November 24, 2025

Tips of the Week

Amity Team Cup in Nanjing, China
I returned last week from nine days in China where I played on the US Over 60 team in the Amity Team Cup in Nanjing. We came in fourth place! Alas, my flight to China was a disaster - see below. But I flew in to Shanghai, spent a day there, and then we had a bus to take us to Nanjing four the tournament on Nov. 14-15.

Let me start by thanking sponsors Word 4 Asia, which helps nonprofits organizations in China) and Amity Foundation (more on them below). Also a big thanks to those who helped us along the way, in particular (with apologies to any missed) Li-Ping Martinez, Han Li, Barbara Hess, Glenda Wilson, Summer Zhang, and Pastor Gene Wood. And now, to the tournament!

The format was five players in each team match, including at least one woman. Then each player played one match. The two women always played the third match. The other four were put in whatever position the team captains wanted.

Alas, as noted previously, I've been battling injuries. While my shoulder and knee were mostly okay, the injury to my side, despite six weeks of rest and rehab, was no better, making play difficult, and of course I made it worse. (I've already blown my sponge and hardbat ratings playing injured six weeks earlier at the World Senior Games.) Specifically, I couldn't loop with power, and couldn't rotate my upper body quickly. This latter especially affected me in rallies where I had to rotate to play backhand. Since we had six on the team, they rested me a couple of times. I ended up playing four matches, winning three. (We won the tie where I lost, fortunately.) Here is the Over 60 Team with our medals, L-R: Pastor Gene Wood (who helped with arrangements), and players Lily Yip (NJ, undefeated here for two years in a row), Dave Wilson (CO, player/captain), Larry Hodges (MD), Ming Liu (MD), Li Yuxiang (NY), and Xu Xia (NY).

We also had a "Youth" team. That's in quotes because it was for players ages 18 to 45 - so some pretty old youth! They finished third. Here is the Youth Team with their medals, L-R: Austin Preiss (CO), Alex Averin (NJ), Nick Del Russo (FL), Pen-Pen Chen (NY), and Brandon Gardner (TX). 

After the tournament, we had three days of banquets and friendship matches. I attempted to take part, but after two games in the first one, I had to stop due to the side injury. One of the interesting ones was with a local sports school, which had a table tennis team. While our players took on their junior squad (teenagers around the 2500 level, including one who was about 12), I watched their training session for younger kids, about 30 ages roughly 10-12. I'm pretty sure every one of them was better than 2000 level, and the better ones looked to be 2200-2300.

On the day after the tournament they took us on a tour of Amity Printing. (Here's the Wikipedia page.) They are apparently the largest printer of bibles in the world. The factory is HUGE - 85,000 square meters (that's 21 acres or 15 NFL football fields). I didn't think to ask how many bibles they print each year, but according to Wikipedia they've published over 100 million since opening in 1988. They print them in 280 languages. They are a subsidiary of Amity Foundation, whose mission is "extending services to those who were marginalized and considered “no good”; people who had been ejected from all other agencies or were deemed "not amenable" for help."

I'd planned some sightseeing on the first day after I arrived, but because I arrived a day late, that didn't happen. However, Ming Liu took some of us for a car tour of Shanghai, including some of the tallest buildings in the world, and we walked through some of the city - here I am at Shanghai Harbor (photo by Lily Yip). On the last day I managed some sightseeing in Shanghai, at the ITTF Museum (see visual tour) and the Shanghai Natural History Museum. Since I've met a large proportion of the people honored there, it was rather interesting. A curator started to show me some of the exhibits and players in English, and was astonished that I knew about all of them.

And now we get to my flight to Shanghai at the start, which was . . . how do I put this . . . a disaster? Here's what happened. I took careful notes. [Skip ahead if you don't want to hear my latest travel tribulations.)

