How Many Ping-Pong Balls Can Fit in a Table Tennis Club?
Today's topic is scary. We're talking something that will leave many readers shaking with fear, sweating like David Sakai, and plucking their eyeballs out as they scream, "No! For God's sake, Stop!" Yes, today we're going to use math. (You have my permission to skip the math part and just read the paragraphs that give conclusions.)

How many ping-pong balls can you fit in your table tennis club? It's a simple matter of working out volume with the sphere packing formula. As we all know (after reading the Wikipedia entry I just linked to), as volume goes up and the size of the balls (sphere) goes down, the packing efficiency approaches the following density, which I'll call the Packing constant (P). (Hopefully, in my formulas below, the subscripts and superscripts will come through properly on your browser.) 

P = π/[3x(2)^½] = ~0.74048

So how can we use this?

• Let N_d = number of balls of width d that will fit in your club.
• Let C = volume in cubic inches of your club.
• Let B = volume of the balls in cubic inches.

Then the number of spheres (N) you can fit inside a given volume approaches the following:

N_d = (C/B)xP = maximum number of spheres you can fit inside your club.

To get C, you simply get the volume in cubic inches of your club. This is easy if it is roughly rectangular shaped. (We're using inches and feet here, since I live in archaic America, which hasn't adopted the metric system.) Multiply your club's dimensions in feet – length x width x height – and then multiply by 1728 (number of cubic inches in a cubic foot) to get cubic inches for your club.

Washington Post Reporter and Choppers
The reporter came in yesterday morning. It was a cause of great excitement for the kids. One of them tried to convince the reporter about how he'd floated across the Pacific in a raft with his parents as refugees from China, and that he'd learned to play table tennis with a makeshift table his parents made from a shark, with the net made from shark fins and the ball sculpted from a shark's tooth. (Full disclosure: I came up with the raft story and put the kid up to it. He drew the line at telling the reporter that he was the secret child of Trump and Clinton.) 

The reporter interviewed me for 40 minutes, with a tape recorder and taking notes as well. He followed that with similar interviews with coaches Cheng and Jack. He'll be coming back later in the week with a photographer and to interview our top juniors. Main topics we discussed were: 

No Blog Today
I was busy on USATT work last night from 9PM to 2AM (including a long online discussion on national team issues), and so wasn’t able to do my blog in advance. This morning I’m meeting a Washington Post reporter at the club. So nothing today – but see you tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s a humorous 3-minute video of Bob Costa defeating Kanak Jha on NBC. And here’s what I’ll call “Cow-Light Pong,” though I really have no idea what’s going on. 

Tip of the Week
Shorten Stroke When Receiving.

USATT Stuff
It’s been busy recently. There have been a LOT of questions (and complaints) about the new USATT team selection process for the junior, cadet, and mini-cadet teams, but fortunately that’s mostly going to get taken care of by our CEO, working with our High Performance Director. I’m not going to go into the specific issues here, but I will probably blog about it later on. I’m trying not to get sucked into this one – our CEO and HPD should handle this one.

As I said when I ran for the USATT board, there are two equally important issues that come to the board of directors – fairness issues (such as this one) and progressive issues (which involve developing the sport). Historically, many board members want to work on progressive issues, but get sucked into the fairness issues, and they ended up taking up all of their time. I’m trying not to fall into that trap. I will, of course, get involved in such issues if and when it reaches the board level, but I doubt if that will happen. As I said, both are important, but there are plenty of other board members who can focus on the “fairness” issues (with me involved when necessary), so I can focus on the progressive ones.

New ITTF Coaching Rule – Coaching During a Game
The ITTF has passed a new rule, effective Oct. 1, which allows coaching at any time during a match, except during rallies. This is a huge change from the current rules, where coaches can only coach between games and during a timeout (one per match per player). Here is the actual wording of the rule, from the ITTF Handbook section on Advice:

3.5.1.3: Players may receive advice at any time except during rallies and and between the end of practice and the start of a match; if any authorised person gives advice illegally the umpire shall hold up a yellow card to warn him or her that any further such offence will result in his or her dismissal from the playing area (in effect as of 1st October 2016). 

I’m not going to hold typos against them too much, but this is an international Olympic sport, making a major rule change, and they have that “and and” near the start in the official rules. Didn’t anyone proof the new rule before it went public many months ago? We won’t hold it against them that they use British spelling for “authorised.”) But let’s get to more important matters.

Olympic Coverage
Guess who swept the Olympics once again? But Japan did give the Chinese men a scare. Here’s what happened.

Match #1: Ma Long (CHN) d. Niwa Koki (JPN), 6,9,6. Okay, Niwa made game two interesting, but this match between the world #1 and #22 was never in doubt.

Match #2: Jun Mizutani (JPN) d. Xu Xin (CHN), 10,9,-3,-7,10. Holy moly! Jun went up 2-0. He’s world #6 to Xu’s #3, and Japan’s hopes really rest in him winning both singles matches and somehow scrounging up one other match. But Xu comes back, easily wins games three and four. What the scores don’t show here is that Xu was up 10-7 match point! It was all but over – and then Jun scored five in a row. Poor Xu is going to have lots of explainin’ to do the next time they choose their team. Hello Fan Zhendong (who’s already world #2 after Ma Long).

