April 25, 2016

Tip of the Week
Clean Your Racket.

Saturday Coaching at Cassels Giant Round Robin
I spent Saturday at SmashTT in Virginia at the Cassels Giant RR, coaching one of my students, 14-year-old Sameer Shaikh. Here's the tournament write-up and results, care of Director Michael Levene, who also runs and coaches at SmashTT. Sameer is featured in the writeup. The tournament ran well, and we had a great time! 

Sameer went in rated 1528, and looking for the breakthrough that he's been on the verge of for many months. The first step was getting into a good division. The format started with groups of four, with the top two going to Division A (two groups of ten players), and the next two to Division B. Sameer was seeded third, and so seeded for Division B. He faced a 1613-rated player to get into Division A. Complication #1 was that the player had short pips on the backhand, something Sameer wasn't used to playing. (How the sport has changed…) But with a few adjustments for these quick, dead shots, and a focus on keeping the ball deep (that's key when playing non-inverted surfaces), he won the match 3-1, and so advanced into Division A – where he'd be the lowest rated player. In fact, other than a 1650 player (122 points higher), the next lowest was 1813. So began his nine matches in Division A.

Things did not start well – in fact, after four matches, I was rather worried he was in for a disastrous day with his 0-4 start. Two of them were somewhat meaningless, against the top two seeds (both over 2200). Then he lost to an 1813 player who he had recently beaten at the MDTTC league. It was a match he thought he could win, so it was hard to get over it.

And then he played an 1856 player, with a Seemiller grip and long pips (though he rarely used them), and a surprisingly good forehand loop for a player in his 60s. Down 2-7 in the fifth, Sameer scored eight in a row! Redemption! His best win ever! Except . . . up 10-7 match point, and again up 11-10 (on a net dribbler), he couldn't convert any of the four match points, and lost the match. And so from the heights of near-glory with what would have been his best tournament win ever (by far), he was now at the lowest low, 0-4, and things were not looking good.

Long story short: He followed that by beating players rated 1814, 1846, and 1868! All three of them were five-gamers against three very different styles. (One a standard two-winged looper; one a penhold forehand looper and lobber; one a pure blocker and flat hitter. He had many great points, attacking from both wings. Often he'd mix in deep serves that opponents would struggle to return without giving Sameer a winner from either wing, or with short serves that he'd follow with loops, also from both wings. One of Sameer's strengths is he attacks and rallies well from both sides. (And did I mention his deep serves can be deadly?)

His last match was against the next lowest rated player in the group, rated 1650, but with rather flat shots that gave Sameer trouble. Next thing you know Sameer is down 2-7 in the fifth – and just as he had done earlier against the 1856 player, he scored eight in a row! Up match point 10-7 he misses an easy shot, and as he said later, memory of that previous match entered his mind. But he pulled off the next point to win.

Now it would have been easy focus on the match that got away, when he'd blown the four match points from up 10-7. But Sameer and I agreed that since he went 4-1 in five-gamers, he could accept blowing that one in return for pulling out the others. And so he had his breakthrough tournament. It'll likely be processed in the next day or so – USATT is getting fast on this – and he'll likely be rated about 1800, making him one of the top 14 and under players in Maryland. (UPDATE - he came out 1826.)

Now ratings are not particularly important, but they are useful in some ways, as long as you focus on the positive aspects. I always tell players that when your rating goes down, they are meaningless (the focus there should be on why you are not playing as well, not the number), but when they go up, they are fun. And they are also great motivators. I'd told Sameer back in his 1528 days (circa Friday) that the goal this year was to get over 1800. Well, it didn't take him long to get those 272 points! (Well, it'll be close – he'll be adjusted upwards, but not sure of the final numbers, since other players he played might be adjusted as well. Assuming no adjustments among opponents, he had wins over against players rated 1868, 1846, 1814, 1650, 1613, and 785, with losses to 2245, 2216, 2005, 1968, 1856, and 1813 (and so finished at 6-6, with five of the wins "upsets"). Not bad for a "1500" player!

