by old guys.) So he's not eligible either. Neither is #7, Dmitri Greydinger, who has been playing tournaments since 1995.

Let's set Max Age to 10. Now Hiep, Wesley, and Dmitri are #1, 2, and 4 in the country.

Let's set Max Age to 9. Now Hiep, Wesley, and Dmitri are #1, 2, and 3. #4 is Norman Lehr, whose first rating was 1165 in 2015 when he would have been about two. #5 is Robert Gabay, who has been playing tournaments since 2012. (His first tournament was the 2012 MDTTC October Open, which I ran almost ten years ago.) So the top five boys in the country for Under 9 are all well over age 9.

Let's jump down Max Age at 5. We get five players - Wesley, Dmitri, Norman, Robert, and a new player, Mark Yelavich, who has been playing tournaments since 2010, about seven years before he was apparently born.

Let's do one more test, keeping Max Age at 5. Go back to the top and change Citizenship to Any Country, and set Gender to Any. Click Search. Now we get 21 players, all supposedly under age five, with ratings ranging up to (gulp) 2622!!! (Others have ratings of 2426, 2057, 1952, 1927, and so on.) China may be the best in the world, but USA dominates among four-year-olds!!!

Hopefully USATT will fix these soon.

Weekend Coaching
I somehow injured my foot while walking down stairs a few days ago. So, on Saturday, I was hobbling about, wearing running shoes for support instead of my usual table tennis shoes. I spent most of each session feeding multiball, which was tricky, since in my running shoes I'm an inch taller and it throws off my control built up from 40+ years of feeding multiball. But I adjusted, and did a wide variety of drills with a multitude of kids. And then the snow came, and the Sunday sessions were cancelled.

University of Maryland Fundraising for the Nationals NCTTA Championship
Here's the GoFundMe page. "We are in need of funds to travel to Round-Rock, Austin, Texas during late March-early April 2022 to compete in the NCTTA National Championship."

USATT News

Aruna Quadri vs Kanak Jha | German League 2022
Here's the video (5:47).

Butterfly Training Tips

New from Samson Dubina

Learn the Basic Forehand Drive Table Tennis Technique
Here's the video (1:44) from Matt Hetherington.

Table Tennis Psychology Guide
Here's the guide from Table Tennis Top.

Push or Flick?
Here's the article and videos from Tom Lodziak.

Force, Friction, and Table Tennis
Here's the video (6:10) from Coach Jon. "Every shot is a combination of force and friction. Getting the right ratio is a key to consistency."

4 Steps with Dimitrij Ovtcharov to Learn the World's Best Tomahawk Serve
Here's the video (4:14).

How to Win Against ANY opponent - Weakness of EVERYONE
Here are the videos from Geoffrey Cheng.

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

New from Ping Sunday/EmRatThich

VLOG - German Cup Finals 2022
Here's the vlog (5:24) from Timo Boll.

Ask the Coach
Here's the latest questions for PingSkills.

Off-Table Backhand Sidespin Counterloops
Here's the video (9 sec) - why aren't you practicing this?

A Good Group Warmup Exercise?
Here's the video (39 sec).

NCTTA Singles Registration is OPEN!
Here's the info page from the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association.

WTTC Interviews

Princeton Pong January Open Post-Finals Match Interview With Nigerian Team's Ojo Onaolapo
Here's the video (11:41). See also Aditya Sareen and Ojo Onaolapo dominate at Princeton Pong 2022 January Open.

New from Steve Hopkins

New ITTF President Sörling Lays Out Sustainability Vision
Here's the article.

ITTF News

New from Table Tennis Central

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

U.S. Open Highlights with Rachel Wang
Here's the video (1:49). She is a member of the US Under 15 Girls' Team.

Why A Professor Plays Table Tennis
Here's the video (4:34). The video features Dr. Howard Lasnik, a linguistic professor at the University of Maryland, who is asked why he chose table tennis over other sports.

What Ping-Pong Taught Me About Life
Here's the video (12:33) featuring Pico Iyer of England.

Never Give Up - and This Year's Luckiest Shot?
Here's the video (27 sec)!

Can You Succeed in the Table Tennis Challenge?
Here's the video (23 sec) - pie in the face if you miss!

Tongue Pong?
Here's the video (20 sec)!

A Year of a Ping Pong Channel
Here's the video (11:31) from Adam Bobrow!

Non-Table Tennis - Part 2 of Odyssey Interview and Another Science Fiction Story Sale
I was interviewed recently about my science fiction writing by the Odyssey Writing Workshop. I linked to Part 1 last week (which included my "Twenty-Point Short Story Writing System"). Here's Part 2, where I talk about how I came to write a recent story, challenges faced in writing SF, and my biggest weaknesses as an SF writer.

I sold another science fiction story yesterday, "Death Message" to Martian Magazine - where prisoners in a ship use the deadliest form of communication to send a message. It's my 125th short story sale, plus an even 40 resales and four novels. It's also my fifth sale in six weeks, so I'm on a pretty good run. (One strange thing - I'm sometimes asked how much I pay to get these published! It's the other way around - I get paid by magazines for these stories. How much depends on the magazine and the length of the story. Some payments are rather low, but most range from $50 to $500, with my highest payment for a story $1000.)

***
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January 10, 2022

Tip of the Week
Take the Weird Styles Pledge.

Serving Tactics
One of the things you learn as you play more - assuming you are a student of the game - is to get a feel for what serves work at what times. Someone asked me about this, and I used as an example two serves at a key moment in an international match I recently coached at the America's Hopes in Cuenca, Ecuador. I was coaching Ryan Lin, who was the top-rated 11-year-old in the country at the time. (He's 2176 and recently turned 12.) I will call the other player "Doe." Doe was also the best of his age from his country and was rated/seeded higher. At 8-8 in the fifth, with Ryan serving, I called a timeout, both so Ryan could relax and clear his mind, and to discuss what two serves to use. (I initially wrote this calling Ryan as "John," but he and his father said I could go ahead and use his name.) 

Doe had been a bit passive on his backhand receive, and Ryan and I both agreed we should start out with a slightly long dead ball to the backhand. If Doe pushed or spun it soft, as we expected, Ryan would jump on it. The problem was, what to do for the second serve? If you go long again, Doe would likely jump on it, and he'd been dropping Ryan's short serves back effectively. What to do? Since there weren't any other great options, we decided the second serve would be short no-spin to the middle. This cuts off the angles, and by going no-spin, it's a bit trickier to drop short than backspin. And yet, I wasn't too comfortable with the call - I was pretty sure Doe would drop it short, and Ryan would lose the serve advantage. (The key problem here was Doe's return of serve was very good.)

Ryan goes back and does the deep dead ball - and Doe softly spins it off. Ryan now leads 9-8 - and alarms go off in my head. Years of experience tell me that Doe is playing cautious, lifting the ball softly. What does this mean? It means that if we give him another long serve, he'll likely lift it as well. That means no backspin serves. And he'd likely adjust if we give him another slightly long dead ball. But if we serve side-top slightly long, his natural instinct might be to lift it off - except at this point, he's seen all of Ryan's normal serves, and would likely adjust. And then a flashbulb goes off in my head - it's time for Ryan to bring out his not-that-good-yet backhand serve! (It's since improved.) He was just starting to work on it, and didn't have much variation - it was mostly a slightly long side-top. But the two key things were 1) it was side-top, and 2) Doe hadn't seen it. What did the latter mean? It meant that, while the serve itself might not fool him, the very fact that it was new would likely get him to fall into his natural tendency, which at this point was to lift the ball. And if he did that, he'd likely go off.

If Ryan were on my side of the table, he'd have probably served the short no-spin serve, and Doe likely would have dropped it short. But he was on the far side, facing me, with Doe's back to me. So I waved my arm to get his attention, and did a backhand serve motion. Ryan saw it, stared for a second, then nodded. He did his backhand for the first time in the match - and sure enough, Doe softly spun it off! (I was incredibly nervous as Ryan served - imagine if Doe had looped that serve in!) Even if the ball had hit, it was a soft return and Ryan was ready to rip it. Up 10-8, Ryan won the next point to win 11-8 in the fifth.

A key thing here is that we didn't call timeout until 8-all in the fifth. Why? Because Ryan, even though only eleven, was already an experienced veteran, and with coaches regularly talking to him about serve selection and tactics, he pretty much knew what serves and tactics to use throughout, though we did discuss them between games. (It's always a threshold moment when an up-and-coming junior begins to really understand these things and learns to play consistently smart - and can even discuss the tactics afterwards.)