Match #3: Zhang Jike/Xu Xin (CHN) d. Yoshimura Maharu/Niwa Koki (JPN), -4,6,9,5. When Japan won the first 11-4, things looked REALLY interesting. Xu had just lost in singles, and now, despite being China’s lefty doubles specialist, he was losing in doubles as well, and badly. China won game #2, but game #3 could have gone either way. China pulls it out. If not, this would have forced a game five decider between Jun and Zhang Jike – and that would have been something to watch. But it was not to be because playing for China in the next match was the guy that makes Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt seem like just slightly good athletes…

Match #4: Ma Long (CHN) d. Maharu Yoshimura (JPN), 1,4,4. Do you think Phelps or Bolt can beat their competition that badly? Yoshimura, world #21, is a sacrificial lamb here. His primary purpose here was to try to win the doubles (and he gave it a good go, along with Koki), so that Japan can force that fifth match between Jun and Zhang Jike that we all would have liked to see.

The Ten “Etiquettes” for the High Level Athlete
These are from page 15 of the ITTF Advanced Coaching Manual, which make them at least semi-official. Like the “Ten Commandments” I blogged about yesterday, these have also always irritated me. Also, some of them just don’t make sense due to the poor translations. (As I wrote yesterday, the manual was originally in French and somewhat poorly translated into English.) Here they are, with my comments afterwards.

The Ten “Etiquettes” for the High Level Athlete
(From page 15 of the ITTF Advanced Coaching Manual.)
A self respecting sports teacher has the duty to transmit to the athlete that guiding principles without which the sport would not be what it is today are part of his teaching. The Champion is a sports phenomenon and must therefore set an example for ALL athletes!

1. The first step towards success: good judgment.
2. Any progress goes through trial and error.
3. Losing and Winning belong to any training.
4. Learning lessons from the past means imposing rules for yourself.
5. These rules cannot be built without a philosophical global vision.
6. Competitive sport means pushing your limits further and enjoying your conquest.
7. Nothing is for free: fatigue and efforts are the price to pay to reach that point.
8. Pleasure, self respect and personal satisfaction gained from this conquest are priceless.
9. To reach that point, some traps need to be avoided: challenging profit, uncontrolled aggressiveness, provoked opposition.
10. Sport is a real school of Life.

Let’s look at these one by one.

The Ten Commandments of High Level Sport
I’ve always been slightly irritated at some of these “Commandments.” They are from page 14 of the ITTF Advanced Coaching Manual, which make them at least semi-official. The manual was originally in French and somewhat poorly translated into English, so there might be some problem there. But these are what we publish and teach, with little further explanation. Here they are, with my comments afterwards. (Tomorrow I plan to write about what’s on the next page of the Advanced Coaching Manual - The Ten “Etiquettes” for the High Level Athlete.)

The Ten Commandments of High Level Sport
(from ITTF Advanced Coaching Manual)
Silent laws and rules that everybody follows exist in every social situations High level sport is no exception; it is a special environment which has its own rules of the game. We either accept these rules or they do not accept us. These rules are not written down anywhere, but those who succeed have accepted them and work with them.

Tip of the Week
How to Deal with Nervousness and Play Your Best: Magic, Best Match, Tactics.

Dan Seemiller vs. Larry Hodges
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m hard at work editing Dan Seemiller’s autobiography. It’s got some great stuff! It’ll be out by early September, and you have to buy this. You’ll get to live out the great moments in his career as he won five USA Men’s Singles titles, as well as Men’s Doubles 12 times, plus lots of international play at the Worlds and elsewhere. Plus lots on his playing rivalries with players like Eric Boggan, Sean O’Neill, and others!

But this is my blog, and guess what? As I read about Dan’s playing Career (capitalized) I can’t help but compare it to my own playing career (no caps).

Dan played in the Second Division at the Worlds in 1975, 1977, and 1981, going a combined 66-1, including 26-0 and 22-0 the last two years. I played with a weaker team at the U.S. Open Team Championships in Detroit in 1996 and 1997 (average rating in our division those two years was about 2000), and I went a combined 52-0. That’s always been one of my proudest achievements – Dan himself couldn’t have done better in that division!

My Thoughts on the Men's Gold and Bronze Medal Matches
Last night Ma Long went from being the best in the world to being an all-time great. He now does just about everything a little better than Zhang Jike. Zhang might have a slight edge on the backhand, but it's close. Ma Long has more power and consistency, and is able to rip forehands at will. Every decade or two a player comes along that simply raises the bar higher than anyone before - such as Wang Liqin and Jan-Ove Waldner. Ma Long might be doing that now. He completely dominated the gold medal match.

On the other hand, Zhang Jike simply didn't look as good as he used to be. Are his days near the top of the Chinese team over? He even struggled with Samsonov in the semifinals. I think that Zhang Jike at his best would have played Ma Long somewhat closely, though I do think Ma Long has passed him by and would have been favored, even if Zhang were at his best. I'm betting Fan Zhendong might be slowly moving into the #2 spot on the Chinese team, with Zhang and Xu Xin battling for #3. (And, of course, Fan is already #2 in the world, Xu #3, and Zhang #4 - but much of the time Zhang was winning the biggest titles he wasn't ranked #1 in the world either; he wasn't as good outside the big ones.) 

Did anyone notice how much the players used short receive? Players have so overused backhand banana flipping that servers are just too used to it, and can hang back and attack it. The best players are very good now at mixing in flips and short receives, as well as occasional long pushes. Samsonov sometimes likes to push serves out to the forehand so he can block into the server's backhand. The receive in these matches was almost a throwback to times past when short pushing was king.