June 19, 2017

Tip of the Week
Importance of Routine.

Capital Area League - and How to Create Your Own League!
They had their final meetup this past Saturday (at MDTTC) – and results and photos are up, care of Mossa Barandao and Thomas Olausson of PongMobile! There were 116 players on 24 teams this year, all in the Washington DC area (most of Maryland and Northern Virginia). It’s a great activity that brings everyone together for many hours of great fun and competition – without those pesky ratings, by the way! (Of course, you can run a league with or without ratings.) The league will continue again with a new season this Fall.

Interested in creating a league in your area? Here’s the USATT League page, where you can learn how to set up either a Team League or a Singles League (with the USATT League Rating System). If you don’t have one, you do not know what you are missing!!! Here's a video (81 sec) explaining the league software and who to contact to get it. 

A great congrats goes to everyone in the Capital Area League, but especially the following:

  • DIVISION ONE
    Champions    : MDTTC UniSHARKS (Roy Ke - League MVP, Tiffany Ke, Ronald Chen, Spencer Chen)
    Runner-ups: MDTTC Lions (Greg Mascialino, Ryan Dabbs, Nathan Hsu, Allen Lin)
  • DIVISION TWO
    Champions    : MDTTC-The Lily Difference (Darwin Ma, Joshua Gong, Mohamed Kamara)
    Runner-ups: Chantilly (John Olsen, Fred Nicolas, Lo Chao, Naveen Vaddadi)
  • DIVISION THREE
    Champions    : WDCTT Too (Thomas Olausson, Ryan Lin, Arnd Plagge, Zhaoyuan, Liu, Olga Kartushina, Stephen Thoren)
    Runner-ups: Team Butter-Fried (Si Cheong, Ian Dominguez, Gordon Lee, Enrique Torrez, Gabriel Griffin)
  • DIVISION FOUR
    Champions    : HWGF Team 1 (Hanfei Hu, Stanley Hsu, Mu Du, Andy Wu, Jackson Beaver)
    Runner-ups: HWGF Team 2 (Ryan Lee, Nicole Deng, Adrian Yang, Kay O’Hara)
  • Host Clubs: MDTTC, Smash TT, Washington DC TTC
  • Super Volunteer: Mossa Barandao, who does much of the running of each league, using software he and Thomas Olausson created.

USATT Minutes and Actions
Here’s the page, which has been updated to include minutes of all meetings and teleconferences through May, and the actions from the June 12 teleconference.

Serve Return Placement
Here’s the video (2:11) by Samson Dubina.

Forehand Drive Technique in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (2:39) from EmRatThich.

Tactics to Improve Your Serve
Here’s the series of short videos from PingSkills.

The Importance of Linking
Here’s the podcast (29:14) from PingSkills where they talk about the importance of linking your strokes together.

Ask the Coach
Questions answered at PingSkills.

Japan Open
Here’s the home page, with news, results, photos, lots of video, and more. It took place this past weekend in Tokyo.

Legendary Quartet Unveiled as T2 Asia-Pacific League Team Captains
Here’s the ITTF article featuring the new captains - Jiang Jialiang, Jörgen Persson, Jörg Rosskopf and Michael Maze.

2017 ITTF Argentina Junior Open
Here’s the home page for the event, June 18-19 in Buenos, Aires, ARG. (It’s being livestreamed.) Following this will be the Pan Am Junior Championships, June 20-25, also in Buenos Aires. USA has eight players in both events: Sharon Alguetti, Kanak Jha, Jack Wang, Victor Liu, Amy Wang, Rachel Sung, Rachel Yang, and Grace Yang.

National Senior Games – Table Tennis
Here are the results – they were held last weekend in Birmingham, AL, with Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, in nine age events starting at age 50.

Kasumi Ishikawa "Secret Story"
Here’s the video (7:25) from EmRatThich.

USATT Top 10 - National Collegiate Table Tennis Championships
Here’s the video (5:04).

DHS ITTF Top 10 - 2017 World Championships
Here’s the video (6:01).

Harimoto Tomokazu vs LIANG Jingkun (Round 3 Japan Open)
Here are highlights (1:22) of the Japanese whiz kid (Harimoto).

Unbelievable Behind Back Shot by Xu Xin
Here’s the video (24 sec) – note the score!

Living Legend George Brathwaite Shows How to Keep The Ping Pong Ball In Play
Here’s the video (75 sec) as he plays against a mobile return board!

Fathers’ Day Pong
Here’s the video (36 sec) of Andrew Williams (from PongUniverse) and son Shia Williams.

Here’s a Vacant Table
Here’s the cartoon!

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