October 1, 2012

Tip of the Week

Short Serves to the Forehand from Backhand Side.

The New Plastic Balls

Here's a review of the new ball by Alex Vanderklugt of the OOAK forum. He reviews it with visual inspection, sound, size, the bounce test, and in actual play. The results are not good.

As some of you may have heard, plastic poly balls (instead of celluloid) are coming to table tennis, replacing the usual celluloid, care of the ITTF, starting July 1, 2013. The reasons seem to be vague, but involve a supposed worldwide ban on celluloid because of their flammability. Can someone point me in the direction of a good article on the current status? I've heard they may postpone the actual switch if they are unable to come up with poly balls that are satisfactory, but can't remember where I've heard this. Anyone know anything?

USATT Coach of the Year

It's that time of year again - time to nominate coaches for the USATT Coach of the Year Awards! There are five awards - National, Developmental, Volunteer, Paralympic, and Doc Counsilman. (I was the USATT Developmental Coach of the Year in 2002, and was runner-up three times, alas.)

Men's World Cup Results and Video

Here are results, articles, and photos of the 2012 Men's World Cup, held this past weekend at Liverpool, England. Congrats to China's Ma Long, who came from behind to defeat Germany's Timo Boll in the final, -7,-8,2,7,7,10. And here's a video of the Final in just eight minutes, with time between points taken out. 

Best of the Men's World Cup

Here's a video of the best points (5:47) from the Men's World Cup held this past weekend in Liverpool, England.

Henzell's World Cup Blog

Eight-time Australian Champion William Henzell kept a blog of his trip to the Men's World Cup in Liverpool, England this past weekend. Here are the three entries.

Butterfly MDTTC September Open

The MDTTC September Open I ran last weekend was already processed on Thursday night! That's pretty fast. Here are the rating results, here are the actual results, and below is my writeup. 

 

Seventy-three players competed in eight events for $2600 in prize money plus trophies at the September Open at the spacious Maryland Table Tennis Center. The events were dominated by local junior players, with at least one junior player in seven of the eight finals. In the Open, it was chopper/looper Wang Qing Liang (17, rated 2644) over two-winged penhold looper Chen Bo Wen (15), -6,6,9,7,-9,6. In the semifinals they defeated a pair of former Maryland junior stars, Wang over Raghu Nadmichettu (6,7,9,5) and Chen over Khaleel Asgarali (10,3,8,7).

After losing to Chen Bo Wen in the Open Semifinal, Raghu came from down 0-2 to win Under 2350 over Hung Duy Vo, -9,-15,6,11,8, in the only final without a junior player.

Roy Ke, 13, had an exceptional tournament, winning Under 2200 with a string of upsets over Chen Qiming (2121), Nazruddin Asgarali (2187), and coming back to win the final over Lixin Lang (2127), -6,-5,4,8,8. His new rating is 2188.

Another junior having an exceptional tournament was Anthony (Tony) Qu, 12, who not only won Under 2050 over John Olsen, but upset Richard Doverman (2349, 11-9 in the fifth) and Derek Nie (2170, 13-11 in the fifth) to make the quarterfinals of the Open. His new rating is 2194.

Practice partners Wesley Duan (11) and Kyle Wang (12) ran amok in four events, taking four second places - Wesley in Under 1900 and Under 1650, and Kyle in Under 1400 and Under 1150. Winning these four events, respectively, were Pat Lui, Quang Lam, Ara Sahakian, and still another local junior, 12-year-old Daniel Yang.

Rating-wise the big winner was William Wung, who gained 549 points in going from 494 to 1043! Others with big gains were Wesley Duan (253, 1432 to 1685), Benjamin Kang (231, 829 to 1060), Roy Ke (186, 2002 to 2188), Tony Qu (169, 2025 to 2194), Quang Lam (154, 1348 to 1502, the only non-junior to gain more than 100 points), and Moonsoo Park (102, 598 to 700). Also welcome to six newly rated players: Tiffany Ke, Deapesh Misra, Sameer Shaikh, Sam Snitkovsky, and Jeremy & Alexi Weinberg!

Special thanks goes to Lixin Lang for helping run the tournament, and to tournament sponsors Butterfly and Llewellyn Realtor James Wu. 

Lions Playing Table Tennis

Here's an illustration from pages 26-27 of the children's book "Big Max and the Mystery of the Missing Giraffe." I found 15 rules violations in this picture - what are they teaching our children?!!! Did I miss any? Here are the USATT Rules. (Note that since they are not playing doubles, they don't legally have to have a white line down the middle of the table.) And yes, I'm just having fun with it.

  1. The lion on the left has a green racket surface.
  2. The lion on the right has a brown racket surface.
  3.  The lion on the right has his free hand (paw?) touching the playing surface.
  4.  The ground is grass, which is not a legal flooring.
  5. The lion's chests seem to be white, which matches the color of the ball. Technically, it's the shirt that cannot match the ball's color, but this violates the spirit of the law.
  6. The table doesn't have white lines along the edges.
  7. Unless these are gigantic lions, I'm fairly certain the table is smaller than a legal 9'x5'.
  8. The drawing of the table measures about 2.83" x 1.25". This means if the table is 9 feet long, it's 3.97 feet wide, so the table is about 9'x4', rather than the legal 9'x5'.
  9. The ball is much larger than 40mm.
  10. The ball isn't spherical.
  11. The net doesn't extend six inches to the side.
  12. Neither are wearing shirts, violating the USATT dress code.
  13. Neither are wearing shorts or skirts, violating the USATT dress code.
  14. Neither are wearing shoes, violating the USATT dress code.
  15. Neither are wearing socks, violating the USATT dress code. 

***

Send us your own coaching news!