  1. I was told to come to the airport three hours before flight time. So, I left my house at 2AM and arrived at Reagan National Airport a little before 3AM on Monday, Nov. 10 for my 6AM flight to Detroit. However, it turns out the Delta desk didn't open until 4AM, so I had to sit around for an hour.
  2. My 6AM flight from Reagan National Airport in DC to Detroit was delayed 75 minutes. (On a side note, they tried to convince me to check in my carry-on bag, but I insisted on keeping it. If I had given in, I wouldn't have had that when I needed it in Detroit.)
  3. After arriving in Detroit, I essentially sprinted through the airport, and made my flight to Shanghai just minutes before they closed the gate. And so began the 16-hour flight to China...
  4. ...until two and a half hours into the flight, when a door near the front began shaking violently. The pilot turned the plane around and returned to Detroit.
  5. Delta automatically rebooked all passengers on a 7AM flight the next morning (Tuesday). They also gave us a link for a free hotel that night and $12 food coupon. I immediately booked the hotel, got an email confirmation that the reservation was confirmed. Then I spent the next hour checking on my laptop to see if there was an earlier flight I could take to China. (There wasn't.) While I was doing this, I noticed that the roughly 300 people on the flight were all lining up at the Delta desk. I should have wondered about this, but I was too busy trying to find another flight. I finally checked my email and discovered an email canceling my hotel reservation, which came 13 minutes after the email confirming it. Turns out everyone got that, and THAT's why everyone was in line . . . except me. So I got in one of the very long lines and waited.
  6. And waited. And waited. And waited.
  7. After nearly an hour, I reached the front of the line. As I was next in line, the Delta rep said, "Sorry, I have to leave. Move to the next line. And she left!
  8. I had no choice but to move to another line. So, I stood in line for another 15 minutes until I was next in line. And then had to wait as the two people (together) ahead of me were with the agent for over 30 minutes. The other lines continued to move, and one of them finally emptied out as the people ahead of me continued talking to the agent. So I moved to that Delta agent. At this point, out of 300 passengers, I was absolutely the last one to be helped.
  9. As I got there, I checked my email - and I'd just received a reconfirmation from the hotel that I was confirmed there after all. So that hour and 45 minutes in line was wasted.
  10. I went to the shuttle area and called the hotel. They said the hotel shuttle had already left for the airport and would be there within five minutes. Since temperatures were in the range of 60 degrees in Maryland and Shanghai, I only had a light jacket in the 26 degrees. The shuttle didn't come for 27 minutes as I shivered away.
  11. The TV at the hotel didn't work.
  12. The following morning all went well, and 30 hours after leaving my house, I finally got on the flight to Shanghai. Yay! Got a lot of reading and writing done on the flight, including several Tips of the Week, and a science fiction short story about the travel tribulations of two robots trying to get to Proxima Centauri . . . gee, what inspired that?

Table Tennis Doubles for Champions . . . in French!
Table Tennis Doubles for Champions is now in French! David Salomez has or is now translating three of my table tennis books into French. They are:

He also put together Psychologie, Mental et Tennis de Table, which is a French translation of my articles on sports psychology. At some point I should put together the English version!!!

It's Almost Christmas Time - Have You Bought Someone My Books?
Or you can buy them for yourself!

2025 Hall of Fame Dinner
It was held on Nov. 6, at the Los Angeles Table Tennis Association. I've been to every one of them since 2009, when I started doing their program booklets. So I flew out that morning, spent the day sightseeing (mostly the Hollywood Museum, since I'd visited all the sites before), then Ubered out to the dinner. Each year the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame honors both new inductees and a Lifetime Achievement Award Winner. This year the honorees were Betty Henry Link, David Del Vecchio, and Stellan Bengtsson, with Connie Sweeris getting the Lifetime Award. (Stellan was actually inducted last year, but couldn't attend and so was honored this year.)

North American Teams
The JOOLA North American Teams are this weekend, Nov. 28-30 (Fri-Sun)! As of today, there are 845 players on 204 teams registered. My club, MDTTC, has 14 junior teams and seven coaches. I first competed in the Teams my first year, in 1976 (then in Detroit). This will be my 50th consecutive year at the Teams, other than 2020 when it was cancelled due to Covid. I'll write about it next week.

Coaching and News from All Over
Since I’ve been away for three weeks, rather than try to list every interesting article, here are links to some of the main news and coaching pages that have been active in that time, and you can pick and choose.

An 80-year-old Champion Athlete Says Playing Ping Pong Keeps Her Mind Sharp
Here's the article from Business Insider, featuring Carol Klenfner. "I'm currently living the best chapter of my life."

The Dirty Trick That Won a World Title
Here's the video (4:21) about the impact of fingerspin serves in 1936.

Facing the World's Fastest Serve
Here's the video (27 sec)!

Ping-Pong on a Picnic Table on a Hill
Here's the video (8 sec)!

Ed Sheeran versus Fan Zhendong
Here’s the video (10 sec) – some strange rackets!

Smells Like the Tears of My Table Tennis Opponents
Here's where you can buy this strange candle - the perfect Xmas gift for a table tennis player! (Right?)

"Without a Paddle"
Here's the video playlist. It's nine parts, totaling about 20 min, but they automatically play continuously. "Rex and Noah are participating in a table tennis tournament" is the description, but there's a bunch more going on.

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