Weekend Coaching
After a few weeks' break, we started up the new training season this past weekend. For me, it was an extremely multiball-heavy weekend as I fed balls to seemingly every player in the club. Since some had been off for a few weeks, I focused on fundamental skills, especially with the lower-rated players. One focus - I kept harping with several players about having "active feet" - too often they just stood there, and only moved if they had to. The key is to always move - even if it's an inch. Even if you don't have to move at all, you should start to move (with a light flexing of the knees), as it's much quicker to start to move and then see where to move, than to wait to see if you have to move, and then start the process late. I also worked with a chopper, with various topspin feeds to work on his fundamental chopping skills.

Sports Mask
A few days ago I ordered a special "sports mask," designed for sports in this age of Covid. It was supposed to make breathing easier. The problem was - it did so by having essentially giving no Covid protection! It was basically a thin mesh, one layer, with holes noticeably large enough to see, and easy to breath through. From a few feet away, it looked like a normal mask for use against Covid, but as protection against spreading Covid, it was useless. I'm not going to provide the link as there might be some tempted to order them just for show!

USATT Five-Star Tournament Task Force
As noted previously blog, here's the USATT news item on this. They met this past week on Tues and Wed nights. I keep thinking I dodged a bullet here. Since I'm pretty experienced in these matters - I've run 203 USATT tournaments and did operations/scheduling for two US Opens with Donna Sakai - I'm a bit surprised I wasn't asked to serve on the task force. Not only would I have good input for them, but it would have been smart on USATT's part. I've criticized them a lot for what happened at the US Open - and what better way to both silence me and perhaps improve the Open then by putting me on the task force? But since I'm not on it, I'll stay out of it, and just wait and see if they fix the problems when the Nationals come up in July. Why did I dodge a bullet? Because this is the type of thing where, if I'd been asked initially, I'd have felt obligated to join in, since I'd written so much about the problems. And if I had been on the task force, I would have been all in, and would have put in a LOT of time and effort on it. Instead, I can put all that time and effort into other things. So I did dodge a bullet. (No, I'm not interested in being added now - that time has passed.)

USATT Announces Coaching Staff

Stanley Hsu's Forehand & Footwork
Here's the video (19 sec). Note the crossover step to cover the wide forehand, and the fast recovery. (Stanley is #1 in the US in 13 and Under. He started out in my beginning class, and (along with other coaches) I still work with him sometimes in group sessions and at tournaments. But I don't beat him anymore!)

Serve Tips No One Tells You
Here's the video (15:10) from Seth Pech. This is a must see!

Basic Shakehand and Traditional Penhold Grip
Here's the video (4:04) from Matt Hetherington. They've also launched a new app: "The JOOLA Infinity App has launched, and in these coming weeks I will be uploading some of the basics series of videos from the platform that I created."

New from Samson Dubina

New Butterfly Training Videos, Commentaries by Brian Pace

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Two Easy But Effective Drills
Here's the video (9:31) from Coach Jon.

Ask the Coach
Here's the latest questions for PingSkills.

WTTC Interviews Timo Boll
Here's the interview with the world #10 (formerly world #1) from Germany.

WTTC Interviews Adriana Diaz
Here's the interview with the world #17 from Puerto Rico.

US Table-Tennis Player Recounts Pairing with Chinese Team
Here's the article and video (2:48) from the China Daily (in English).

USA Ping Pong Diplomacy USA-China Pairs Practice Match for Worlds
Here's the video (10:41). At the start, that's Lily Zhang and Lin Gaoyuan on the left facing Kanak Jha and Wang Manyu.

Don't FORGET--NCTTA Eligibility
Here's the article from the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association. "Anyone who intends on playing in Regionals must be on this form and have been listed on a roster for the teams that they will play for."

New from Steve Hopkins

2021 US Open
Here's the article by Steve Moreno of Puerto Rico.

ITTF News

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

Four Saves and a Rip
Here's the video (14 sec)!

Table Table Tennis?
Here's the video (25 sec)!

Toddler Pong
Here's the video (13 sec) - imagine how good this kid's going to be when he's tall enough to play on a regular table!

Spider-Man vs. Spider-Man
Here's the video (3:59)! Here's an entire page of Spider-Man Table Tennis.

Beetle Bailey - "Are You Ready to Get Clobbered?"
Here's the Beetle Bailey comic from yesterday (Sunday, Jan. 9)! It joins a long line of other Beetle Bailey table tennis comics, which includes an explanation for why there are so many.

Science Fiction and Table Tennis - Interview with Odyssey Graduate Larry Hodges and Other SF Matters
Here's the interview, Part 1, about my science fiction writing. (Part 2 comes out next Monday.) Odyssey is the six-week science fiction & fantasy writing workshop I attended in 2006. I also attend the annual nine-day writing workshops for graduates every July - I've been to twelve of them, including the last nine in a row. I've actually been interviewed in the science fiction world more often than in the table tennis world - see the interview links after my bio.

On my science fiction page, I blogged about my science fiction writing year in review. It includes a listing at the end of my table tennis travels in 2021.

On a related note, I have a rather long science fiction story that was making the rounds, "First Galactic Table Tennis Championships." It's literally the story of just that, as the best table tennis players from around the galaxy all compete at these championships, held in Beijing about 200 years from now. It's full of intrigue and betrayals, and lots of crazy aliens. It's 10,000 words, about 40 pages double-spaced. I think I just sold the story - the editor of a SF magazine I submitted it to just wrote me, "We definitely are interested in this story. As long as it is, I will have to decide which issue it can fit into. I'll be back in touch with you most likely long before the end of October. Thank you for sending it to us!"

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January 3, 2022

Tip of the Week
Outcome Versus Process.

The Usual USATT Rundown
Sometimes, when I think about USA Table Tennis, I just want to cry out, "USATT, USATT, USATT!" :) Here's a quick rundown, hopefully the last one for a while, other than general news. But we'll start with the positive. (Skip ahead if not interested in USATT issues.)

=>USATT 2021 Year in Review. Here's the video (17 min).

=>USATT Athlete Elections. USATT First and Second Elite Athlete Elections Certified – Nomination Period for Third and Fourth Athlete Positions Opens.

=>USATT Announces 2021 All-American Honors. Here's the announcement! Three of the players named are from MDTTC and started out with me, and I still work with them in groups sessions and coach at tournaments - Stanley Hsu, Mu Du, and Ryan Lin. (But they work extensively with the rest of the MDTTC staff.) I've also worked with a number of others in camps and tournaments recently in Ecuador and Jordan, and in past USATT camps. Congrats to all! (Interesting note - I've coached or coached against all 17 of the boys, and 11 of the 17 girls.)

=>USATT Board Chair of the Board. Back in February, 2020, Richard Char was elected chair of the USATT Interim Board. The "Permanent" board took office in January, 2021. At that point, there should have been an election for chair of the board since Char had only been elected chair of the Interim board. However - they didn't hold the election. There were complaints about this, including comments some of us remember (such as by Willy Leparulo, president of NCTTA) in the comment section of USATT Board Zoom meetings. Long-time former Rules Chair and International Referee Kagin Lee emailed the board about this on March 28, 2021, saying, "The chair's term expired at the end of 2020 and there should have been an election of a new/renewed chair at the first meeting of the year." While nothing is in writing, I remember it being explained that Char had been appointed to a two-year term, ending in February, 2022, which is next month. When the athlete elections for four board spots began a few weeks ago, this was a key issue - who should be the next chair, with the upcoming election in February. Many of them were not happy in the direction of USATT and might favor a new chair. With four new athlete reps replacing the two current ones (USOPC required the increase), the board was about to change dramatically. So what happened?

On Dec. 6, out of the blue, there was a notice in the USATT Agenda and Notices page that there would be a USATT Board Meeting that night, with election of the Chair of the Board on the agenda. At the meeting, Char admitted that there should have been an election in January, 2021, but said that he "forgot" - that's a direct quote. (Will it be in the minutes? We'll see. I'm guessing no.) So he, the CEO, and the two USATT lawyers all forgot about this, despite reminders at Zoom meetings and Kagin's email, until they were faced with an election that might bring in four athlete reps who might not support them? Okay. There was little time for anyone else to consider running against him or put together any campaign. He ran unopposed and won, I believe 5-2. (Take out the two current athlete reps who voted for him, add in four athlete reps who likely won't, and suddenly it's 3-6. For further perspective, only one of the five who voted for him was actually elected to the board.) They did make his term only through January, 2023, when his term would have ended if they had held the election in January, 2021.

