Plan A vs Plan B
 
If you are winning a match, then typically you will keep your tactics while making minor adjustments in your shot selection and giving some variations in your shots.  If you are losing a match, then typically you will need to make more changes.  If the match continues as it started, you will lose.  So, you will need to decide to push yourself to make the necessary changes.
 
What kind of changes need to be made?
 
Plan A Changes

 
 
 
 
 
From the time that Dimitrij Ovtcharov landed in the US, to the time that he finished his last match at the LA Open, he was all business.  The fact that he had won a medal in the Olympics 3 weeks prior did not distract him from being fully focused in his tournament preparation, focused between matches, and fighting during his matches.
 

 
 
 
 
 
You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.  Is it true?
 
Well, I have found that teaching adults new skills isn’t too difficult.  The difficulty comes in changing an old habit.  Changing an awkward grip, changing a stroke, or changing a footwork movement takes time and persistence from both the coach and player.  On the flip side, a new serve or a new serve return technique or a new looping variation can be learned fairly quickly for these same players.
 

 
 
 
Many parents have good intentions when coaching their children, but end up in arguing matches during tournaments.  If you are one of those parents, then I would recommend taking statistics and reading the statistics to your child instead of giving them your input on how they are not meeting your expectations.  There are many ways to keep statistics, I’m just going to mention 1 basic way - keeping tract of your child’s mistakes.  Talley up the following mistakes during the game:
 
Forehand Loop against Topspin  
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Two and a half years ago I started playing table tennis, one of the things that was mentioned to me many times is the importance of staying physically fit to a certain degree. Over the course of that time I have played 47 tournaments and would like to share my thoughts on this common topic. This article primarily targets the developing player.
 

 
 
 
Will the US ever become a world superpower in the table tennis world?  Will the US ever have players ranked in the top 10 in the men’s and women’s world ranking list?  Will the US team ever have a chance to win the World Team Championships?
 
The main obstacle is China.  So in this article, I’m going to use China as the main target.  These points listed below are merely speculation and I don’t have any hard proof of these points.
 
#1 Athletes

 
 
 
 
Modern table tennis is predominantly characterized by looping – looping backspin balls, looping topspin balls, looping serves, looping over-the-table, looping blocks, and re-looping loops.  The Chinese national team did a study on various loops.  The study showed that the spiniest loop against backspin tested had about 120 rotations per second.  The spiniest loop against topspin tested had about 130 rotations per second.  
 

 
 
 
Here is an e-mail that I recently wrote to one of my students.  I hope that maybe you too can learn from this lesson...
 
 
 
Dear Student,
You made a comment during our lesson last week, and I just wanted to make a short clarification.  If I remember correctly, you said, “Samson, you coach like you play.” Referring to being strict with precisely which balls must be played short, which balls must be looped, which balls must be powered, which balls must be placed to certain locations…   in a ridged framework.

 
 
 
 
During my years of coaching, the #1 question that players ask is in regard to the correct racket angle when looping.  Having the correct racket angle for each particular stroke is important.  However, there are many many many factors that need to be calculated within a split second to adjust your racket angle to properly loop the ball.
 
#1 The height of the incoming ball
#2 The depth of the incoming ball
#3 The speed of the incoming ball
#4 The type and amount of spin on the incoming ball