April 24, 2013

Looping Placement

Here's something interesting I noted at the Hopes Trials, which I've also seen in the past. When a player backhand loops, he is roughly facing his opponent, and so can see where the opponent's middle is. When a player forehand loops, he faces more sideways, and the opponent is no longer in clear view. Result? Especially at the junior level and below the elite level, players seem to have far more difficulty in attacking the opponent's middle when forehand looping then when backhand looping. (The middle, in table tennis terms, is the switchover point between forehand and backhand, roughly at the playing elbow.) I watched one player nail the opponent's middle over and over with backhand loops, but when forced to do forehand loops, the player was unable to do so. (This is all true as well for basic forehands and backhands, but to a lesser extent, since players tend to turn more sideways to forehand loop than for forehand hitting.)

The solution? Practice. Look to loop at the opponent's middle at least half the time, usually the weakest spot, and see how often you can nail it. Few opponents are actually moving as you are hitting the ball, so you should be able to see where he is just before you take the shot. With practice, you'll be able to hit the middle over and over. (If an opponent is moving, then usually aim behind him, since he'll have to stop and change directions. Unless, of course, he's way out of position, in which case go for the open area.)  

Table Tennis Commentating at the North American Cup

No, I didn't get to hear any of it - I was there coaching. (I'm told I was on video at least one time, coaching Crystal Wang in the Girls' Hopes Trials.) What I've heard and read over and over was what a great job Barbara Wei did through most of the tournament - and how she was then replaced for the "big" matches at the end by someone who spoke broken and heavily accented English, and various officials. C'mon, people, Barbara was on the U.S. Junior Girls Team, trained nearly full-time for years, and speaks very clearly and intelligently. Listeners raved about her performance. What were you thinking??? (Disclaimer: Barbara came from my club, Maryland Table Tennis Center.)

I've been asked numerous times over the years to do table tennis commentating for TV. I've always turned it down. Why? I don't think I have a good speaking voice for TV. When I first began doing group coaching many years ago, I also had trouble. My solution was to take a course in public speaking. This greatly helped for those group sessions. However, I don't think I could do hours of commentating with my "public speaking" voice. I'd fall back into my normal habits, which tends to be somewhat fast and not the type of voice you want on TV. I'm far better writing.

Answers to Brain Teasers

Here are the answers to the four brain teasers from yesterday:

  1. The opponent was a fish and they were playing underwater.
  2. When you play an opossum, you play possum.
  3. There isn't any room over the net for the ball to go over.
  4. The single hair was a hare.

Table Tennista

Once again they have more international articles. Perhaps the most interesting one is the eyebrow-raising first item, where European Table Tennis Union President Stefano Bosi, who is running for ITTF President, accuses the incumbent, Adham Sharara, with this: "We found that Adham Sharara has been involved in a long-term and serious breach of the ITTF regulations and ethical standards. It is even possible that he also has civil violations. In particular, he is involved in serious violations on the Olympic charter. In addition, Sharara has established a complex system to aid him and his relatives to seek benefits from the ITTF." It also accuses him of "abuse of power and malversation of funds amounting to 20 million US dollars." I'll post Sharara's response when/if it comes out.

Testing the Large Hadron Collider with a Ping-Pong Ball

Here's the article from The Atlantic.

Receiving Options

Here's a video from PingSkills (2:07) on your basic options when receiving.

ITTF Ping Pong Paix at the 2012 WTTC

"Ping Pong for Peace" was a program at the Worlds in Dortmund, Germany, where kids from Burundi were brought in to learn about table tennis. Here's the video (7:58).

Ryu Seung Min vs Bojan Tokic (German League 2012/2013) Play-Offs

Here's the video (7:58).

Justin Bieber Table Tennis

Here's an article and a new short video (about 12 sec) from Table Tennis National of Justin Bieber playing table tennis. Yep, he's still using a two-handed backhand.

Ping-Pyong

Here's a nice cartoon of the U.S. and North Korea playing ping-pong on a nuclear missile, from the Washington Post, the result of a contest, with the caption, "Ping-Pyong: A high-stakes game in which two countries smack threats back and forth with lobs, spin and backhand shots."

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