August 28, 2012

Blog on Hold Until Friday. "It's a pain in the neck" says blogger Larry Hodges

(Hey, that's me!)

This morning I was going to write about how I think top players of the past would do in today's game, how modern sponge players and hardbatters would do in the past, and address certain subtleties in such a comparison that some might not have considered. However, I've discovered that sitting at my computer aggravates the neck injury, even with the neck brace on. (Here's my Aug. 22 blog about the neck injury.) I've already cancelled all coaching this week, but hope to be able to coach again this weekend, but now I'm not so sure. (I should be able to do multiball training, but probably not live play yet.) Just typing this and the below is killing my neck and making it feel like a ping-pong ball in a match between a pair of all-out hitters.

So I'm putting my blog on hold until Friday so I can give the neck time to heal without constant aggravation. I'll get a lot of reading done, but no writing, alas. See you on Friday!

2012 USATT Hall of Fame Inductions

Here are the 2012 U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame Inductees - three players (Jennifer Johnson, Errol Resek, and Lan Vuong) and one contributor (Gus Kennedy). Dick Evans gets this year's Mark Matthews Lifetime Achievement Award. Here is the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame Page (click on "Profiles" to see listing of players with links to their profiles). I'll probably be putting together the program booklet for the Hall of Fame Banquet held at the USA Nationals in December, as I have for the past few years.

Playing Against Defense

Here's an article from PingSkills on how to play choppers. I think the bullet points under "Placement in Rally" are the ones most tournament players often forget.

2012 China Harmony Open

Here are two videos of the Men's Singles Final at the China Harmony Open between Wang Liqin and Hao Shuai (the lefty). Here's the full version (18:29), and here's a shortened version (6:53) that skips over some points and time between rallies. Wang Liqin defeated Ma Lin in the semifinals, while Hao defeated Timo Boll, Vladimir Samsonov, and Xu Xin.

Racquetball Style Table Tennis

It's an off-the-wall idea, but why not allow off-the-wall shots?

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