Coaching Hitters and Loopers

Here's an interesting thought. For many years one of the great things about table tennis was the clash of playing styles. One of the most common ones was hitter versus looper. Over the last 20 years or so looping has completely dominated at the higher levels, leading to almost near-death of the hitting style. I consider this a tragedy - I like having such diverse styles. Note that by "hitter" I'm really talking a range of styles, from pips-out penhold hitters, to shakehanders with pips on the forehand or both sides, to shakehanders who open with a loop and follow with a smash, as well as hitters who block until they see a chance to hit. It might be better to call hitters "hitter/blockers."

While there's no question the looping style is superior at the highest levels, it's not quite as superior as the looping dominance would make it appear. What happens at the grassroots level when coaching kids is that, given a choice between two styles where one might be 1% better, nearly 100% of top coaches will go for the one that's 1% better, and so that style completely dominates out of proportion to its actual superiority. If just as many players were trained as hitters as loopers, loopers would still dominate, but there'd be a sprinkling of hitters in the top 100, and below that there'd be lots of them. Remember that it wasn't that long ago that Johnny Huang was top ten in the world as an all-out hitter - his last rating in 2004 was 2860. Liu Guoliang was #1 in the world in the late 1990s or so. The best hitters, if players were regularly trained that way instead of all being trained as loopers, would be at least 2800 level, probably 2850. Of course, the best players in the world are more like 2900 level in the USATT rating system.

My Top Fifteen Best Moments as a Player

Here are my best moments as a player, in no particular order. It was going to be a Top Ten list, but I couldn't keep it to ten. (On Thur and Fri I plan to write about my best moments as a coach, and my worst moments as a player.) Feel free to comment with your own best moments as a player. For some reason, I get lots of reads, but few comments. Feel free to speak up! What are YOUR best moments as a player?

Muscle Fatigue and Backspin

Recently my muscles have been feeling bone-tired, especially the legs. I feel like I've run a marathon before I even start. (I know; I ran one when I was 17, and went to my table tennis club that night just to prove I could do it - and could barely play at all.) The muscles are both tired and stiff. I'm hoping this is just a stage. I eat healthy and get plenty of sleep. (On the other hand, my dog, Sheeba, 15 years old, no longer can last the night without going out, and she gets me up around 4AM every single morning to go out. Maybe there's a connection. Or maybe I'm just an "old" 53.)

One result, of course, is I haven't been playing well. In fact, right now I'm probably playing the worse I've played since the 1970s. I'm a practice partner for our top juniors, but let's just say the last two weeks have been great confidence boosters for some of them. I've been going back and forth between trying to force the muscles to operate properly ("Move or else, you stupid legs!") or falling back on tactics. ("Age and treachery defeats youth and skill every time." Or so the saying goes.) There's a reason why this week's Tip of the Week was "Tools and Tactics for the Physically Challenged."

Tip of the Week

Tools and Tactics for the Physically Challenged.

2013 World Championships - China Dominates, But Was "Nice" in the Doubles

They just ended. Defending Champion Zhang Jike just defeated Wang Hao in the Men's Singles Final as I wrote this - I held back on posting this half an hour so I could get that result. You can get complete results here. It's a repeat of the 2011 Worlds, where Zhang also defeated Wang in the final. (Wang Hao won in 2009 over Wang Liqin. Singles and Doubles events are held every two years.) The final score was 7,8,-6,12,-5,7. Zhang was down 5-7 in the last game but won the last six points in a row.

As usual, China dominated the singles events. All four semifinalists in Men's and Women's Singles are Chinese. They could have dominated the doubles events as well. Both teams in the Women's Doubles final were Chinese. However, Taiwan won Men's Doubles, and North Korea won Mixed Doubles. What's going on?

As the Chinese coaches at my club explained it, the Chinese were being nice. They did have entries in these events, but most of the top men only played singles. In Men's Doubles, China's Ma Lin/Hao Shuai were in the final (losing 4-2 to Chen Chien-An/Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan), Wang Liqin/Zhou Yu played (losing 4-2 to the Taiwan duo in the semifinals), and Chen Qi/Fang Bo also played (losing 4-3 in the round of sixteen to Chan Kazuhiro/Kenta Matsudaira of Japan). While Ma Lin and Wang Liqin are still great players (ranked #8 and #9 in the world), they are the "older" veterans of the Chinese team, as is Hao Shuai (#12). Chen Qi (#17) and Fang Bo (#30) are younger, but are not yet among the "elite."

Table Tennis Protocol

There are many aspects of protocol in table tennis. Most players lean these things at their club, and so know to act "properly" at tournaments. Here are some table tennis protocols, and how it varies depending on the circumstances.