So, what are the odds that they really "forgot" about the election, as opposed to interpreting Char's initial term as a two-year term, but changing that interpretation when it became convenient? You can judge for yourself, but there's no way of reading their minds. But let me quote from the USATT Staff and Volunteers Code of Ethics:

"Recognize that even the appearance of misconduct or impropriety can be very damaging to the reputation of the USATT and act accordingly."

An argument for holding the election as soon as they "remembered" it was that, until they did so, there was no elected board chair. (I won't get into the legality of nearly a year of board meetings without an elected chair, by this new interpretation.) And so, yes, they should have held the belated election as soon as they "remembered" it - but with one catch. Since it was their mistake, then rather than have outgoing board members choose the chair for the incoming board members, and thereby saddle the board with a chair most did not vote for, they should have simply voted for another "interim" chair, through February (and so after the athlete elections), and then hold a new election for chair at that time. Then, whoever wins - whether it be Char or someone else - would truly represent the board. Isn't that what we want?

=>USATT Membership. I keep hearing celebratory talk of USATT having "record membership." They claim membership this past year shot up from 4600 to 8900. That's a good thing! But let's take it in perspective.

  • First, the reason membership was down to 4600 was because of the pandemic. It's normally around 8000 or so.
  • Second, 8900 is not a record. Membership broke 10,000 twice. It did so circa 2005, but then they raised membership rates from $25 to $40, and lost 2500 members in a year. (In 2021 dollars, that's raising the rate from about $36 to $57.)
  • Third, the recent increase is the obvious result from dropping the basic membership rate from $75/year to $25/year, the reverse of what they did in 2005. In 2005, IMHO they raised it too much too quickly; this time, again IMHO, they dropped it way too much. The result is that to get the same revenue at $25/year as $75/year they need triple the membership. Perhaps $40 to $50/year would be a good number for basic membership.

=>"Discussions" with Virginia. At the US Open, as I walked out of the playing hall and down the hallway back to the hotel, I was confronted by USATT CEO Virginia Sung on several issues. (This was in a public place, witnessed by one board member who listened in and numerous others who walked by, with neither of us saying it was off the record, so there's no expectation of privacy here.) I'm still debating whether to give the blow-by-blow - but much of it would end up being my word vs. hers.

It all started with her again claiming she wasn't "involved" in the High Performance Committee's change of the Selection Rules, a big issue from a year or so back. She had called me on the phone and convinced me to take out that mention in my blog, saying it wasn't true, that she hadn't been involved in it, and talked me into doing so, despite two people telling me she had. As it turned out, she had argued for it in a Zoom meeting and in an email to the HPC, and after the 3-2 vote, one of the members even emailed that Virginia had convinced her to change her vote - so she was heavily involved, as my initial blog said, and as I wrote in the following blog once I had more info. (I also made a mistake - I thought the video of Virginia arguing for the change was at the meeting where they took the vote, but it was at a different meeting. But that doesn't change the substance of the argument.) She now says that when she said she wasn't "involved," she meant she hadn't voted on it - but of course she didn't vote for it, since she's not on the HPC, but my blog never said she voted on it, only that she was very involved, which she was. (Involved: "having a part in something; actively participating in something.")

She also insisted that she had no choice but to get involved in the HPC's discussions on this, that she is required by the USATT Bylaws to do so - and she was surprised, even scornful that I didn't know this. I looked this up in the Bylaws, and later went back to her and pointed out this wasn't true - see pages 33 (Section 9.16. High Performance Committee and Para High Performance Committee) and 45 (ARTICLE XIV CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER). The closest thing is the HPC is required to make recommendations to the CEO, not the other way around. When I pointed this out to her, she quickly changed to saying she felt that, as CEO, she should get involved - which was completely different from what she had been arguing before. (But as I wrote last week, I'd rather a CEO who focuses on the big picture and on raising money, and stays out of these issues.)

We discussed other issues - some covered in my previous blog - but I don't think it's going to accomplish anything giving the blow-by-blow. I really don't like writing about these types of USATT issues. Anyone want to talk about ball placement? :)

=>US Open. In my blog last week, I wrote about the problems with the US Open. In the following days I did some updates. The number of confirmed Covid cases is now at 31 (though of course there are actually far more, as these are just those who were tested and who announced they were positive); I added a long paragraph under "Scheduling" on how to stop the cascading effect; and added two segments, "Loudspeaker" and "Event Finishing Day."

=>USATT Youth Trials Petition. This morning I was sent the 2022 Junior Trials Petition. When it was sent to me, I did make a few editorial suggestions, but I didn't originate the petition, nor did I see or know about it until this morning. When I got the final copy, I put it online on my own. The petition pretty much speaks for itself - it's unfair that both of the US Junior Team Trials are held in the same area on one coast. IMHO, it would be better to have an annual trials at the US Nationals in July, when kids are out of school and almost all at the Nationals anyway. The petition is in response to the USATT news item of a few days ago, USATT Announces Dates and Locations for 2022 US National Youth Team Trials. If you agree with the petition, then I'm told you should send it to the USATT Board of Directors, the CEO and HPD, and to admin@usatt.org.

I'm sure there are arguments for having them this way - but as usual, USATT doesn’t communicate these things as they communicate at the 1000 level. I heard they plan a USATT training camp between the two, for example, but somehow they left that out of the news item. Or perhaps they only hope to run one, and so aren't committing yet. I don't know.  We shouldn't have to ask USATT about these things - they should be telling us. Regardless, I don't think the benefits outweigh the arguments against, as noted in the petition - including the Covid problem. That's a long, expensive 11-day trip to the west coast, with lots of missed school, plus the COVID problem just recently got much worse. (31 known cases from the US Open, and that's likely just the tip of the iceberg.)  

UPDATE - USATT has delayed the Youth Trials due to Covid. 

Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips
Here are the first three books in the series:

Notice a pattern? Tentatively, the next two will be "Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips" and "And Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips." One big change - the first three volumes had 150 tips each, but I'm switching over to 100 tips per book. (The Tips are compiled from my weekly Tip of the Week, but put in order by topic.)

I thought the next volume would be out this month, but I made a silly mistake. When I do a tip, I put it into a master volume, with a # after each tip. When I want to know how many tips I've done, I just do a count of the #'s. I reached 100 a couple weeks ago - or so I thought. Then I discovered that one tip mentioned a number of world-ranked players with their ranking, and so had 16 #'s in the tip, plus it was used two other times. So there were 18 #'s in the tips themselves, meaning I only had 82 tips!!! I should hit 100 tips on May 2, and the next volume should then come out soon afterwards.

Books I Read in 2021
Here's the listing. I ended up with one book per week, at 52. It was a wide range - 21 fiction, 9 science, 13 history, 4 sports psychology, 3 writing, and but only 2 on table tennis. I have a small stack of table tennis books that came out the last two years - I should probably read them this year. But the 52 is a "down" year for me - I usually read more. For comparison, the previous four years, 2017-2020, I read 57, 84 (!), 68, and 67 books. I think I did too many crossword puzzles this year. (Plus I did a lot of science fiction writing.)

New Butterfly Training Videos

New from Samson Dubina

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from Ti Long

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Ask the Coach
Here's the PingSkills page.

Is Table Tennis Defense Dead?
Here's the video (9:13) from Coach Jon.

New from Steve Hopkins

2021 U.S. Open – U15 Girls Teams
Here's the article by Isabella Xu.

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

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

Ma Long Guides Children to Play Table Tennis in Macau
Here's the video (2:12).

2021 Table Tennis Rewind
Here's the video (12 min) from Table Tennis Media.

Certified Ping Pong Champ
Here's the video (9:15)!

Table Tennis Battle
Here's the dramatic video (1:43) from PingSunday/EmRatThich!

Double-Edge Serve
Here's the video (20 sec) from Table Tennis World!

Table Tennis, Archery, and Blondie
Here's the cartoon!

You Want a Pong Shirt?
This is my Ping Pong Shirt!

Non-Table Tennis - Another Fiction Sale
Yesterday I sold another story, "Soul Testing in Major League Baseball," to Daily Science Fiction. Forget steroids - what happens when major league baseball players sell their souls illegally to Satan to become stars? Finding ways to test for souls leads to an ever-escalating battle between players and Major League Baseball. It's my 124th short story sale and second sale to Daily SF.

