December 11, 2014

Table Tennis Professionals of America

I've started work on Table Tennis Professionals of America (TTPA). This would be a USA professional players organization, sort of like ATP in tennis but for U.S. players. The primary goals are a professional circuit in this country within four years, where top players can make a living, as well as an upgraded U.S. Open and Nationals. I've finalized a draft (is that a contradiction?) on its creation, including funding (top priority at the start), plans, and goals, and will meet with some players about it at the Nationals. (I've had some busy messaging sessions the last few nights over this.) I'll go over the plans publicly at some future date, but not at this time. (We will be soliciting an Executive Director - are you interested?) For this program, I need USATT's cooperation, not their funding, which will be a lot easier if I'm on the board. I blogged about this on December 2 and of course it's something I promised to do in both my election mailings and on my Election Page. If I'm not elected, well, I'll still get this one done, maybe others.

Wednesday Coaching

I had two of my students spend some of the session watching our top players train - nice, fluid shots, as I want my players to have. Daniel (10, about 1600), for example, tends to back up too much when forehand looping and then reaches forward to sort of lift the ball up with his upper body. By staying a little closer to the table and taking the ball later (in relation to his body), he gets more body rotation (i.e. a power from entire body, from legs on up), and a much nicer stroke, with more power, control, and less stress on the arm. (He's had arm problems.) He always starts sessions looping a bit awkwardly, but as we get into it his shots get better. I'm worried that at the Nationals next week, under pressure, he'll fall back into old habits rather than the "good" ones. (And he's probably reading this - aren't you, Daniel?) We'll make sure he gets a good warm-up.

Several students have been having trouble smashing high balls, so we did a lot of smash against lobs and fishes yesterday. ("Fishing" is sort of a low lob.) It was fun for me as they ran me around the court. Toward the end I gave play-by-play commentary during the points. We also played several points for the "world championship." Yes, I'm the world champion, I won it fair and square.

Something historic occurred yesterday. I was doing a drill with Matt (13, about 1700) where he serves backspin, I push back randomly, and he loops. Over about a ten-minute period at least half his serves were net serves, nicking the net. It got to be incredible! Twice he served four net serves in a row. One of those times, after doing four in a row and then serving a non-net serve, he followed with three more in a row. (He only served a few into the net.) He rarely did two "clean" serves in a row as over and over his serves nicked the net. When I commented on how incredible it was getting to be, instead of falling back to the norm he began serving even more net serves! It went on and on and on, to the point that we could barely drill as we were laughing too hard, and there were just too many "interruptions" with so many net serves. In my 38 years, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. Recently I've been stressing to him and others the importance of serving low, but this got to be ridiculous! (Side note - I'm calling them "net" serves to be clear, but technical they are "let" serves.)

About ten years ago I while hitting with a beginner we suddenly had seven consecutive net balls - he got a net, I returned with the net, etc., with him getting four nets to my three, consecutively. I don't think I've had another rally with more than three or four in a row.

My arm, neck, back, and the rest of me are holding up, but sometimes I feel like I'm moving like a 70-year-old. I need one of those portable telescoping rods that pick up balls for me. (Addendum added later - my back is bothering me this morning. This is worrisome.) 

Top Tournament Tactics

Here's the preview (3:58) of the new coaching video (1hr 49 min) from Brian Pace. "This video covers everything you will possibly need to know to equip you with how to exploit your opponent’s weakness and achieve victory." Topics covered include Tournament Play Analytics, tactics against attackers, defensive players, choppers, lefties, and short pips, tactics for serving, serve return, defensive play, and counter-attacking, how to coach tactics, and training with the pros.

Ask the Coach

Episode 46 (23:05) - Ovtcharov's Backhand Serve

  • Discussion - 0:45: There was talk on a local radio station about Table Tennis as an Olympic sport. Should it stay?
  • Response to Yesterday's #PQOTD  - 3:22: Why are left handers over represented on the World Rankings list? Xu Xin and Ding Ning are both number 1.
  • #PQOTD  - 5:19: Do you remember your first tournament?
  • Question 1 - 5:41: This one's for both of you. Do you have any signature serves? Brony
  • Question 2 - 7:55: Do the balls lose any quality of spin, speed or bounce after a certain amount of usage? Thanks guys. George Byron
  • Question 3 - 9:19: What happens if you make the ball touch the net twice or more during a serve? Lance Ramos Yeo
  • Question 4 - 10:47: When my opponent lobs the ball I can't hit the ball consistently and it just annoys me when my opponent takes the point. I mostly lose the point when the lobbed ball hits the table on the third line and I'm forced a bit away from the table. Utkarsh
  • Question 5 - 12:36: I noticed that Ovtcharov's backhand service are sometimes effective, sometimes not. Once when he executes this service, Ma Long easily returned the ball around the net and won the point. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of this serve? Viet
  • Question 6 - 15:24: I have a lot of problems when receiving heavy sidespin short serves. Since theres is almost no backspin nor topspin, what is the most effective way to receive? Michel
  • Question 7 - 18:04: ma long serve plz - Jerome
  • Question 8 - 19:47: I have been having trouble against the Ma Lin serve recently and was wondering if there's a good way to counter it - Tyler.

$1,000,000 ITTF World Tour Finals

Here's the ITTF Press Release. The event takes place Dec. 11-14 (starting today) in Bangkok, Thailand, with Men's and Women's Singles and Doubles. Here's the ITTF home page for the event where you can get results, articles, pictures, and video. USA's own Adam Bobrow is, as usual, doing the TV commentary. Here's the article from Tabletennista explaining why there are no Chinese players in the World Tour Finals: "Because they don't meet the criteria for this event: to attend to at least 5 World Tour events during the year." Here's sort of a video preview (38 sec) of the players there training for the event - how many can you name?

ITTF News Feed

Here it is, where you can keep track of all the ITTF press releases.

Top Five Rallies from the World Junior Championships

Here's the video (2:21).

The Ultimate Drop Shot

Here's the video (25 sec, including slow motion replay) by 2368-rated He Jiaming. Even his aced opponent, the 2732-rated Zhang Xiang, applauded the shot.

Jiaqi Zheng Preparing for 2014 US Nationals

Here's the video (36 sec) as ICC Coach Masimo Costantini feeds multiball.

Budweiser Commercial

Here's the commercial (31 sec) that features table tennis twice. At 13 seconds in, while giving reasons for friends to come over, a character says, "…play a little table tennis." At 25 seconds in, another character says, "We're all ready over here," as he waves arm toward basement ping-pong table with a sponge racket and ball on it.

Table Tennis Moon Launch

Here's video (16 sec) showing the future of the USA Space Program and its new moon launch capabilities. Alas, after six successful launches the seventh one ends in disaster, though all aboard survived as it crashed into the safety net.

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