Now the aftermath – from the tournament, there are several things Sameer needs to work on. Some I can mention, such as practice against flat shots, since they gave him trouble this tournament. Others I can't mention as opponents might be reading this! Plus there's a new service variation that we're adding to his repertoire, with the hope to spring it on the world in a few months.

Back Problems Again…
Yesterday I played for 90 minutes in a training session, where I hit with several players, including a chopper for 20 minutes. About half an hour afterwards my back said, "Psst, Larry! I'm on strike!" And that's when I felt a knife jammed into my back and jiggled about. (Apparently when my back goes on strike it lets knives come in . . . or something like that.) I could barely sleep last night because of it, and I almost skipped my blog this morning as it's painful just sitting and typing. (Actually, just existing is painful at the moment.) I'm going through Ibuprofen rather quickly, but that doesn't appear to help much. Anyway, I've got two hours of coaching scheduled today. One is just a multiball session, which I think I can do. The other is a private session that I'll have to cancel. (I'll message the student after I put up this blog – he might read it here first.)

New Coaching Articles from Samson Dubina

How Can You Beat a Player One-Level Higher Than You?
Here's the new coaching article from the Green Paddle Academy.

Why Ping-Pong is Good for Your Brain
Here's the new article from the Mother Nature Network. There's been a lot of articles and videos on this lately! I might need to put together a list of links – I'd just do a search for "brain" on this blog, and that should find them all. Unless someone else wants to do it!

AAC Nomination Election for USATT Athletes’ Advisory Council
Here's info from USATT. "Candidates must have represented the United States in the Olympics, Paralympics, Pan American Games, Para Pan American Games, World Championships, or Para World Championships, as recognized by the ITTF, in the ten (10) years preceding January 1, 2017."

TableTennisDaily Podcast #9 - Jorgen Persson
Here's the video (50:06).

ITTF Pongcast - March 2016
Here's the video (14:09).

Getting to Know Prachi Jha
Here's the video interview (3:50) from Butterfly. Prachi is on the 2016 USA World Team.

Kansas City Club Can't Handle Me
Here's the new table tennis music video (3:52). From a coach's point of view, this was great! The video focuses on two little kids going to and competing in a tournament, set to music.  

Zak Abel - Everybody Needs Love
Here's the table tennis music video (3:16) from the British musician. The table tennis starts about 12 seconds in and continues throughout. (That's two great table tennis musicals in one day!) (Addendum: Mike Levene emailed me that Zak Abel was formerly Zak Zilesnick, a former member of the British junior or cadet national team. "Talent beyond belief but decided to go into Music industry! Probably 2400-2500.") 

Prince and Table Tennis
The late musician was known for his obsession with table tennis. I've blogged about this four times:

Here are three links from USATT. And here's Prince, Ping Pong and Musicians’ Humdrum Hobbies from The Guardian.

If it wasn’t odd enough that Prince chose Lianne La Havas’ living room in Leyton to host a press conference, Prince’s passion for ping-pong revealed during his recent UK residency (and New Girl cameo) has also been an unlikely turn out.

Prince isn’t the only musician who loves a game of whiff whaff - Damon Albarn is also an avid table-based sportsman. “Everywhere I go I have to have a table tennis table. I love it; it’s a brilliant way to relax when you’re working,” he explained to the Radio Times in 2008. The Blur frontman enjoys the sport so much he even played against the Olympic British youth team.

Trudell and Kobe and Pau Ping-pong
Here's the video (19 sec). "Lakers Reporter Mike Trudell plays ping-pong with Kobe Bryant, and Pau Gasol shows off his ping-pong skills."

National East Meets West Day
It's today, and here's the cartoon by Steve Worthington to commemorate it.

The Lion Ping King?
Here's the picture!

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