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December 29, 2021

Tips of the Week

2021 US Open . . . a Fiasco
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this year's US Open, held in Las Vegas, Dec. 17-22, was a fiasco, wrapped in disaster, inside a calamity. It was the third consecutive poorly run US Open or Nationals since USATT CEO Virginia Sung took over as tournament director at the 2019 US Open, which ran many hours behind, though not as much as this year's. After a break in 2020 due to Covid, it was followed by the 2021 US Nationals in July, the worst-run Nationals in USATT history. And now we have the worst-run US Open in history. (More on that below, and why it was worse than the infamous 1990 US Open.)

Plus, with the total lack of mask enforcement, it's turned into a "super-spreader," just as I predicted on Facebook on the first day. As of now, there are 34 confirmed positive tests, including US Open Women's Singles Champion Lily Zhang. (There obviously are many more - most don't announce on Facebook or even get tested.) See the segment below on this, where I list the positive tests so far. 

One piece of breaking news - last night this went up: USATT Announces Formation of Five-Star Tournament Task Force. More on this in the following segment. Also note that this morning I sent an email to Virginia with four questions. She responded that she was driving, and "Will not get back until late afternoon." When/if she does, I may put in an Update.

Before we go further, here are complete results. (I'm not sure why the Men's and Women's Singles are listed as "Prelim Rounds," but if you click on them, you get the full results.) There were 745 players in the tournament, with 83 events played on 78 tables. (Many past Opens and Nationals had far more players and events.) Since I spent most of the tournament waiting for, playing, or coaching matches, I didn't see any of the top matches, so no coverage of those.

Here are other USATT news items on the Open:

Throughout the tournament people would come up to me to exchange complaints about it, and each time it would involve a long litany of problems. I finally began to simply call it a fiasco to save time. At one point, someone came over and asked me what I thought of the tournament, and I responded the same way, "It's a fiasco." Then I looked over and saw it was Craig Krum, the hard-working but completely gob-smacked Operations Director, who admitted he was running the Open as "the largest 2-star tournament in history." Well, perhaps I wouldn't have been so blunt if I'd known it was him first, but bluntness is what was needed in such a case. Buttering it up doesn't get the message across of just how bad the tournament was. There are certain minimal expectations for a tournament such as this, and they were not met. I'm sure the USATT board will look into these problems - but only one of the nine board members was present at the tournament. As to Craig, he was highly apologetic, admitting he simply hadn't realized what he was getting into when he went from running four-star tournaments (with perhaps 200 players on maybe 20-25 tables) to five-star ones (745 players on 78) - the complexity goes up exponentially. He said he would be writing a letter of apology - see below from the U.S. Open Tournament Committee.

Writing about this tournament is among the most difficult things I've ever had to write - it makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Trying to find the balance between politeness and saying it like it is isn't easy. It would be a lot easier to do what many do, and just smile and say all's well. But all is not well. And I'm not the only one writing about it. Here are two threads on Facebook (there are many more) where lots of people chimed in on their experiences - and they are pretty scathing, including notes from numerous professional coaches, top players, and hall of famers.

USATT posted two news items on the problems with the tournament:

The latter states, "active efforts to enforce the mandatory mask rules of Clark County, Nevada." I strongly disagree with this statement. See the Covid section below.

Personally, I was at the tournament to coach and play in two events - Hardbat Singles (where I got second for the third time - I've won it twice) and Hardbat Doubles (which I won for the 14th time at the Open or Nationals, this time with Estee Ackerman). I'm normally a sponge player but play hardbat on the side. Alas, I and my players had to play most of our matches "cold" since they fell so far behind that we never knew when we'd play. I didn't even get to see the men's or women's finals or semifinals - I was at the desk both times, waiting for matches.

There will always be some problems at tournaments. However, it is the responsibility of the tournament director to have a checklist to go through to make sure everything has been taken care of and done properly before the tournament begins. This is tournament 101, and it didn't happen. On the other hand, I'll give Virginia and Craig credit - they literally lived at the control desk most of the tournament, with Craig at the computer and Virginia often looking over his shoulder as they tried to keep the tournament running in some fashion. The tournament staff also did an incredible job in a nearly impossible situation.

Below is a rundown of what we faced as participants in the tournament. I was pretty nice in my writeups for the last two major tournaments USATT ran (2019 Open and 2021 Nationals, both poorly run), and each got progressively worse. So this time I'm putting together a literal checklist of problems, both for USATT and for participants. I debated which aspect to start with but will start with Covid.

=>Covid. The rules were very clear - everyone must wear a mask unless they were playing, eating, or drinking. But there was no enforcement. Nor was there any social distancing. When I walked in on the first day, I saw all the unmasked people. I did a quick count of the first table area - only 6 of 22 were wearing masks. I checked the arena - only 13 of 29 wore masks. None of the four coaches coaching on the two tables wore masks. Here is a picture of the Men's Final, taken from USATT's own news item on day four. I've circled 22 people in the stands who are not wearing masks or have the masks pulled down. Here is another USATT news item - note the two people prominently not wearing masks. On the second day I did another count of people in the arena at around 6PM. Of those not playing, eating, or drinking, 18 of 43 were not wearing masks.

I checked about this at the registration desk, control desk, and officials area, and all said that mask enforcement was up to the tournament director, which was Virginia. I asked her who was in charge of enforcing the rule, but she wouldn't answer, only saying, over and over, "Everyone must wear a mask." So, there was no enforcement of the rule. After the fact, there have been claims by USATT that there was enforcement, but that's simply not true. (One umpire did take it upon herself to try to enforce the rule and managed to get most of those in the first table area to put on their masks. But she had other duties and stopped after a short time.) Simple reality - if you say everyone must wear a mask but do not enforce it then the mask rule is not being enforced.

There was no serious social distancing. For much of the tournament there was a "mob" at the control desk as huge numbers of players tried to find out about their matches as the tournament fell many hours behind. The people at the control desk were also close together with no social distancing.

USATT did provide free Covid testing onsite, which was a good thing. I took the test and was negative. But it's likely that only a small minority of the huge number of people at the Open took the free test.

I wrote a Facebook posting about this the very first night, which starts off, "I'm worried that the US Open Table Tennis Championships here in Las Vegas is going to turn into a super-spreader event for Covid." I was right to be concerned. I know of at least 13 15 21 24 26 27 29 30 31 34 people so far who have tested positive. The number is obviously much higher, as these are just the ones who posted on Facebook or otherwise let others know, plus most people didn't get tested. Each of them exposed large numbers of others to Covid, further spreading the disease. This is the definition of a "superspreader." Here are the ones I know of (so far) who have tested positive.

  • The Spartan TTC in San Jose, CA, posted, "At least three of our students have tested COVID-19 positive after the US Open." (They also had to cancel their training camp.)
  • Matt Hetherington from Maryland.
  • Max Nasab from Washington state.
  • Alireza Hejazi posted that a friend who attended the US Open with him tested positive.
  • Two adults who wish to remain anonymous.
  • Two junior players who must stay anonymous.
  • I was told "several" from the Houston International TT Academy have tested positive. So at least three.
  • Bahram Panahi and his wife tested positive.
  • Vicky Na informs me that at least six people at the Open from North Carolina and three from Atlanta tested positive.
  • At least one junior player from Boston tested positive. 
  • US Open Women's Singles Champion Lily Zhang has tested positive!!! 
  • Paul David tested positive.
  • I'm told two more people from Atlanta tested positive. 
  • A junior from the Lily Yip club tested positive
  • Another from Atlanta tested positive
  • Three from a CA club, but they don't want to be named

=>Scheduling. Just as with the Nationals in July and the last US Open in 2019, they fell way, Way, WAY behind. Each day (especially the first three) quickly became a madhouse as players were forced to wait around the control desk often for 3-4 hours, waiting for their matches. There were no schedules in the player packets; they were not given out until the morning the tournament began - and then it turned out the match slips hadn't even been printed out! So there were delays right from the start, and they only got worse.

