June 1, 2017

World Championships
The Worlds are going on right now, May 29 – June 5 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Here are some links.

USA is doing pretty well, especially Lily Zhang! For specifics of our players, see the draws in the Main Page, and do a search for “USA.” Or click on the below. (Note that where it says, for example, “1-32” in the Men’s Singles, that means the top 32 spots in the draw, i.e. the top quarter.)

Here are USA Highlights:

  • Lily Zhang/Wu Yue – they are into the quarterfinals!!! In the first round they upset the #5 seeded team, Lee Zion/Yang Haeun (KOR), at 3,4,-8,7,11. Then they knocked off Hana Matelova/K. Tomanovska (CZE) at 9,-10,5,-8,2,7. Then they defeated S. Polcanova (AUT)/Mo Zhang (CAN), 11,-6,9,9,15. In the quarters they will face Cheng Meng/Zhu Yuling, the #3 seeds from China, at 1:30 PM on Friday. (That’s 7:30AM Eastern time, or 4:30AM Pacific time.)
  • Lily Zhang (world #82) – she upset Sabine Winters (GER, world #39) at -7,-4,7,10,-7,6,6, to reach the final 32 before losing to Li Jie (NED, world #21), 13,-5,4,4,9. Here’s the USATT article and the ITTF article on her.
  • Lily Zhang/Kunal Chodri – in the first round of Mixed Doubles they went seven games with the #7 seeded team of Fang Bo (CHN)/Petrissa Solja (GER), and led 3-2 before losing at -9,4,-9,3,-5,2,6.
  • Kanak Jha (world #246 at age 16) – he upset Adrian Crisan (world #67) at 8,8,-5,-11,-9,8,9 to reach the Final 64. Here’s the USATT article on this. He will next face Mattias Karlsson (SWE, world #27) at 8:30 PM (2:30 PM Eastern time). He’s in the 65-96 draw. Here are video highlights (3:48) of Kanak’s match against Paul McCreery of Ireland in the preliminaries.

ITTF Election
It’s over – Weikert won re-election over Saive for ITTF president, 118-90. Here’s the USATT article.

Across the Net: Melton Table Tennis
Here’s their new newsletter. It includes a number of interesting essays. One that caught my eye was the “Proposed Rule Changes” on page 3, where they make the same type of argument about hidden serves that I’ve been making, while pointing out some rather . . . interesting rules proposals at the ITTF. Other articles include “The Dividing Line” (about table tennis in the Southern Hemisphere) and “G.O.A.T.” (who is the Greatest Of All Time?). Here’s their archive of past newsletters.

Hopping Footwork and Other Forms of TT Physical Training
Here’s the video (47 sec).

Weird Vectored Ping-Pong Image
Here’s the picture.

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