August 5, 2019

Tip of the Week
Serving Long. I've done similar articles on specific long serves, but this is a more general article. Next week: Serving Short.

Solution to the Mexican Wall Problem
Let's have a little table tennis fun this morning. The U.S.-Mexico border is 1954 miles long. That's 10,317,120 feet. A table tennis net is six feet long, so it would take 1,719,520 nets to cover it. I did some online checking and the absolute cheapest net I could find was $7.46. But that's retail; we could probably buy them directly from China for $2/net. (That's $1.60 plus a 25% tariff.) So it would cost $3,439,040, or about $3.5 million, to put up a U.S.-Mexico ping-pong net.

We'll make China pay for it. If they don't, we'll threaten to boycott any tournament with a Chinese player. That'll show 'em; they'll back down and pay the $3.5 million.

We'd get umpires and referees to put them up. They are volunteers, right? So we don't have to pay them. Isn't table tennis great?

In my 43 years in table tennis I've never seen a player climb or jump over a ping-pong net. (Well, there is this guy. But this is what usually happens.) Only in tennis, i.e. court table tennis, do people jump over nets, another example of the superiority of our sport. So these 1954 miles of ping-pong nets should make our border 100% secure.

To further secure the border, our security forces will need to be armed. A sufficient quantity of ping-pong paddles and balls to smack those roving mobs of illegal aliens (They serve illegally! They use frictionless long pips! They use speed glue!) will be needed. China's already paying for the net, so with a little racketeering, we'll make Mexico pay for the rackets.

We'll let kids play table tennis across this net, like they play seesaw. But they must keep score in English! No speaking in them thar foreigner languages like Mexican or Indian or Islam. 

Now a ping-pong net isn't a wall, but our president promised a wall. So we'll compromise and call it a nall. And it will be a great and wonderful nall! It'll be far greater than the Great Chinese Nall that China made to keep Mexicans out - and after 2700 years, no Mexicans have made it over that wall, other than a few tourists. Oh, and Mexico paid for it too.

1900 Sold or Published Articles
I just sold a story to Galaxy's Edge, a major science fiction & fantasy magazine. It was my 1900th article I've sold or published! (This does NOT include 1800+ blog entries. I also have 13 books, with two more coming out in 2020.) I've been in 164 different publications, including such ones as Sports Illustrated and Washington Post. Here's a breakdown:

  • Table Tennis: 1675
  • Science Fiction or Fantasy Stories: 162 (includes 38 resales and 15 "twitter" stories)
  • Baltimore Orioles: 33
  • Science: 9
  • On Writing: 6
  • Others: 15

Pan American Games
Here's the ITTF home page for the event that began yesterday in Lima, Peru, Aug. 4-10, with results, news, pictures, and video. Below are two articles. (Check the USATT News page and Butterfly News Page for further articles this week.) USA Men's Team is Kanak Jha, Nikhil Kumar, and Nicholas Tio. USA Women's Team is Lily Zhang, Wu Yue, and Amy Wang.

USATT Tournament Guides
Here are two! The first is everything you need to know about running them; the second is on promoting them.

MDTTC Open
It's this weekend, at the Maryland Table Tennis Center in Gaithersburg, MD. Though I'm still listed there as co-director, Klaus Wood is really in charge now - I'm retired from running tournaments!

New from Samson Dubina

What To Do In Between Points - How to Erase Stress and Tension
Here's the article from Table Tennis Spot.

August Break
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak, with a number of links to articles and videos.

Visualizing a Better Ball
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

New USATT Articles by Matt Hetherington - he's writing up a storm!

New from Steve Hopkins

First Female Champion at the Westchester Open!
Here's the article by Will Shortz.

Hou Yingchao the History-maker!
Here's the ITTF article on 39-year-old chopper Hou winning the Chinese Nationals. It's impressive, but for whatever reasons the top Chinese players (Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin) did not play. Hou did defeat world #6 and top seeded Liang Jingkun. Here is video.

100 Days Since World Table Tennis Championships: What have we learnt?
Here's the ITTF article.

Lin Yun-Ju | Best Moments of 2019!
Here's the ITTF video (3:19).

History of USATT - Volume 23 - Chapter 2
Here is Chapter 2 of Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis, subtitled "1997 U.S. Open - Part 2 (Senior Events)." Or you can buy it and previous (and future) volumes at www.timboggantabletennis.com. Volume 23 is 491 pages with 1841 graphics, and covers all the wild things that happened in 1997-1999 - and I'm mentioned a lot! Why not buy a copy - or the entire set at a discount? Tim sells them directly, so when you order them, you get it autographed - order your copy now!

Sky High Table Tennis Club on Aurora TV
Here's the video (3:31). Richard McAfee and Timothy Wang are featured.

Kid Timo Boll to Professional Player
Here's the video (6:31).

Ben Askren Tells a Table Tennis Story During Wrestling Seminar
Here's the video (5:46) from 2012. He's an Olympian and was a welterweight champion.

One Minute, One Sport Table Tennis
Here's the video (77 sec)! It's actually an ad for table tennis in the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Japan.

Ninja Pong
Here's where you can buy all your Ninja table tennis products!

Teqball
Here's the video (36 sec)!

Tsingtao Beer Dragon Ping Pong
Here's the video (2:45) - it's a table tennis beer commercial!

"Ping-Pong Was Invented on the Dining Tables of England"
Here's the video of England Prime Minister Boris Johnson (table tennis segment lasts around 45 sec). He's basically correct.

Table Tennis = Precision+Power!
Here's the video (11 sec)!

Dog Pong
Here's the cartoon!

Airline Pong
Here's the cartoon!

Giant Net Ping-Pong
Here's the video (4:41) from Pongfinity!

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