I had a relatively slow first day, didn't have to coach until 5:30 PM. I warmed up my player, and we went to the control desk at 5:30 PM to check in for his round robin event, little knowing what we were in for - over and Over and OVER throughout the tournament. As of 5:30 PM, they were just sending out 2:30 PM matches, so they were three hours behind. Worse, they had no idea when the 5:30 PM matches would go out, and so told us to just "wait around." They were now calling matches one by one over the loudspeaker system, as if it were a two-star tournament. (Many of us, including me, had great difficulty making out what was being said.) Lots of tables were open, but there didn't seem a way for the desk to keep track or to get match slips ready in a reasonable time. The match I coached was finally called at 8:15PM, but of course my player was now stiff as a rock. I had planned on coaching his 5:30 RR and then having a leisurely dinner. We didn't get out until after 10PM. It would be the first of three straight nights where I wouldn't get dinner until after 10PM. Little did we know that day two would be worse, and day three worse still. (Day three started out well, then everything fell apart in the early afternoon.) The following days they also fell behind, but it wasn't quite as bad - I think they had more matches scheduled the first three days.

Imagine warming up for your matches, over and over, and each time you are forced to wait at the control desk for 3-4 hours - and then, when you are suddenly and out of the blue called, you have to play cold, other than the two-minute warmup. This simply doesn't meet even minimally minimal standards. But I wasn't alone in this - the mobs at the control desk were all in the same situation. I could write books about this. Suffice to say this Open was more behind than any US Open or Nationals since or before the infamous 1990 US Open.

One interesting note - I had an argument with Virginia over the software used. I pointed out that there was nothing currently in Omnipong, or any procedure at the control desk, to deal with the cascading effect in large tournaments, where if one event falls behind, it cascades into other events, leading to the entire tournament falling further and further behind - exactly what happened here each day. When I first mentioned this, I got blank stares from Virginia (and later, by others at the control desk) - they didn't know anything about this. Then Virginia insisted they did have a system for this. We argued, and it finally came out that she was referring to conflict resolution, i.e. when a player has two matches at the same time and one has to be rescheduled. That is how you deal with individual conflicts, but not the cascading effect. Alas, at this point in time, the ones running our tournaments were basically oblivious to this problem. For the twenty years before they took over the Opens and Nationals ran on time because NATT, the ones running it (as well as others before them) knew about this problem and how to deal with it - and so, even if one event fell behind, it wouldn't drag the rest of the tournament with it. Omnipong is great for most tournaments - I've run many dozens on it - but for larger ones like the US Open, it might need some upgrading.

I don't know the specifics of how past directors stopped the cascading effect, but I believe the concept is simple. (I was involved in the scheduling of two past US Opens, but it was long ago, plus I've run over 200 USATT sanctioned tournaments.) When an event falls behind, they do two things. First, when there's a conflict, they favor playing the events that are still on time, so other events don't also fall behind, which causes the cascading effect. Second, they quickly reschedule the matches in the specific event that's falling behind, often on tables set aside for this. (This is subtly different from normal conflict resolution, where they reschedule individual matches, as opposed to rescheduling the entire event.) Without this, players can spend hours at the desk waiting for their match to be rescheduled (as at the 2021 US Nationals and US Open) never knowing when they'll be called. With this method, the match might not be played right away, but they are given a specific time when it will be played, and so they know when to warm up and be ready to play. Result - other events do not fall behind, and in the event that does falls behind, matches are quickly rescheduled, and everyone's happy. Note that players accept that an event can fall behind and their matches rescheduled. What they can't accept is an entire tournament falling behind, and having to wait around for hours not knowing when they'll play.

=>Loss of Experienced Volunteers. One of the reasons they had such difficulty once they fell behind was the inexperience of many of the volunteers. This was the first time in decades where I didn't recognize most of the volunteers, and most of the volunteers didn't recognize me. Normally it's an experienced crew, but this time Virginia decided that there would be no hotel or flight reimbursements for volunteers. Because of this, several regular volunteers told me they decided not to volunteer this year. I told Virginia this, and she exploded, saying that all volunteers got hotel and flight reimbursements, and anyone who said otherwise is lying - and she wanted to know who was saying this. The problem is the Volunteer Form says exactly what the missing volunteers said - "There is No Hotel or Flight Reimbursement."

However, when problems arise, sometimes a hero emerges. In this case, it was experienced volunteer Marguerite Cheung at the control desk. Many of the volunteers at the control desk were inexperienced, and when things fell behind, they weren't sure what to do. Marguerite is an experienced tournament director, and when things fell behind, she was the one who basically started getting matches out, calling them individually on the loudspeaker. I watched, and she was doing the work of about five others. I told her that, if not for her, instead of four hours behind it would have been eight! (This is not to disparage others, who also worked hard, including some experienced ones. But Marguerite was like Wonder Woman this tournament.)

=>CEO/Director Illegally Overrules Referee on Rules Question. This should be a no-brainer - the referee of a tournament is the FINAL authority on rules questions. From the USATT Tournament Guide, 4.4.5a, the referee "Is the final authority on interpretation of the rules and regulations as they apply to the tournament." The ITTF Handbook concurs, saying, "The referee shall be responsible for: 3.3.1.2.10 deciding any question of interpretation of Laws or Regulations, including the acceptability of clothing, playing equipment and playing conditions."

In my 46 years in the sport, I've disagreed with referees, but never thought I could overrule them - and, until now, I've never seen one illegally overruled! I was told about this by a number of witnesses, most of them umpires, and spoke to tournament referee Joe Yick, who verified what happened, as did several umpires and other witnesses.

He had ruled that a junior player was using an illegal surface. (There were equipment booths where the player could get a legal replacement, though not of the same surface.) CEO/Tournament Director Virginia overruled him, saying the player could use that surface. When the player went out to play, the umpire said the racket was illegal. So the Virginia ordered that there would be no umpires for this player's matches for the rest of the tournament. The player made the final of an event - and again, no umpire was allowed! (The player's mom actually became the scorekeeper for the match. I don't even know who the player is - I intentionally didn't want to know.) I'm sure Virginia (and perhaps the player or her parents) could argue for why they thought the surface should be allowed, though I can't think of an argument for it. But that's a side issue - the issue is that Virginia believed that she, as CEO/Tournament Director, could overrule the referee on a rules question. This is blatantly wrong. The referee said he will be filing a report to the chair of the Umpires & Referees committee. I hope they will make this report public.

=>Top Seeds Mistakenly Taken Out of Rating Events. Incredibly, about 24 of the top seeds in rating events were defaulted out of their events by mistake!!! For rating events, there are two ratings used: a "qualification" rating (as of Oct. 17) and a "seeding" rating (as of Dec. 1). The qualification rating determines if one is eligible for the event; the seeding rating is used to seed the player in the event, even if the new rating is over the cutoff. This is so players know in advance which events they are eligible for. They used to use just one cutoff, but it always ran into problems, and so years ago they switched to this system, which has worked fine - until now. So, what happened? The tournament director ordered that those over the cutoff in the seeding list were to be defaulted, even though this contradicts the actual rules on the entry form, and how it's been done for the last decade or more. Why have a "qualification" rating if the "seeding" rating is going to be used for qualification? It makes no sense. And so 24 players, all among the top seeds in their rating events, were mistakenly defaulted out of their primary rating event. Lots of very unhappy players. Oops!!!

=>Men's Quarterfinals (and others?). When I went out to play the semifinals of Hardbat Doubles on table 45, we noticed that Men's #2 seed Eugene Wang (rated 2735) of Canada was playing #7 seed Ju Mingwei (rated 2665) on the adjacent table 44. It was the Men's Quarterfinal - and there was no umpire, no scorekeeper, played on a back table with about five people watching! Wow. There were plenty of open tables, so we moved to another one so as not to interfere. How can a match like that not be highlighted and played on a feature table with an umpire and scorekeeper??? I never did find out about the other quarterfinal matches for men or women, but presumably some or all of them were similarly played - but I don't really know. So unprofessional. Email me if you know anything about this. Is it any wonder we no longer get top international players? Anyone in the top 20 in the men's world rankings could have come here and gotten an "easy" $8000, and yet they don't.
UPDATE 1: I'm told the two players decided to play this match on their own, on an empty table they found, rather than continue waiting to be called. By the end, about 20 people had found out about it and were watching. 
UPDATE 2: I was just shown the schedule for #5 seed Nikhil Kumar. He was scheduled to play the Men's Quarterfinals on table 37!!! They later changed it to table 1, where he won to make the semifinals. 

=>Wrong Times on Draw Sheets. The tournament software, Omnipong, automatically put in time scheduling on the draw sheets. However, this didn't always match up with the actual schedule. For example, I was scheduled to play the semifinals and finals of Hardbat Doubles at 6:30 PM and 7:30 PM on Sunday night, Dec. 19. We waited around for hours, and finally was able to play the semifinals at 9:45 PM. We won, and got back to the desk at 10:15 PM, only to find that they still hadn't sent out the other 6:30 PM semifinal, and that they had just told those two teams that they would play the semifinal the next day, at 8:30 AM on Monday. The players hadn't left yet, so we argued to play their semifinal and then the final that night, while we were all available and warmed up.

