April 20, 2026

Tip of the Week
Push with Purpose and Placement.

Since Jan. 17, 2011, I’ve done 750 Tips of the Week, with one going up every Monday. But I’m all tipped out! I may start up again later, but starting today I’m rerunning the early ones – some of them are my best ones. It also means I now have another 150 tips for the fifth (and likely last) book in the Tips series, “Even Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips” – see segment below.

My Two Upcoming Table Tennis Books


[CLICK on images for larger version.]

=>MAY 1: “Even Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips.” This is the fifth and likely final book in my “Tips” series, 160 pages, with another 150 Tips of the Week put together in logical fashion. Here are the previous four:

=>JUNE 1: “Ping-Pong Paddles Can’t Talk!” This is a humorous Seussian rhyming children’s picture book that introduces table tennis to kids. It features a nervous boy and his talking paddle in their first tournament, where he meets and plays a girl who is really good, and they have an adventurous match. Along the way, kids learn about the sport, with themes on facing your fears, working toward a goal, honesty, and friendship. 80 pages. 

Weekend Coaching
Another week, another distribution of rating points. Kids, especially their first two years or so, often gain hundreds of rating points per year, so that might mean 5-10 points per week. As a coach, I feel like Santa Claus with a sack of rating points over my shoulder, tossing them out to the players each week as they train. :) In my Saturday sessions, the focus was mostly on three things:

  • Down the line shots. On the forehand side this means rotating back a bit more and taking the ball slightly later in relation to the body, roughly in front of the right leg (for righties). When positioned correctly, it’s natural; when not positioned correctly, it’s an awkward shot as the player twists about trying to get the ball to go down the line. On the backhand side it’s important to face the direction you are hitting when doing a backhand, although on simple blocks you can change directions without doing so. However, on both forehand and backhand, you can wait until the last second before rotating shoulders back (for forehand) or facing the direction of the shot (for backhand) so you don’t telegraph the direction to the opponent, and in fact by doing so you can misdirect opponents and catch them going the wrong way.
  • Faster forehand-backhand footwork. The most basic foot drills are simple side-to-side ones. Perhaps the most important is the simple forehand-backhand drill, where you play forehand from forehand side, backhand from backhand side, side to side. All the kids do this a lot, so the emphasis this time was on speed. We did it faster and faster as I kept telling them they can’t possibly do it this fast. (Of course, that just gave them more incentive.)
  • Pushing. I mostly worked with two beginners on this. Like most, they picked up backhand pushing quickly. The forehand push is always trickier to learn until they understand it’s no different than the backhand, once they understand they need to have their playing elbow forward for the shots. They do this naturally on the backhand, but for forehand pushing players tend to keep the elbow back, which makes the shot awkward. Instead, put the elbow forward, and then you can move the arm from the elbow left or right equally for backhand or forehand pushes.

Across the Net: A Story of Ping Pong and Friendship
(I put this up late last week, so am rerunning it here.)
Here’s the video (12 min) - CGTN America did a feature on my co-coach Cheng Yinghua at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. Cheng was a member of the Chinese National Team, and then 4-time US Men’s Singles Champion, 2-time US Open Men’s Singles Champion, and a member of the 2000 US Olympic Team. (I’m interviewed multiple times in the video. Over half of the pictures of Cheng they used were also from my files. CGTN America is China Global Television Network America.)

Major League Table Tennis

New from NCTTA

Great News: Texas Table Tennis Upcoming Head Coach Koji Itagaki
Here’s the news item.

Butterfly Training Tips

Short Short Strategies That Quietly Win You Points
Here’s the video (12:12) from Andreas Levenko. Lots of great takeaways in this video, but here are two. First, when he forehand flips, notice how he brings his wrist back? This not only allows wrist in the flip, but makes it look like he’s going down the line – and then, at the last second, he can go either way. Second, early on he says something you should always remember: “Train the same way as if we are playing a match.”

Video Coaching from PingSkills
Here’s the info page. Film up to 30 seconds of your stroke, and receive their expert feedback for FREE.

New from the Table Tennis Teaching Channel

PechPong Competes in Stockholm 2026
Here’s the video (20:52) as Seth Pech gives his usual analysis.

Are You Regularly Losing Matches Where You Have the Lead?
Here’s video (1:29) from Heming Hu on how to prevent this.

We Keep Losing Deciding Games. How Can We Start Winning?
Here’s the article from Tom Lodziak.

Disguising Your Sidespin Serves
Here’s the video (3:57) from Acceleraq where Dutch National Team Member, Milo de Boer shows two different sidespin serves.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from USATT

New from ITTF

Tennis Players Playing Ping Pong… and They’re Actually Good
Here’s the video (917) – “In this video, you’ll see some of the best tennis players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner playing table tennis.”

If Table Tennis Equipment Started Talking
Here’s the video (32 sec) – it’s apparently in Hindi so I have no idea what they are saying, but the talking equipment is hilarious! According to Google Translate, the caption at the bottom says, “If table tennis equipment started talking to each other, this is what would happen!”

POV: You Are the Ping Pong Ball Between Tom and Jerry at ITTF World Cup 2026
Here’s the video (6:52). Some of it is silly and the AI does some silly stuff, but it has some funny moments.

Spookiz - Extreme Pingpong Challenge! 
Here’s the cartoon (34:09, but the table tennis is in the first 3.5 minutes).

How Many Attempts?
Here’s video (11 sec) of three incredible trick shots from Pingpongmaestros – and how many attempts it took to do it!

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