September 29, 2015

Team Leagues

As I've blogged before, team leagues is how European table tennis became big, with 600,000 players in Germany and a number of other countries with memberships over 100,000. (The same is true of most other sports with big memberships.) Once you play on a team you want to do it over and over – and that leads to lots of activity and large memberships. I'm planning this fall to develop a proto-type team league that can spread to other regions, using my experiences here in the Capital Area Team League (Maryland, Virginia, DC), what I've learned from successful leagues in other regions like LA and NY, and from overseas leagues. And so it was with great excitement that we started the second season of the CATL. Here's my write-up.

Capital Area Team League

The Capital Area Team League fall season got off to a great start on Saturday, Sept. 26, from 5-10PM, in the first of six monthly league nights. All twelve teams in the league competed that night at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, with players ranging from ten to seventy, and ratings from 850 to 2350. Here's the team listing and a group picture. League venues this season will alternate between MDTTC and the Washington DC Table Tennis Center.

The format is best of seven, with six singles and one doubles. Each team has three singles players, and each of them play two matches. Then any two players may play the doubles. Here are the League Rules, including info on the format. Here is the Schedule and Standings.

Top-seeded MDTTC A (Derek Nie, Klaus Wood, Raghu Nadmichettu, and Nathan Hsu, who is currently training in China) dominated Division One. They defeated Chantilly 7-0, winning six of the matches 3-0, with the doubles team of TJ Sawner/John Olsen winning a game in their doubles battle with Nie/Nadmichettu. They also defeated MDTTC Lions 6-1, with League Commissioner Stefano Ratti pulling out his match with Derek, 3-1.

Also winning both team matches was JOOLA 1, who defeated NOVATTC and WDCTT, both times 4-3. The big hero for JOOLA 1 was Richard Lee, who won all four of his singles matches and both his double matches (with Claudia Ikeizumi), all of them 3-0, so he was 18-0 in games for the night!

Because the format gives each team one point for each match won, and one point for each team match won, MDTTC A won 13 points for matches won and 2 for team matches won, for 15 total. JOOLA 1 received 8 points for matches won and 2 points for team matches won, for a total of 10. But NOVATTC, despite losing 4-3 to JOOLA 1, had a 7-0 win over Chantilly, and so received 10 points total for matches won and 1 for team matches, and so took over second place with 11 points, one point ahead of JOOLA 1. Not far behind was MDTTC Lions with 8.

Team SSTT and MDTTC Veterans dominated Division Two's first night. Team SSTT defeated both JOOLA 2 and Wiff Waff 7-0, giving them 16 points. But just behind them was MDTTC Veterans who defeated Wiff Waff 7-0 and MDTTC Crush 6-1, and so gained 15 points. In a generational clash, William Huang (12, rated 1715) upset chopper Ed Watts (67, 1985) in the seventh match for the Crush's sole win there, and putting them in third with 8 points.

A number of raffles were held that night, with various equipment and several of my books given out. Derek Nie, 14, one of the top players in the league with a 2336 rating, won one of the raffle prizes given out that night. What did he win? A copy of my book, Table Tennis Tips – with his picture on the cover! (I'd already given him a signed copy.) Meanwhile, since I put up all of the chairs for the league, I went around claiming to be the chairman.

Special thanks goes to MDTTC sponsor Butterfly and to Capital Area League Ball Sponsor Paddle Palace. Next league meetup is at WDCTT on Oct. 17. Hope to see some of you there!

Asian and European Championships

They are both going on right now:

Serving Tutorial by Marcos Freitas

Here's the video (4:01 – really starts about 40 seconds in). Two nitpicks: First, the graphic images show the spin serves hitting near the middle of the racket. But you get more spin if you contact the ball closer to the tip. Second, the forehand pendulum serve is demoed 86 seconds in, and is blatantly illegal as he's hiding the ball from the receiver. These days cheating in our sport is so rampant we even teach it in videos!

2016 Selection Procedure for USA Cadet and Junior Teams

Here's the info page.

The Swedish Greats

Here's a nice picture of Waldner and Borg, two of the greats of table tennis and tennis. Did you know that Borg got his start in tennis because of table tennis? From his Early Life entry in his Wiki page: "As a child, Borg became fascinated with a golden tennis racket that his father won at a table-tennis tournament. His father gave him the racket, beginning his tennis career."

Paul Drinkhall in Footsteps of True Legend

Here's the article.

Iranian Players clinch Five Wins in Asian Championships

Here's the article from Press TV.

Celebrity Battle: Judah Friedlander vs. Frank Caliendo

Here's the USATT article – who would win between these comic titans? (I'm not going to take sides, but I've coached Judah, who is rated 1607, and I've played doubles with Frank, who is 1665.)

Greatest "Table Tennis" Rally of All Time?

Here's the video (42 sec). These guys know how to use their heads – they've obviously read Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.

More Mike Mezyan Pictures

NOTE - If you are unable to see these pictures, all you have to do is join the Table Tennis Group - it's easy! Here are all the past, present, and (soon) future pictures he's collected. (I pick out his best ones for here - he has more.)

Here Lies 21

Here's the cartoon lamenting the change in games from 21 to 11 points.

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