March 13, 2015

Ratings and Leagues

One of the things I've learned my years of table tennis is that ratings are both good and bad. There are some advantages to using ratings. For example, they give players a reason to play in tournaments and leagues, with the goal of trying to achieve a higher rating. But just as often they keep players from playing in events so they can "protect" their rating.

For tournaments, ratings are not so good because they cause a lot of problems. Here's my article Juniors and Ratings, where I talk about how ratings can be a cancer on junior table tennis. But much of the article applies to all players. Players can get way to protective of their ratings, and often avoid tournaments just to protect their rating.

For leagues it's more mixed. For a singles league ratings actually work pretty well, since players are playing for themselves. Because they play on a regular basis, they get used to their ratings going up and down, and so don't worry about them too much and don't focus on protecting their rating by avoiding play. Singles leagues are the only example I see were ratings are actually a healthy and good thing for table tennis. They are used all over the country in the USATT Singles League, which in February processed 7193 matches in 43 different leagues, and has processed 510,330 league matches with 22,601 players in 426 leagues since it began in 2003.

However, in a team league you are playing for a team, not for yourself. Therefore I don't think ratings should ever be used in a team league. We want players to play in the team league so they can be part of a team, where the players cheer for each other. This is the norm overseas, but often is lost in the typical U.S. club environment, were players play just for themselves. But even U.S. players, when introduced to team leagues, discover something far greater than just playing for themselves – playing for a team. And that is why team leagues lead to large memberships, whether it's in table tennis overseas (and someday in the U.S.) or other sports in the U.S. and all over the world. Even tennis and bowling, which are an individual sports like table tennis, gets their huge membership numbers from team leagues.

We originally were going to use ratings in the Capital Area Super League. However, after thinking it over, we realize that would be insane. The focus needs to be on the team, not the individual. The team leagues in Germany and other countries developed without numerical ratings because they understood that team leagues are all about the team. They may have adopted such ratings after achieving large membership, but that came after the fact - and may turn out to be a mistake.

As the new chair of the USATT league committee I will be putting together a packet for others to use to develop team leagues all over the United States. I will strongly encourage them to use ratings in singles leagues but never in a team league.

Improvement in Spite of Themselves

One of the tricks coaches learn is to teach younger players in spite of their resistance. For example, there's an eight-year-old I regularly coach who doesn't take the game seriously. Getting him to stop goofing off and focus on table tennis is like getting the sun to turn off. And yet, despite a two-second attention span, he is learning in spite of himself. Every now and then he's beginning to show flashes of real shot-making, and when he focuses (sometimes longer than two seconds), he can even hit with pretty good technique. He can even loop.

But you have to be careful what you say to an eight-year old. During a break, while I was sitting on the sofa, he suddenly popped a ball into his mouth. Yes, a ball from right off the floor! I explained to him how the ball was covered with germs, and putting the ball in his mouth was like putting my foot in his mouth. His response? When I wasn't looking, just to be funny, he grabbed my foot with his mouth!!! Yuck. The saliva stains on my table tennis shoes will probably never go away. 

Junior Class

We had 15 players in the beginning junior class I taught last night from 6-7PM, with the Triple-J coaches assisting - Jeffrey, John, and Josh. After a little ball bouncing, instead of going to our usual stroking practice (mostly multiball), I decided to change things up a bit, and we started with serve practice. I went over the rules, then explained the important of being able to serve a simple topspin serve to get a practice rally started (forehand to forehand, backhand to backhand, etc.), and then we got into spin. Few can serve spin at this point - they ranged in age from 7 to 11 - but they have to start somewhere. I brought out the colored soccer balls to demonstrate spin serves, and then had them do the usual exercise where they spin the ball with their paddle, catch the ball, and repeat. Then they went out on the tables to practice serves. The true beginners worked on just getting their serves on the table, which is not easy for a beginning seven-year-old. Others worked on serving low. And others worked on either serving with spin or on fast, deep serves.

After 15 minutes of serve practice we went to multiball training (mostly smashing). We finished the session with games, with five of them playing "King of the Table," and the rest taking turns trying to hit a Gatorade bottle on the table full of "worm juice," with me feeding multiball (two shots per player, taking turns), where if they hit it, I had to drink it. I drank much worm juice.

Old Dogs/New Tricks: Is this saying true?

Here's the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

Ask the Coach

Episode #95 (17:05) - Dealing with Short Backspin (and other segments).

USA Coach Richard McAfee in India

Here's the ITTF article on the ITTF coaching course he ran in Madhya Pradesh, India, March 7-12. It's the second of five courses he's teaching there in a one-month period.

Kreanga vs. Salifou, Kreanga vs. Saive

Here's video (4:47, with time between points taken out) of a great match between Kalinikos Kreanga of Greece (formerly world #7, but now down to #86) vs. Abdel-Kader Salifou of France (world #102) in a recent French League match. Here's another great Kreanga match, against Jean-Michel Saive (7:13, time between points also removed).

Taiwanese Terrors

Here's video (41 seconds, including slow motion replay) of a nice point between Taiwanese players Chiang Hung-Chieh (the righty, world #66) vs. Chen Chien-An (the lefty, world #21).

International Table Tennis

Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage).

Detroit Tigers Pong

Here's about 15 seconds of Tigers' players practicing for an apparent team table tennis tournament. Shown are Ian Kinsler (the one flipping his paddle but not actually playing) and others.

Junior Variety Pong?

Here's video (1:24) of kids playing every imaginable variant of table tennis - you just have to watch it.

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