Warm-up Partners

With the Nationals coming up, perhaps I should mention the importance of a good warm-up at the start of a tournament? Many players just show up and hope they find someone to hit with. I always tell my students to arrange in advance who they'll hit with and when. (At big tournaments in big arenas, add "where.") You want someone who's reliable, with solid, consistent shots. This is NOT the time to practice against weird styles and surfaces - sorry! (The time for that is regularly at your club, and before a match with someone like this, if you can get someone similar to warm up with. If there are two long-pips blockers at a tournament, for example, they both become in demand - by whoever is playing the other one.)

You want to get your game warmed up. The best way to do that is to use the same routine you warm up with at your club. What, you don't have a warm-up routine at your club? Better fix that! With experience, you'll know what you need to do to warm up all the shots you'll be using, as well as your feet, serves, and receive.

Now I'm going to tell you about "Black Sunday." (This is my Black Sunday; there are others.) One year at the Teams in Detroit (before it moved to Baltimore in 1998), I had what should have been the tournament of my life. I went in rated just over 2270. On Friday and Saturday I beat just about every one in sight. Playing in the "B" division (where the ratings ranged mostly from about 2200 to 2400), I had only one loss, to a 2500 player. I beat a whole bunch of players from 2250 to 2400, and I think three over 2400. I later calculated that if I had stopped playing after Saturday, I would have been over 2500, which would have been my highest rating ever.

USA Nationals Entrants

This year's Nationals (Las Vegas, Dec. 18-22) has 782 entries, a nice increase over last year's near-record low of 502 in Virginia Beach. In actuality, the numbers last year were a bit higher than 502 since that number, taken from the online ratings database, doesn't include players who entered only doubles, hardbat, or sandpaper events. So they probably had closer to 550 last year - but that's still the lowest number ever for a USA Nationals since the 1980s.

What do these numbers say about location, location, location? But the numbers are also a bit higher than the Nationals in Las Vegas two years ago, which had 686 (again, players in rated events only). We still have a ways to go to return to the heydays of 2005 and 2006, which had 829 and 837 players in rated events.

Here's a chart showing the number of entries in rated events at the Nationals every year from 1994-2011. I have not included the 2012 figures yet because they include all entries. When the tournament is processed and the number of players in rated events is known, it'll be a bit lower than 782, almost for certain under 750. We'll see. (While we're at it, here's a chart showing the number of entries in the U.S. Open, 1994-2012.)

How many players only enter in doubles, hardbat, or sandpaper? This year's U.S. Open had 611 total entries, but only 564 in rated events. So 47 played only doubles, hardbat, or sandpaper, about 7.7% of the total. Based on that, of the 782 entries in this year's Nationals, about 60 will only play doubles, hardbat, or sandpaper, leaving about 722 in rated events.

Don't Bother Me!!! (Temporarily)

Anyone bothering me for anything time- or mind-consuming between now and Saturday, all I can say is HAH!!! I'm involved in a top-secret coaching operation that will take up all my time the next few days.

Backspin Serves

I was asked the following question on the forum, and decided to respond here. "Slim Dragon" wrote:

Dear Coach,

I have read several of your tips on how to generate heavy spin on underspin serves. I prefer to open up against pushes, so really want to develop this arsenal. Having watched several pro serve videos and teaching guides from pingskills to tabletennis masters to dynamic tabletennis, what I remain uncertain about is the ideal form, as all pros seem to have an individual form when executing various serves.

Having watched Waldner's serves recently, I notice that he makes contact with the ball with his forearm usually horizontal to his right breast, which seems to give his forearm a horizontal axes with the wrist snapping at the end of the motion. His racket tip normally ends up just under his right breast. In the past, my racket tip has ended up in the middle of my stomach, meaning my forearm is more diagonal than horizontal.

My first question is, what forearm placement is likely to result in the best grazing effect?

Secondly, is it imperative to contact the ball as close to the bottom as possible to maximize underspin?

Lastly, how can you properly assess whether you are generating good underspin? In the past, I thought it was necessary to make the ball rotate back towards the net as an indication of a good underspin serve, but I note in another forum question that that is mainly a trick serve.

Thanks for your consideration.

The examples I refer to can be seen from about 0.15 to 0.35 in this video link.

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers Update

The page layouts are done! Well, mostly. I still don't have the front and back covers, and I need to do a lot of proofing of the layouts. The book is 240 pages, with 76 photos/illustrations, and 99,425 words. Due to the upcoming Nationals (I leave for Las Vegas on Monday), I probably won't get much more done this week - lots of coaching activities over the next six days. If all goes well, the book will be out by the end of January.

I did the final three segments in the book yesterday, giving more examples of tactics used in actual matches. They include:

• A player fell behind 0-2 in games because the opponent looped his deep serves, and either dropped short or quick-pushed at an angle his short backspin serves to the forehand or backhand. The solution? Short no-spin serves to the middle, which take away most of the angles and are difficult to push short.
• A match won by simplifying a strong but erratic backhand loop by deciding to go relentlessly crosscourt, even though shots to the middle and forehand gave the opponent trouble, as well as a late-match change to short receive, which hadn't worked earlier, but did now for reasons explained in the text;
• Turning a crosscourt 2500 monster into a down-the line 2200 mouse (and focusing on looping any slightly long serve, mostly down the line) leads to upsetting the top seed and making the U.S. National Cadet Team.
• A player spends a week working on a specific doubles serve, which leads to winning a doubles title.
• When paired with a two-winged ripper, a player learns to play control to set up his partner and win a major doubles title.

