Tuesday - No Blog
I have a bunch of work being done on my house early on Tuesday morning, and a horde of things on my todo list to get done before I go out of town Thursday morning for 3.5 weeks. So no blog on Tuesday. See you on Wednesday! That, alas, will be my last blog for 3.5 weeks, where I'll be at a family gathering for three days in Eugene, OR; and then three weeks in Las Vegas - the World Veterans (one week); a one-week writing/reading "vacation" (though I'll also be helping to run a 3-day mini-camp before the Nationals); and then the USA Nationals.

Tip of the Week
How to Make Your Strengths Stronger with Serve and Receive.

What Makes Tomokazu Harimoto So Good
The Japanese whiz kid won't turn 15 until June 27, and yet he just won the Japan Open as a 14-year-old. This wasn't his first Pro Tour win - he won the Czech Open last year two months after turning 14. But that time he beat Hugo Calderano of Brazil in the semifinals and Timo Boll of Germany in the final. While beating Boll was an incredible victory for Harimoto, this one just seemed different as he beat world #2 (and really, the best player in the world) Ma Long in the quarterfinals, world #8 Lee Sangsu in the semifinals, and in the final won 13-11 in the seventh against Zhang Jike, who seems nearly back to his old form. (See segment below on Japan Open for more info.)

Ma Long Forehand Loop
Here's a new ITTF video (56 sec) showing the world's best (though technically ranked #2) in real time and slow motion! Let's take a look at it, piece by piece. I'm including four still images from the video. (Note that when I say power, that means both speed and spin.)

BACKSWING. Let's jump to eight seconds in, where they show his backswing in slow motion. Key points:

Timo Boll Hand Switch at 2018 China Open - Revisited
Here's the video (45 sec), which I posted on Tuesday, of the point between Timo Boll of Germany (world #4) and Liang Jingkun of China, world #82. Let's look at it shot by shot. (Use the space bar to start/stop the action, and the left arrow to bring the video back 5 seconds - at least that's what it does on mine.) Note that Liang will end up pulling off the upset, -5,9,10,-7,-4,9,5. At the time of this point, Boll is up 3-2 in games but Liang leads 9-5, and 9-6 after this point. 

Waldner 2018
Many, perhaps most, consider Jan-Ove Waldner the greatest player of all time. I've never played him, but I've met and talked to him many times, even had lunch with him and other top Swedes when I interviewed them for an article. What would happen if he were in his prime today?

There's no way of making a perfect comparison. For one thing, Waldner played nearly his entire career with a 38mm ball, while we now use 40mm. Equipment has also gotten better. (Hidden serves are now "illegal," but it isn't really enforced, so that part won't affect him. Games to 11 instead of 21 won't make much of a difference.) So how would he do? Keep in mind that nearly always the next generation is "better" than the previous generation, with better techniques, better training, and better equipment. Only a true phenom like Waldner could hope to compete with players a couple generations later. (Of course, if Waldner were to have developed in modern times, he'd have access to these better techniques, training, and equipment, but we're going to look at him as he actually was, not as he might have been.) 

First, note that "greatest" is not the same as "best." Victor Barna is one of the greatest players of all time - he won Men's Singles at the Worlds five times. But I'm pretty sure that if I could go back in time when I was at my peak and play him when he was at his peak, using the rules at the time, I'd beat him easily, since I'll using Tenergy and throwing loops and serves at him that he's never seen before, and he'll be stuck with a hardbat. Similarly, the best modern swimmers are all faster than Mark Spitz, but he won seven gold medals at one Olympics, setting a world record in each of them. The best modern swimmers are better than Spitz, but Spitz was greater than all of the ones not named Phelps or Ledecky.

Tip of the Week
Footwork at Different Physical Levels.

Maryland State Championships . . . and Waldner
They were held this past weekend. My write-up (along with links to photos) is up at the USATT News site and the Butterfly News site - take your pick! The Butterfly one features a picture of the Under 4000 Doubles Finalists - and those two little 9-year-olds in the middle, Mu Du and Stanley Hsu, made it to the final, losing 15-13 in the fifth. They are rated 1789 and 1976! (Read about their exploits in the tournament article.) USATT featured the Open Doubles finalists, with Lidney Castro/Martin Jezo the winners over Jeffrey Zeng/Wang Qingliang.

