June 19, 2013

MDTTC Camps - Day Two Highlights and Improving Girl

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand. Most of the players in my group, unlike some of the bizarre forehands I saw yesterday, were a bit more orthodox, and all either had pretty good backhands or picked up on it pretty quickly. How boring! I had several of them work on backhand accuracy, hitting shots side to side. I also worked a bit more on forehands, since this seems to be this week's major prevailing weakness.

For the talent versus training debate, here's an interesting story which could seemingly argue both sides. On Monday I worked with an eight-year-old girl who literally struggled to even hit the ball in multiball, not to mention trying to get it on the table or hit it properly. At the same time I was working with a five-year-old boy, with one standing on the forehand side, the other on the backhand side, both hitting forehands. The five-year-old also struggled at first, but he was at least hitting the ball, and by the end of the session was hitting the ball on the table somewhat consistently, though he kept letting his wrist drop back. (I wrote about that yesterday. He also has a tendency to stand completely sideways to hit backhands, and I'm having a hard time convincing him otherwise.) But the girl, despite being older and much bigger, continued to struggle, and seemed to make little progress.

We finished training part of the morning session with serve practice, and again I worked with these two together, along with a few others. Again, the five-year-old picked up on it, and was serving on the table over and over. (That's actually somewhat rare - at that age most struggle to serve.) The eight-year-old absolutely could not serve. I worked with her for fifteen minutes, and she did not make a single serve. Her toss was spastic with no control, and then she'd lunge to hit the ball, and usually completely miss it. Sometimes she'd hit it, but it would go straight sideways or even backwards. I tried to stay positive, but it was pretty frustrating on both sides. I've never had someone struggle this much just to serve.

We finished the session with Brazilian Teams (2-5 players on a team, one player plays until he loses a point then next person on the team comes up). The girl still couldn't serve, and never made a return, and so didn't even come close to winning a point. (She began letting her opponent serve when she came up.) Because of her serving struggles, about ten minutes before the end of the session I pulled her aside to work on her serve. Again she struggled, though she finally made one mostly lucky serve. Since she seemed in a mood to learn, I finished the session feeding her a few balls multiball to see if she could at least get a few on the table. She got a few, but it was still a mostly random thing - she'd miss the entire ball half the time, and the rest she'd spray all over the court with a spastic stroke. Her dad came in at the end and watched, and while he didn't say anything, you could tell he was a bit disappointed in her inability to hit the ball on the table.

Now we continue her story on Tuesday. I worked with her again in multiball, and she finally started to get a few on the table. It wasn't a gradual process; something must have clicked, and suddenly she was able to get the ball on the table. We're not talking great shots here, or even a great stroke, but she was hitting the ball on the table, which was a great victory for her. Later we worked on serves, and she continued to struggle. She made two or three serves in about ten minutes of trying. She skipped the Brazilian Teams and instead practiced serves again, and this time (drum roll!) she began to make a few. She was finally getting the knack of tossing the ball and meeting it with her racket in front of her instead of randomly tossing the ball all over and lunging at it.

Tuesday afternoon I worked with her more on both stroking and serving, and she improved on both. Finally, halfway through the afternoon session, she began making half her serves. So I challenged her to a "match," with games to seven - she would serve, and if she made the serve, she scored; if she missed, I scored. Alas, I won the first game something like 7-2. Then something again clicked, and she won the second game by about the same score. I won game three in a nail-biting 7-5 when she missed her last three serves in a row. Then, miracle of miracles, she won game four 7-0! Then she lost it, and I won game five 7-1 when she only made one serve out of eight. I suggested we play best of seven, and we continued - and she won the last two games 7-3, 7-1. She was the champion!

Halfway through the afternoon session we played Brazilian Teams, and she won two points - both times when opponents (in the beginners group) failed to return her serve. (Alas, she has yet to make an actual return in a game, but hopefully that'll come.) Afterwards, when several others had to leave early, I worked with her one more time, one-on-one for fifteen minutes. I brought out the giant rubber frog I sometimes let the younger kids use for target practice, and fed her multiball. At first she missed over and over, but the balls were at least hitting the table. We kept track of her hits. And then she started hitting it! About that time, as if in a TV movie, her dad came in, and saw her hitting it - including three times in a row one time. She hit it 20 times before we stopped. Her dad was unbelievably happy. "I can't believe how much she's improved!" he exclaimed. The contrast from Monday, when she was lucky to even hit the ball, to Tuesday afternoon was rather extreme.

She still has a long way to go, but after seeing her on Monday I would never believe that on Tuesday she'd be hitting the frog about one-third of the time, or making her serve 75% of the time. She has yet to make a return in an actual rally, other than when fed multiball to one spot, so that's next on the agenda. (She has to miss today - Wednesday - but will be back Thu and Fri, and I think she said she's coming next week as well.)

USATT High Performance Committee Report

Here are the Actions of the USATT High Performance Committee (April-May, 2013)

Two Weird Things Science Says Make You Better At Table Tennis

Here's the article. Wearing Red and Training Under Bright Lights?

Penhold Beats Shakehands

Here's an article on the annual "Penhold Versus Shakehand" team match in China. This year Ma Lin, Wang Hao, and Xu Xin defeated Zhang Jike, Timo Boll, and Dimitrij Ovtcharov. There were some interesting rules for the competition. (And where was Ma Long???)

Interview with Ariel Hsing

Here's an interview (3 min) that just went online with Ariel Hsing as well as Coach Dennis Davis, from the 2012 USA Nationals in December.

Zhang Jike Point-Winning Foot Shot

Here's a video (40 sec) of an exhibition where World Champion Zhang Jike scores a point against Xu Xin with a drop shot with his foot!

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