Coaching Updates

I had some interesting coaching sessions yesterday. Here's a rundown on three of them, with their permission - plus a fourth who just won three titles!

Play With Creativity - Do Something Different!

In my blog yesterday I wrote about how some of our players had trouble with Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy's serve. It was a pretty good forehand pendulum serve, but there wasn't anything seemingly special about it. He actually used less wrist motion than he should, and had just two versions - side-top and side-back - though he did vary the depth well. As I watched it, I began to see why they were having trouble with it, and there were two reasons.

First, he wasn't changing his grip to unlock his wrist, and so he had less spin than he could have. But because he has such quick wrists and a good grazing contact, it was sufficient spin to make it effective, and the different grip seemed to give players difficulty in reading it.

Second, he served it over and over from his forehand side. We're all used to players serving forehand pendulum serves from the backhand side, since that allows a player to more easily follow up against a weak return with a forehand attack. And so when the same serve came at them from the forehand side, crosscourt into their forehand, they struggled. It wasn't something they had seen very often.

But I had - or at least I from JJ's side of the table! While I usually serve from the backhand side, at key moments in matches I often do forehand pendulum serves from the forehand side, both regular and reverse pendulum. It's a great way to get a free point or two. It was also a tactic I'd used in a pair of key matches years ago, which I described in my book Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers in Chapter 7, Tactical Examples:

Changing Service Position

J.J. Hardy and Brady Anderson at MDTTC

J.J. Hardy is the star shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. (He's the reigning gold glove winner with 52 homers the last two seasons and a former All-Star.) Brady Anderson was the Orioles star center fielder for 13 of his 15 major league seasons, where he was a 3-time all-star, and once hit 50 homers in a season. They are true baseball stars.

But they are also pretty good at table tennis! With the Orioles having a day off from playing, they spent four hours at the Maryland Table Tennis Center last night, 4-8PM. I gave them a private coaching session the first two hours, and then they hit with our local juniors. I knew in advance that JJ was the Orioles best TT player - they have a table in their clubhouse, and NOBODY beats JJ. Brady is their #2. But how good could they be, considering they hadn't had coaching? I was expecting "basement stars," perhaps 1200 level at most. Boy was I wrong! Both came with their own sponge rackets in racket cases.

JJ's around 1850. Strengths: fast rallying and good serves, and adjusts quickly to opponents. Weaknesses: return of serve and against spin in general. He's very fast and aggressive at the table, with nice forehand and backhand hitting and blocking. He tends to hold his racket tip up on the forehand, which costs him some power, but his bang-bang rallying and reflexes allow him to rally at a 1900+ level - even better if you counter with him instead of looping. He also tends to reach for the ball instead stepping, which allows him to block but means he doesn't end the point as well as he could. He can loop against backspin from both wings, and follow with quick hitting.

Tip of the Week

Beat Weaker Players with Fundamentals.

Coaching Opponent to Victory

I had an interesting practice match with one of our top juniors this past weekend. Going into the match he appeared irritated and tense. Against someone like that all you have to do is vary your shots like crazy - placement, depth, spins, etc. - and watch him fall apart. He was too irritated to even think, and served short to my backhand over and over, which isn't smart - I'm very good there, where I can push short or long, and flip either regular or banana flip (with extra topspin or sidespin). I often messed him up by faking a long push to the backhand and at the last second dropping it short to his forehand. When he guarded against the short ball to the forehand I'd flip to his backhand, taking his service game away. I won the first game 11-3. (I'd also beaten him I think 3-0 the last three times we'd played.)

Professional Franchise League System

One way to get a professional league for top players going in the U.S. would be a franchise system. How would it work? Here's a rough outline - feel free to make changes.

It would start in a populated region, with a committed Commissioner getting it started. Perhaps eight league owners would be solicited, each representing a different club or region, with each owner paying perhaps a $5000 franchise fee. What would be the owner's incentive? That owner would have perpetual rights to that franchise. If the league were to take off, they could become very rich.

Each team would have three players minimum, with team matches best of nine. If there were eight teams in the league, with each playing the other team twice, there would be 14 team matches for each team, half played at home, half played on the other teams home clubs.

Income would be generated by franchise fees, ticket sales, refreshment sales, and sponsors. The franchise fees and 20% of ticket sales would go to a Commissioner and league expenses.

The Commissioner would be in charge of running and promoting the league. The Commissioner would also have complete authority over the league for the first two years, after which the owners would take over and have hiring and firing power over the Commissioner. The income that does not go to the Commissioner would be split 50-50 between the owners and the players. During the first two years, the owners could fire the Commissioner with a 3/4 vote; afterwards, it would only require a 2/3 vote.