Tournament Director Virginia, who had made the decision to continue the next day, came out and told me that I had the schedule wrong, that the semifinals and final were scheduled for 10:30 and 11:30 AM the following day, and the final at Noon - and showed me the Hardbat Doubles Draw from Omnipong. Note how it shows my semifinal match on table 5 at 11:30 AM on 12/20/2021, and the other semifinal on table 3 at 10:30 AM on 12/20/2021? But here's my schedule, showing my semifinal on table 17 at 6:30 PM on 12/19/2021! The draw shows the final on table 1 at 12:00 on 12/20/2021, while my schedule shows it on table 4 at 7:30 PM on 12/19-2021!

I had to explain to her that that the table numbers, times, and days on the draw sheet weren't the actual schedule, and we had to show her our schedules to show that the semis and final had actually been scheduled for that night, at 6:30 PM and 7:30 PM. Alas, she still wanted to play them the next day, since it was getting late. But think about it - if the tournament director is misreading the schedule, imagine the 745 players trying to figure things out!!!

When the doubles teams arrived the next day and warmed up, they found out one of them had a conflict - and instead of playing the doubles semifinal at 8:30 AM as they'd been told, they sent one of the players out to play singles. (Another amateur mistake - when there's a conflict, you almost always play doubles, both so you inconvenience fewer people, and since it's much harder to later get four players together than two.) The team that had come in at 7:45 AM to warm up and was ready to play at 8:30 AM had to wait several more hours before they got to play - they weren't happy. We finally played our 7:30 PM Sunday final at about 2PM on Monday. (From down match point, we won!!!)

=>Water. This was an athletic event with 745 players, plus about an equal number of family members, coaches, officials, staff, and so on. And NO WATER??? Before Covid, there would have been water fountains or equivalent. Covid, of course, makes that problematic. And the food court, a quarter mile away (so a half mile round-trip journey), obviously would prefer no water be provided so people would have to trek over to them to buy overpriced water at $4.95/bottle. (Multiply that by about eight per day for an active player over six days.) USATT should have insisted that they be allowed to supply water in the venue, and then simply brought in many cases, and sold the water at perhaps $1/bottle, or more if necessary. Let people know in advance it's cash only to keep it simple. As it was, kids were refilling their water bottles in the bathrooms - not sure how safe that is.

=>Chair Shortage. I complained (and blogged) about the chair shortage at the US Nationals, but once again they had only about half as many as needed. People were forced to stand up or battle for the few available chairs. I spent half my tournament at the control desk waiting for matches, and half roving around the playing hall looking for chairs. Perhaps the worst part was there weren't chairs by the control desk to sit in during the hours waiting for our matches.

=>Missing Medals. There were 22 doubles events and 6 team events. Amazingly, they only ordered one medal for each team!!! I won Hardbat Doubles, but there was only one medal for my team. I let Estee take it. When we came in to pick up our awards, they took our addresses and will send us the medals later. (It took me 52 minutes to go through this line and get my other medal, second in hardbat singles.)

=>Loudspeaker. Because the tournament ran so far behind and they had no real backup plan to catch up, the control desk resorted to calling individual matches on the loudspeaker system. (They had little choice at that point.) Two problems. First, many, including me, had difficulty making out their names when called on the loudspeaker system. Second, it was very loud and often almost nonstop, and so was a constant interference with matches, where in the middle of points there'd suddenly be these loud calls for players to come to the desk.  

=>Event Finishing Day. The entry form says, "Events are not guaranteed to be completed on the same day that they begin." The problem is that if a player enters only events on, say, the first day, does that mean he/she has to stay the entire six days of the tournament? Many past Opens and Nationals had a note that events would finish within two days of the starting day, with exceptions sometimes made for major events such as Men's and Women's Singles.

=>Tournament Balls. Nittaku was the tournament ball, but they were not sold by any of the vendors, and the control desk couldn't lend them out since they weren't sure if they had enough. So players often had to warm up with a different ball. 

=>Links on US Open Home Page. Here is the US Open Home page, with six major links. You would think that this would be an important page to maintain, but three of the links are bad - the Results page (!), FAQ page, and Event Format page. All simply take you back to the US Open home page. Unless one just happens to know to go to Omnipong, viewers will get pretty frustrated trying to find those results!

=>Erratically Sized Courts. There were 78 total courts. Of these, 14 were 35' (too short, six on cement), 41 were 42', and 23 were 56'. Why in the world are there 56-foot courts? That's way too long - even international courts are about 40 feet. It meant long walks to pick up the ball after nearly every point. With a little geometry, perhaps they could have shortened the 56-foot courts, and had rubberized flooring for the six cement courts.

=>Erratic Table Numbers. Normally, if you have rows of tables at a major tournament, you number them in order. That seems obvious. But not here! They decided to "alternate" the numbers between the rows, leading to confusion. So, for example, one row had table 31, then the adjacent row was 32 and 33, then back to the first row for 34 and 35, then back to the other one. The result is a row that was not in obvious order, where the table numbers were, for example, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 42, and so on. Here's the table map that was taped to one of the posterboards where they had results.

=>Table Numbers Only on One Side. It's standard, especially when there are a lot of tables, to label them on both sides since people approach from different sides. But they only had the numbers on one side. This, combined with the erratic table numbering (see above) led to headaches as players tried to find their table.

=>The Mysterious Tables 77-78. On the first day I had to coach on table 77. I found table 76 on the far side of the hall from the control desk, but the row ended there! Where was table 77? We couldn't find it. There was no table map anywhere we could find. (I think that went up on the second day, and it was just a small piece of paper buried in among all the draws.) We finally had to go all the way back to the control desk to ask where it was. It turned out tables 77 and 78 were across the hall from table 76, so another long walk. (Tables 76, 77, and the control desk roughly were the three vertexes of a very large triangle.) There should have been a note on the wall next to table 76 saying where tables 77-78 were. (Better still, number them in actual sequence - tables 77-78 should have been tables 55-56, with the row ending with tables 77-78.) At some point in the tournament, the small table map was added to one of the posterboards where they put up the draws, but few noticed it. Normally this would be much larger and more prominent, or in the player packets.

=>Draws on Posterboards. The draws and results were posted on a number of posterboards near the control desk. But they were posted out of order. If you went to the area for rating events, rather than progressing from high to low, or low to high, they were just posted in the order they were played, leaving players to search all over to find specific draws - tricky to do when there are crowds of other people also looking through the draws. There's a simple way to keep it professional looking and user-friendly. In advance, space out where each draw should be, from high to low. For example, for rating events, start with 2600, then 2400, and so on. Put the RR draw on top, the SE group below (or to the side if more space is needed).

=>USATT Assembly. It was scheduled for 7:30 PM on Sunday night, day three. This is where USATT leaders and officials meet with members as required by the USATT bylaws, giving reports and answering questions. I'm sure many would have many questions about the poor running of the tournament. However, there was no notice about this in the player packets, as was the case in the past. There was no notice about this until a few hours before. Few knew about the meeting. I asked the lone member of the USATT board of directors who was present about it, and he didn't know about it - he had to ask Virginia about it. I had to coach a 6:30 PM match and would then be able to attend. Of course the match was delayed - it went out at 10:15PM. So I spent an hour before the meeting, the two hours of the meeting, and 45 minutes after the meeting at the control desk with my player, waiting for his match. If I'd known this, could have attended the meeting and easily gotten back in time to coach the match. Instead, I have no idea what happened at the meeting. If people had been able to attend, I'm guessing there would have been a lot of unhappy ones with pointed questions, both about the tournament and other USATT issues.

=>Equipment Vendors Facing Wrong Way. The equipment vendors told me they had been told that there would be a walkway that players would have to walk past to get to the playing hall, and to face their booths in that direction. However, it turned out the entrance opened into the playing area, and so players did not have to walk by the booths. This meant that the booths were facing the wrong way! The booths were rather elaborate and difficult to take down and put up again, so they just kept it that way. Here is what we saw from the playing area of the Butterfly and JOOLA booths! Imagine how many more sales they would have made if they were open to where the players were.