Note that none of these are complicated tactics. Tactics isn’t about finding complex strategies to defeat an opponent; tactics is about sifting through all the zillions of possible tactics and finding a few simple ones that work

Tip of the Week

Body Movement During the Forehand Loop.

Marty Reisman, Feb. 1, 1930 - Dec. 7, 2012

The great showman of the hardbat age, as well as in the sponge age (but always with hardbat or sandpaper), died on Friday at age 82. The sport will never be the same.

Breaking News - Marty Reisman Passes Away

(Added Friday afternoon)  He will be missed. 

Warming Up

When players warm up at a club or tournament, they invariably start out by hitting forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand. And there's nothing wrong with that as it gets the timing going while loosening the muscles a bit. However, often they do this for a long time. There's no reason to do this more than a few minutes. Instead, after about two minutes, why not do some footwork, which will really get you warmed up?

If you are just warming up, then 1-1 footwork is plenty. Your partner hits the ball alternately to your forehand and the middle of the table, and you move side to side, hitting (or looping) your forehand. You'll find moving and hitting not only is more like what you'll do in a game, it'll get you warmed up much faster.

Some will argue that it'll also tire them out quicker. Then hit less! What's better, spending 30 minutes trying to get warmed up, or getting a better warm-up in 15? But it's not that tiring since half the time your partner will be doing the footwork. That's where you not only rest, but work on your ball control. You'll get more practice on that hitting side to side then repetitively hitting to one spot.

Video Analysis

On Tuesday I did a video analysis for a top USA junior player. I've been doing this for $150, but I just raised the price to $200 - it just takes too long to make it worth the time otherwise. This one took over six and a half hours, and ran 18 pages (single spaced in Times Roman 12 point) and 8653 words, my longest one to date. (I'm not doing any more until January - too busy.) The one I did yesterday covered seven games against four opponents, plus video of him practicing. (One of the games he played ended 25-23!!! Yes, in a game to 11.) Here's my video analysis page, which includes two samples of ones I've done.

I break my video analysis into four parts:

1. Point-by-point analysis of several games or matches.
2. Analysis of the games, both on how the player can improve and tactical suggestions against that player.
3. Player analysis, where I analyze the player's game and what he needs to work on to improve.
4. Drilling suggestions, where I describe drills for this player.

When I do the point-by-point analysis (the most time consuming part), I write about what happened in every point, usually watching each point 2-3 times. Then I go over those notes to analyze the match itself. Then I go over each match analysis to analyze the player's game, and work out what drills he needs to work on.

In the one I did yesterday, some of the things I found (and gave recommendations on how to improve) included:

Table Tennis Robots

It's that time of year again - time to buy table tennis player table tennis stuff for Christmas! And what better table tennis present than a table tennis robot? Below are some videos describing the various robots that are out there. (You can also buy Butterfly and Newgy robots from Maryland Table Tennis Center - contact Wen Hsu.)

There are basically two types of robots - programmable and non-programmable. Programmable ones cost a lot more, but are a lot more valuable. They allow you set the robot to go side to side, for example, putting the ball alternately in two spots. Or perhaps two to one spot, then one to another. Or just about any other combination. Some can even give backspin and then topspin. With these robots, you can do just about anything.

Non-programmable robots are fun, and good for basic training. They generally can only hit the ball to either one spot, or randomly. I think some may be able to go to two spots - if so, get that one, so you can do side-to-side drills. But you can also do footwork drills with the ball going to one spot. For example, put the ball to your backhand, and alternate backhands and forehands.

You can also have a non-programmable robot hit the ball randomly all over the table by having it oscillate. However, I don't value that too much. In table tennis, you react to the ball coming off the opponent's paddle. Here you have to react to the ball coming out of the robot, which is quite different - and so you could actually develop the habit of hesitating in a real game, where instead of reacting quickly to the direction of an opponent's stroke, you hold back and don't react until you actually see the ball coming at you. So I find robots best when doing more rote drills, where you practice the strokes and footwork, and do the random and more game-type drills with a practice partner or coach.

Full-Time Clubs

The biggest change in the game over the past six years or so is the rise of the full-time table tennis club. There were about ten in December 2006 when I did a presentation to USA Table Tennis, trying to convince them to get into the business of recruiting and training of coaches and directors to set up such centers and junior training programs. (Nothing came of that - two board members literally laughed at the idea. I blogged about this on January 4, 2012 while writing about "USA Cadet Depth.") Anyway, since then the number of full-time clubs has skyrocketed as coaches see how others doing them so successfully. Here's my current list of 56 full-time table tennis clubs in the USA.

The biggest stumbling block for those who are setting up these centers is that there is no manual on how to do it. Each time they have to re-invent the wheel. It's not quite that bad - they can see others doing it successfully, and so know it can be done, and they have others to ask advice on how to do it. I don't have time to put one together. (I do way too many volunteer activities already.)

Tip of the Week

The Backhand Loop and Hit One-Two Punch.

Time-Wasting Stuff

This last month I've had so many things to do, and so many didn't get done because of too much time-wasting stuff. This has had a detrimental effect on finalizing my new book Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers (which should be done before the Nationals, but I probably won't have copies there), doing some video coaching and analysis, and various MDTTC and other table tennis activities. Here are some of the things that have wasted my time the past few weeks.