At the club level, long and slow serves are easily attacked with strong loops.  World class players also serve long sometimes, HOWEVER, their long serves are very fast as a surprise and well placed.  Watch this short video demonstrating various serves.  Notice how fast the long serves are.  

I was playing an event at the US Open. I already lost my first two matches. I knew regardless if I had won or lost that match I would not have advanced. This was in the under 2250. In this event, I was playing a match where I was down 2-0 and 8-0 in the 3rd game.  I gave up and lost.
 

Hello to all Samson Dubina Table Tennis Academy Members,
 
The Academy is hosting an ITTF-PPT Level 1 Coaching Course from July 28 through August 1st.  The Course will be held at the The House of the Lord Gymnasium  -  1650 Diagonal Rd Akron, Ohio.
There will be 30 hours of instruction given over 5 days with two sessions planned each day, 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm. 
Course Conductor:

 
I had a chance to see, talk to, and learn from some top international and national table tennis players. In this and the next couple of posts, I will share interviews with the experts.

I saw Samson Dubina (#1 player in Ohio and top 20 men in US (over 30)) stretching in preparation for a match and asked him for advise that I thought many of us could use.
 

I receive frequent e-mails with questions regarding weekend group clinics.  In the article, I’m going to outline the details of my group coaching sessions.

Goal setting is very important in life, school, work, athletics, and many other areas of life.  If you want to train in table tennis with excellent focus and you want to perform well in competition, I would recommend writing out a long-term goal.  Long term generally means 2-10 years from now.  After you have written it out, hang it in your training room for a daily reminder.
 

Your consistency will improve when you are able to focus on the ball as it contacts your racket.  You should watch the ball all the way to contact.  Many players repeatedly say to themselves, “Watch the ball!  Watch the ball!”  However, they still don’t watch the ball until contact.  So how can you train yourself to concentrate more on the contact point? 
 

Competing in tournaments against girls is much different than competing in tournaments against guys.  I have played against many top female players including Shen Yanfei, Wang Chen, Gao Jun, Chiharu Yamazaki, Mo Zhang, Watanabe Yuko, Jiaqi Zhang, and many other Olympic level female players.  There are some general strategies that I have learned from competing against them.
 
Use Different Strategy

 
When an amateur player becomes inconsistent with his backhand loop, he just starts pushing…
 
When an amateur player becomes inconsistent with his forehand smash, he just starts blocking…
 
When an amateur player can’t keep his best serve short, he stops serving it…
 
When an amateur player has a problem, he can’t fix it. 
 
When a professional player encounters an inconsistency in his game, he realizes the problem, and immediately fixes it.