=>USATT Tournament Committee. They represent a huge amount of tournament experience - that's why they were appointed to this committee, right? But one of them contacted me during the tournament, saying they had never been consulted about the tournament. Imagine how many problems might have been avoided if the relatively inexperienced ones running the Open had consulted with them.

=>Seemingly Large Number of Controversial Defaults. There were so many problems this tournament, and I was so busy trying to figure out when my next match would be (as player or coach) that I never got to investigate this. But over and over players complained about seemingly unfair defaults. I'd go more into this but I didn't take notes.

=>US Open Shirts. There's some confusion on this, and I'm still not sure what's going on. I didn't see any, and others said there were none. One person told me there were US Open shirts. Volunteers were told they would all get free US Open shirts if they worked five shifts or more, but several told me that there were no shirts available. Email me if you know anything about this.
UPDATE: I'm told there were no US Open shirts, and that the volunteers who were promised them never got them. This would be the first time we've had a US Open or Nationals since I started in 1976 that didn't have a tournament shirt. 

=>Slanted Surfaces. On the first day I noticed that several tables were slanted, with a "hill" in the middle - if you put a ball on it, it quickly rolled to the end-line. I pointed this out to the officials, who were pretty busy at the time. But eventually they sent someone out to fix it. Things like this should be checked in advance.

=>Refund Policy. About two months before the entry deadline I entered three events - Hardbat Singles, Hardbat Doubles, and Sandpaper Singles. Cost was $80 each, so $240. About two hours after entering I realized that I probably couldn't play Sandpaper Singles due to coaching obligations. So I withdrew from the event the very day I entered it - again, two months before the deadline. But USATT has a policy of no refunds, and so they refused to refund the $80. I'm sure others faced the same problem.

* * * * *

So, there you have it, my "checklist" of problems at this US Open. While the 1990 US Open fell behind two days (!), they didn't have all these other problems, plus they were running the Open in conjunction with the World Veterans Championships, and so had about 2000 entries. This year's US Open had so many problems that I think I can safely say it was the worst-run US Open in history.

The frustrating thing is some will think, "All we have to do is address these specific problems, and all will be great!" And the answer to that is - NO!!! If I were hired as a car mechanic and made twenty mistakes because I'm not an experienced car mechanic, the answer wouldn't be to correct those twenty mistakes - it would be to bring in an experienced car mechanic. USATT badly needs to bring in someone with the type of big-tournament experience so that the problems of this Open, and the many similar and different problems from the Nationals, can be resolved, rather than a constant learn-on-the-job while the participants suffer. (Note that they have partially addressed this, with the "Five-Star Tournament Task Force" - see below.)

Will there be accountability and repercussions for what happened at this tournament? Or will USATT "circle the wagons"? We'll see. But whether they mostly stick with the same people running these tournaments or bring in new people, they need to completely revamp how these tournaments are run. 

I'll have more to write about next week. I had three (yes, three) confrontations with Virginia, both on the problems with the US Open and other issues. There was also a controversial election for chair of the USATT board, which I'll also write about.

USATT Announces Formation of Five-Star Tournament Task Force
Here's the news item. Finally, some good news! Well, sort of.

But - and I'm writing this through gritted teeth - why did it take three tournament fiascos in a row before they realized they needed help? At this point, it's happening because the outcry is too loud for the USATT board of directors to ignore. Of course, the simplest solution would be to simply bring back the ones who ran it successfully for 20 years - NATT - but I'm guessing that's not even on the table - and that itself is a serious problem. Contacting them and seeing if a deal can be made should have been the first thing they did.

I'm suspicious about the effectiveness of a committee made up of 14 people. (See below.) Also, can the USATT CEO give up control to these others? From what I've seen, that's iffy. (Personally, I'd prefer a CEO that stayed out of most issues and focused on the big picture and on raising money.)

Rather than a humongously large committee, perhaps it would be better to bring in an experienced person to oversee things. Committees are great for fairness issues, not so great at getting things done. For that, you need a qualified, energized person with vision. A committee will likely come up with a checklist of things to fix - much like I've already done. That's the easy part.

There does seem to be a possible math problem with the news item on this. (Math-phobes, look away now.) The news item lists eight members by name, plus an unnamed USATT staff person. That's nine members before you get to the athlete reps. USOPC requires 33% athlete representation on all committees, and I believe that includes task forces. (Otherwise, we could just call all our committees "task forces" to get around the rule.) The news item says, "A minimum of three Ten-Year and/or Ten-Plus Year Athletes will also be appointed to the Task Force." If you add three athlete reps, then you end up with a committee of twelve, with only 3/12 = 25% athlete reps. If you add four athlete reps, then you end up with a committee of thirteen, with only 4/13 = 30.8% athlete representation. So you'll need to add five athlete reps to get to a committee of fourteen, with 5/14 = 35.7% athlete representation. So that "minimum of three athlete reps" should be a minimum of five. (They also list Will Shortz as one of the "At-Large Directors," but he's actually the Club Representative.)

USA at the ITTF Hopes in Jordan: Three in Top Eight!
Here's the USATT news item I wrote. I was one of the three USA coaches there in Amman, Jordan, Dec. 8-14 for the ITTF Hopes Camp and Tournament, along with Wei Qi and Thilina Piyadasa, and players Ryan Lin, Mandy Yu, and Tashiya Piyadasa. (Here are some video and photos on Facebook.) It was part of a rather harried schedule for me - I flew to Jordan on Dec. 6, returned on Dec. 15, flew to Las Vegas for the US Open on Dec. 16, flew to San Francisco for Christmas with family on Dec. 22, and flew home to Maryland on Dec. 26, arriving home at 2AM on Dec. 27.

Ryan Lin wrote an article about his experience at the Dead Sea, with pictures. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) I brought home a hunk of salt and Dead Sea water in a bottle!

More USATT News

December News
Since I've been away a month, rather than link to every news item while I was gone, here are links to the news pages of major sites.

Stop Losing Doubles after This Guide
Here's the video (15:05) from Coach Lin.

Film. Analyze. Win!
Here's the video (73 sec) from Betterplay ai. "You can use our AI service to automatically edit your Table Tennis Videos."

Bob Chen Table Tennis
Here's his new video site - lots of coaching videos. He's been rated as high as 2768.

PongNews
Here's the latest newsletter from PingPongGives.

Unparallel Forehand - The Chinese Are Crazy Again! Xu Xin, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, Fang Bo
Here's the video (8:10).

Footwork Drill on Cutoff Table
Here's the video (15 sec)!

Table Tennis Trio Aims to Bring Ping-Pong to Every Neighborhood
Here's the article from Spectrum News NY1, featuring Ernesto Ebuen, David Silberman, and Max Kogler from PingPod.

China Dominates Table Tennis Titles, Earns Points on Diplomacy
Here's the article from China Daily. "The Chinese team dominated the 2021 World Table Tennis Championships, which concluded on Monday in Houston, Texas, but the event is just as likely to be remembered for China and the United States' gesture of unity."

Lily Zhang - Richard Bergmann Fair Play Trophy
Here's the video (31 sec) of the presentation at the Worlds.

Houston Table Tennis is Aiming for the National Spotlight After Hosting the Historic World Championships
Here's the article from Title Press.

Jimmy Butler's Remarkable Table Tennis Return
Here's the video (3:37) from KHOU 11. "He's one of America's greatest table tennis players and he calls Houston home. How he got here is part of his incredible story."

Christmas Table Tennis
Here's what you get when you Google these and click on Images! Here's a new one - Ninja Santa! (Here's the non-Facebook version.)  

Shark vs. Mermaid
Here's the video - I have no idea what's going on!!! It seems to be in Hindi. Link should take you to 10:28, where the TT starts.

Ping Pong Battle
Here's the video (9 sec)! Warning: Strong language.

New from Pongfinity

Science Fiction Sales and Publications
On Dec. 19, I sold a science fiction story to Stupefying Stories, "The Annual Times Square Paint Dry," which should be coming out soon. Meanwhile, my fantasy story "Love Drops" just came out in New Myths Magazine. I have eight other SF and fantasy stories coming out early next year, along with a feature interview of me coming in January. As you can see, I'm always juggling my TT and SF lives!

***
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November 29, 2021

Next Blog on Monday, Dec. 27 29
There will be a Tip of the Week every Monday, but my next blog will be on Dec. 27 29. I'm going out of town for three weeks - coaching the ITTF Hopes Camp and Tournament in Amman, Jordan, Dec. 6-15; the US Open in Las Vegas, Dec. 16-22 (where I have to adjust in one day to the ten-hour time difference between Jordan and LV!), and a family gathering in San Francisco, Dec. 22-26.

