April 10, 2023

Tip of the Week
Top Ten Things For the Day Before the Tournament.

Weekend Coaching and MDTTC Open
Here are the results of the MDTTC Open held this past weekend at my club. Big breakthroughs by Feng Xue and Daniel Anteneh! Jeez, some players just don’t respect ratings and go out there and win against players who are mathematically better.

There was still one group coaching session. Some topics that came up:

  • For beginners: Make sure to put some topspin on the ball on drives, both forehand and backhand. Many beginners tend to hit the ball almost straight on, especially on the backhand, so it’s important to teach them to put just a touch of topspin right from the start. When I ran a coaching seminar for USATT many years ago, we did a survey, which included the question, “If you could go back and say one thing to yourself as a beginner, what would it be?” Surprisingly, the most common answer was some version of, “Make sure to create topspin on your forehand and backhand drives, even when first starting out.”
  • Shorten the swing! I asked one kid, “What are you trying to do, knock over the Great Wall of China?” You don’t need that long a swing for almost any shot, even smashes.
  • Had a tactical discussion with two advanced junior players about some of what we saw in the US Team Trials that were going on that weekend. One key thing – on both serve and receive, you have to move the opponent in and out, meaning serving both short (including to forehand, where you force them even more over the table) and long, and receiving both short and long. (Only receive short against a short serve, of course. Attack the deep ones!)

Do You Need to Be a Top Player to Be a Top Coach? – Revisited
Last week’s Tip of the Week was, Do You Need to Be a Top Player to Be a Top Coach? The topic came up at the MyTableTennis.net forum. I have four postings there on this, #12, 17, 19, and 22 (the last one), which I think add to what I wrote in the Tip.

Men’s and Women’s US Team Trials
They were held this past weekend at the 888 club in Burlingame, CA. Here are some links.

USATT News on US Team Trials by Mark Thompson:

Zhang Jike is Deep Trouble
Zhang Jike, the gold medalists in Men’s Singles in 2011 & 2013 and at the 2012 Olympics, is heavily in debt from gambling. Apparently, he gave “intimate” pictures of his ex-girlfriend to his main creditor so that he could blackmail her into paying his debts. It’s all over the news if you Google it, but here are some links.

New from National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the NCTTA Championships
The US National Collegiate Table Tennis Championships are this next weekend in Round Rock, TX, Apr. 14-16. Here are news items this past week from NCTTA, much of them about the Championships.

Why Some Players Improve Faster Than Others
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

Deceptive Forehand Flip by Damien Provost
Here’s the video (2:20) from PongSpace.

New from Ti Long

New from the Performance Biomechanics Academy

Practicing With a Return Board
Here’s the video (3:29) from Drupe Pong.

Ask the Coach
Here are the latest questions from PingSkills.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

Table Tennis Final WANG Chuqin vs Truls MOREGARD Star Contender Budapest
Here’s the video (6:46).

Top 10 Best Moments in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (5:37) from CSFSX.

Happy World Table Tennis Day!!!
Here’s the Spanish cartoon – the headline at top is Spanish for “Happy World Table Tennis Day!!!” (Here’s the non-Facebook version.) World Table Tennis Day is coming up on April 23. (It used to be April 6, but it changed.)

It’s Only Ping Pong Said the Loser
Here’s where you can buy the shirt from Tee Shirt Palace!

Wooden Board Pong
Here’s the video (15 sec)!

30 vs 1: Ping Pong Challenge
Here’s the video (8:25) from Pongfinity!

I Challenged Germany
Here’s the video (16:40) from Adam Bobrow!

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