March 15, 2012

No Blog on Friday - Cary Cup

No blog tomorrow (Friday) - I leave for the Cary Cup Championships this morning, right after I post this. I'll be defending my hardbat titles from the last two years, but it's a very tough draw this year. The rest of the tournament I'll be coaching junior stars George and Derek Nie. I'm going down and rooming with Tim Boggan. I've been having arm problems, but they seem to be over. I was toying with playing primarily as a chopper, but if the arm is okay I'll probably play my usual all-out forehand attack game combined with some backhand chopping. I'll write about the tournament in my blog next week.

A few notes on serve & forehand looping

When I'm at my best, I'm an all-out forehand attacker on my serve. (This is for both my normal sponge game as well as my hardbat game.) The key to this is good serves and good footwork. Regarding footwork, while fast feet are extremely helpful, good footwork technique is just as important for the first shot of a rally. I'm 52 and don't train anymore, and am by no means that fast, but I can attack nearly any deep ball at the start of a rally (deep serves or serve returns) because of good footwork technique and by quickly reading the opponent's shot. (It's the second or third shot that often takes footwork speed, alas.)

If you want to serve and follow with your forehand, here are your main serving possibilities. (They are mostly written as if both players are righties, but the same ideas apply to lefties with minor adjustments.)

  1. If they can't loop a deep serve to the backhand, then serve deep to the backhand and get ready to dominate with your forehand. Since they are returning the ball from farther back, you have more time to get into forehand position, and they can't get good angles as they could off a shorter ball. If you can serve so the ball breaks into their backhand side, away from their body, then they'll have even more difficulty making a good return, and they'll have even more trouble trying to take it down the line, so most of their returns will predictably be to your backhand. Step around and wait for it. (Don't move too early, of course, or they might just take it down the line.)
  2. If they can't forehand flip effectively down the line (to your backhand), then serve short to the forehand and prepare to attack the crosscourt return to your forehand.
  3. If they can't backhand flip effectively down the line (to your forehand), then serve short to the backhand and prepare to step around to attack with your forehand the crosscourt return to your backhand. They have no angle into your forehand, and so you should be able to react to weak returns there even if you are way around your backhand corner. The main danger here (besides a surprise down-the-line attack to your forehand) is a wide-angled return to your backhand. If that happens, then you either have to step even farther around your backhand (way out of position, very risky) or play backhand.
  4. If they can't push short or flip short backspin, serve short backspin to all parts of the table and prepare for the long push.
  5. If all else fails, serve short to the middle. That way they have no extreme angle, and can't go for a wide crosscourt corner (where they have more table to aim for). They also have to decide between forehand and backhand, and that slight hesitation is often all it takes to get a weak return. If you serve short backspin to the middle, you'll usually get a deep push that's not too angled.
  6. Serve short, very low no-spin. It is surprisingly difficult to push heavy, push short, or to flip. (The key is to keep it low.)  It is especially effective if you mix in spinny serves, and learn to fake spin but serve no-spin. (A spinny-looking serve that is no-spin is called "heavy no-spin." Really!) Here's an article I wrote on the no-spin serve.

Susan Sarandon and ping-pong on TV

Susan Sarandon stopped by the TV show GMA to discuss her new movie and ping-pong, and to challenge hosts Josh and Sam to a game (6:09). The table tennis discussion begins at 4:25.

Why a Ponger Left Goldman-Sachs

It's all over the news - Greg Smith isn't just leaving Goldman-Sachs, he wrote a feature article in the New York Times on the toxic and destructive atmosphere there.

But of course the real story is that Smith was also a very good table tennis player. As he wrote in the article, he won "a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics." But there's more! It looks like he has played USATT tournaments, three of them in 1997-98. Here are his rating results, with his final rating at 1983. (He even defeated Tim Boggan at the 1998 Nationals!)

Our friends at Table Tennis Nation have researched the story even more, and here's what they have to say.

Nixon, Ping-Pong Diplomacy, and the University of Oregon

Here's an article on an event at the University of Oregon that celebrates Ping-Pong Diplomacy.

Microwaving ping-pong balls

Yesterday we lit them on fire. Today we're microwaving ping-pong balls! Video is 5:09 long, but the fireworks beginning at 2:13.

***

Send us your own coaching news!