Tip of the Week
How to Get Lucky.

Christmas Table Tennis Book Shopping
Don't forget to do your Christmas table tennis book shopping!!! Below are my seven books on table tennis that are in print. You wouldn't want me to go broke and have to live and play ping-pong on the streets? (And note that "And Still More Table Tennis Tips," fourth in the series, will come out early in 2021.) Or, if you are a non-reader, skip this and move on to the sections on the Teams, the Worlds, and so on!

North American Teams
Just had three exhausting days coaching at the JOOLA North American Teams!!! Actually, five days, since I was coaching at our pre-Teams coaching camp for two days before. This was my 45th consecutive time at the Teams, every year starting in 1976 (excluding last year, which was Covid-cancelled). Here are complete results. It also signified another milestone. My first 22 years, 1976-1997, the Teams were in Detroit, with the annual Thanksgiving drive there. This makes 23 years in Maryland/DC (where I live), so I've now played more Teams here than in Detroit.

My club, MDTTC, had ten junior teams with about 40 players. Since we only had five MDTTC coaches (myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Lidney Castro, and Wang Qingliang, with Jeffrey Zeng Xun coaching some players), it meant we had a coach for a little over half the team matches. (Since some teams had byes in some rounds, we were able to be there for over half.) A number of the parents are players, and they, along with players on the team, also helped coach, so most players ended up with someone in their corner. It's actually a great learning experience for players to coach their teammates - not only do they learn to be team players, but they learn tactics by watching other players and thinking about what's happening. I'm often amazed at some of the insights kids have - it's often easier to think tactically when watching then when actually playing.

Our kids did really, Really, REALLY well! I can't wait for the new ratings to come out. Coaching was both tactical and psychological - one of the trickiest parts of coaching between games is recognizing which to focus on, and how much. I'm pretty good at pep talks, but they always come at the expense of coaching tips, since you only have 60 seconds - and you often want to emphasize certain things, so you do sort of a recap in the last ten seconds or so. (Or just do what one opposing coach did - I started timing him, and he averaged over 2.5 minutes coaching between games and in time-outs. I actually yelled "Time!" at him a few times, but he just ignored me. I almost called for an umpire.)

I had a good run in close matches, going 5-0 in deuce-in-the-fifth matches that I coached. In three of them, I called a timeout right at the end and called the serves to use - and magically, it worked each time!!! ("Magically" in this case means the kids executed flawlessly.)

I spent a large percentage of my coaching time reminding kids to focus on attacking the "three spots" - wide forehand, wide backhand, and middle (roughly opponent's playing elbow). Next to serve and receive advice, it's probably the thing I emphasize most. Receive advice was mostly about where to play the return, and how aggressive on average. Often the best advice was simply to have them control the serve back to the wide backhand, and then rally. Other times it was important to play aggressive off the serve, though they should always vary it.

I coached one girl who caused havoc in her division. She played a number of old players who, despite all the experience and having much higher ratings, couldn't play at her pace. The tactic there was simple - serve fast and deep to the three spots, and then keep attacking those three spots. In each match, we'd usually narrow down the two best spots to attack, though we'd make sure to go to all three - and her execution was great. We pretty much put backspin serves on hold. The older players were very gracious about losing to a girl 1/4 their size, helping turn the tournament into a great experience for her. In new ratings, I think she may come out #1 in her age group in the country - she beat at least three players rated higher than the current #1, and I don't think she had any "bad" losses.

One of our juniors played a higher-rated player who blocked with long pips, no sponge. That's a touch match for a junior - this is where older, experienced players do well, while the long pips players feast on less experienced players. But we quickly found the two spots the player had trouble covering - extremely wide backhand and middle forehand, which was his "middle" (since he covered most of the table with his backhand blocks), and went after those two spots. He won, deuce in the fifth! Most players would likely have automatically gone to the wide corners, but he covered the wide forehand well. Many players might have tried to go his "middle," and gone right at his elbow - which was where he blocked best. His "middle" was where most players played their forehand best. Once again, good tactics + good execution = another win!

Meanwhile, I heard rumors there was some other major tournament going on...why in the world were they scheduled at the same time???

World Championships in Houston
USA's Lily Zhang teamed with China's Lin Gaoyuan to reach the semifinals of Mixed Doubles and win a bronze. It's the first medalist at the Worlds for a USA player since Dick Miles made the semifinals of Men's Singles at the 1959 Worlds - 62 years ago!!! We've had a few close calls - Gao Jun (while representing USA) made the quarterfinals of Women's Singles in 2003 and 2005, and Dan and Rick Seemiller once made the quarterfinals of Men's Doubles. Plus, of course, Kanak Jha reach the quarterfinals of Men's Singles this year, the first time a USA player has done that since Miles in '59!

Here's where you can find videos of the major matches, such as the men's semifinals between Truls Moregard vs. Timo Boll.

The Men's Singles Final is tonight (Monday, Nov. 29) at 7PM Houston Time (8PM Eastern Time), between China's world #1 Fan Zhendong (as expected) and Sweden's Truls Moregard (not expected!). How did 19-year-old world #77 Truls get to the final? This is how:

  • Round of 64: defeats Chuang Chih-Yuan (TPE, world #25), 4-3
  • Round of 32: defeats Patrick Franziska (GER, world #14), 4-3
  • Round of 16: defeats Lim Jonghoon (KOR, world #71), 4-3
  • Quarterfinals: defeats Quadri Aruna (NGR, world #17), 4-2
  • Semifinals: defeats Timo Boll (GER, world #11), 4-3

Now let's look at Fan Zhendong's route to the final:

  • Round of 64: defeats Amir Hossein Hodaei (IRI, world #165), 4-0
  • Round of 32: defeats Emmanuel Lebesson (FRA, world #39), 4-0
  • Round of 16: defeats Wang Chuqin (CHN, world #16), 4-2
  • Quarterfinals: defeats Lin Gaoyuan (CHN, world #7), 4-1
  • Semifinals: defeats Liang Jingkun (CHN, world #9), 4-1

Notice how Fan coasted to the final, only losing a few games to the three fellow Chinese teammates he played in the last three rounds before the final? Contrast that with Truls, who needed to lose just one more game to Quadri and he'd have made the final with five straight 4-3 wins!!! Plus, of course, Truls didn't have to face any of the Chinese players. Most interesting match was his semifinal win over former world #1 Timo Boll (now #11), who almost reached the final at age 40!

Women's Singles wasn't quite so interesting - the four semifinalists are all Chinese. Wang Manyu (world #5) upset Chen Meng (world #1) 4-3 in one semifinals, while Sun Yingsha (world #2) defeated Wang Yidi (world #10) 4-1 in the other semifinals. So the final is between Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha at 6PM Houston Time (7PM Eastern Time).

For info on how to watch the finals live, go to the World's Where to Watch page. Here are some links, including daily wraps:

Houston Vlog #3 - My way to the quarterfinals
Here's the video (4:20) from Timo Boll.

World Championships Coverage by Steve Hopkins

World Championships Coverage by Amy Karpinski

News From the ITTF Annual General Meeting Held During the Worlds

USA Table Tennis Star Celebrates Thanksgiving Day with Stellar Performances
Here's the ITTF article on USA's Kanak Jha.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

12 Movement Exercises and Coordination with Table Tennis Training Tool (Part 1)
Here's the video (5:53) from Ti Long.

Ask the Coach
Here's the page at PingSkills.

Learning Spin Through Multi-ball
Here's the video (4:55) from Coach Jon.

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

WAB Club Feature: Alameda Ping Pong Gym
Here's the article by Steve Hopkins.

Reflections of a Legend - Jorgen Persson
Here's the video (6:30).

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

Man VS Machine: Who Plays Table Tennis Better?
Here's the video (6:26).

55 Ping Pong Sounds
Here's the video (9 min) from Adam Bobrow!

aMAZING sKILLS sHOTS iN pING pONG
Here's the video (26 sec)!

Non-Table Tennis - Story Sale to Daily Science Fiction
Just sold a short story to Daily Science Fiction (one of the major "Pro" SF magazines), "Four Score and Seven Years of the End of America: A Bibliography." It's literally a fictional bibliography of books published from 1953 to 2040 whose titles humorously show the downfall of America. It's my 121st short story sale. Sorry, no table tennis this time!

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