Here are the ratings from the tournament, which went up yesterday.  And in case you missed it from my mini-blog yesterday, here was the Point of the Tournament (55 sec), from the Men's Singles final between Lidney Castro and Wang Qingliang, care of PongMobile - the foremost way to view ratings!

When I got up this morning the power was out - I have no idea why. It didn't come on until about 9AM. I'll have the blog up by 10:30AM,and if I don't, I'll just pardon myself. Meanwhile, the Tip of the Week is up - Footwork at Different Physical Levels. So why not stand up and do some table tennis footwork practice, away from the table without a ball? That'll wake you up faster than coffee!!!

Maryland State Championships
I'm still recovering from two consecutive 15-hour days running the tournament (98 players), and the huge hours before setting it up (with a record number of emails and phone call queries), and as I normally do after tournaments, will take today off from blogging. Alas, it won't be a day off - I have to finish the tournament write-up, photo work, press release, and accounting, plus finalize the June MDTTC Newsletter with all the tournament info. Here are the results of the tournament. And here is the Point of the Tournament (55 sec), from the Men's Singles final between Lidney Castro and Wang Qingliang, care of PongMobile (the foremost way to view ratings!). For your further TT reading and viewing, USATT put up a number of news items over the weekend. And perhaps this is a good time to rewatch The Ping-Pong Song (3:40, from 2009)!

Serve & Receive Tactics Seminar
The Serve & Receive Tactics Seminar was a big success. We had 23 players ranging from beginners to 2000. Here's a group picture. (Several players left before we did the picture at the end.) We raised exactly $400 to help send our coaches to the Nationals to coach the 16 MDTTC junior players going. Here's the funding page, which currently shows $14,175 of the $15,500 goal, but the $400 hasn't been added as of this writing. (It'll probably go up later today.) So we're now just $925 short of the goal. Why not pitch in? From the funding page, "We're raising $15,500 to bring the coaches that work with the kids all year to the tournament to ensure that our young athletes have the support they need to succeed in the sport they love. They will create a training camp for the kids before the tournament and coach them during the tournament."

The seminar went a little longer than expected. We started at 8 PM. Originally I planned 30 minutes on serve tactics, 30 minutes on receive tactics, and 30 minutes table practice where I'd walk around and coach, and we'd be done at 9:30 PM. But the serve tactics part took 45 minutes, partly because of lots of questions, but also because there's a lot of material. The receive part took 25 minutes, finishing at 9:10, but then we had lots and lots of questions, so we didn't get to the tables until 9:25 PM. For the majority who could stay late we went until 10PM, even though it was scheduled to finish at 9:30PM. Special thanks to Wen Hsu, who collected the money and also stayed late to help out.  Here was the list of topics covered:

SERVE TACTICS

Coaching and Public Speaking
As noted in segment below, I'm running a 90-minute Serve & Receive Tactics Seminar at MDTTC tonight, 8:00-9:30PM. With 19 players already signed up, we'll likely have well over 20. The flyer lists eight serve and eight receive topics I'll be covering. 

How am I preparing for it? Many years ago I would have practiced like crazy, and put together a one-page outline. And that's how I recommend most coaches do it. However, I've been coaching for four decades, and have written extensively on these topics, including Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, and putting together an outline for this would be like creating an outline for tying your shoes. I've been over this material so many times that the only outline I might need is what NOT to cover so as to cover everything in about an hour (including interactive demos), leaving the last 30 minutes for table practice. I've always considered tactics, serving, and receiving my strongest coaching strength, and here they are all together.

The game has changed a lot since I started playing in 1976, and like any coach who wishes to be successful, I've closely followed the changes in our sport, in particular how tactics, serve, and receive have changed. Probably the biggest change has been the growing dominance of the backhand banana flip. 

Changes I Wouldn't Mind Seeing Tested
We're so used to the way table tennis is played that many are resistant to any change. And there's a good argument for that - why would we want to change the sport we already love? But let's open our minds and consider testing a few - and the key word is test.