November 8, 2017

Visualizing the Serve
I think one of my most widely applicable Tips is A Journey of Nine Feet Begins at Contact. This has come up a lot recently in my coaching, both private and group. After a serving practice session with our Talent Junior Program (our best juniors, ages 7-13, about 24 of them), I gave a short lecture on this.

Let’s face it – most players really aren’t aware of what they are doing when they serve. Sure, they know the more obvious parts, like contact, and perhaps how it bounces on the far side. But they aren’t really aware of how high or low they contact the ball, where it bounces on their side of the table, the curve of the ball, not even how high it is when it crosses the net. They tend to notice only what’s happening on the far side, while ignoring what led to what happens on the far side. Without knowing and controlling what happens throughout the serve, including on your side of the table, you can’t really control the serve.

Seriously, if you want to have good serves, you need to be aware of every part of the ball’s journey, as noted in the Tip above. You should see it all in your head before you serve. If the serve doesn’t match what you saw in your head, then practice until it does. When you do this enough, it becomes second nature. Only when you can do that can you truly control your serves and make them do what you want them to do.

ITTF to Implement New World Ranking System in 2018
Here’s the ITTF news item.

Seamaster German Open
Here’s the home page for the event. It’s in Magdeburg, GER, Nov. 7-12. Here’s the promotional video (63 sec).

Zhang Jike Returns, Alongside Colleagues, Ready to Prove Himself
Here’s the ITTF article on the German Open.

Table Tennis Serve and Forehand Flick
Here’s the video (11:36). It’s in Chinese, but you can learn by watching the demos.

History of USATT - Volume XX - Chapter 1
Here’s the first chapter of Tim Boggan’s latest volume, which covers 1991-1992. Or you can buy it and previous volumes at www.timboggantabletennis.com.

Hollywood Actor, Ping-Pong Champion Maropis Serves Notice
Here’s the article on Adoni Maropis.

The 25th Cape Fear Open
Here’s the article by Earl Moniz.

Sportfist Table Tennis Tournament Software User Guide
Here’s the USATT news item, with a link to the user guide. I use Omnipong to run my tournaments, but I guess competition is good.

USATT Tournaments 2017 – USATT Youtube Playlist
Here’s the page – lots of championships videos from major USA tournaments.  

Tributo a Martin Pinto – Chile
Here’s the video (1:55).

Zombie Table Tennis Tournament
Here’s the video (36 sec) – things get interesting about halfway in!

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