Video of the Day: Ma Long Service Practice

Ma Long doing service practice. Notice how he tries to keep the ball in. Also, he aims at mid forehand and the ball curls into the opponents body.

Sumana Saha and Birdie Boro, the Sub junior Table Tennis National champions at Cochin. Sumana Saha is International Sourav Saha's sister.

Photo courtesy Vipin Chandran for The Hindu

Training to the summit: Ma Lin and Wang Hao climb 100 floors

Climb photo courtesy tabletennista.com and nddaily.com

Many people feel that the Chinese Table Tennis players are dominant and do not understand the hardships they go through. Most of the present day stars including Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, Wang Hao, Zhang Jike, Ma Long and others are already millionaires, but they do not hesitate to put in more and more hard work to reach their goals.

A recent example is the winter training that Liu Guoliang put them through. At Shenzen, Guoliang made Wang Hao and Ma Lin climb one of the tallest buildings - the 100 floor 442 metre high Kingkey tower.

Both the players could not complete the climb in their first attempt, but fiesty as they are, they did it on subsequent attempts and even wore a relaxed smile as they took in the beautiful landscape of Shenzen from the very top.

Akash and Koshani are Cadet National Champs of 2011

Akash Nath and Koshani Nath bagged the Cadet boys and girls titles at the Nationals being held at Kochi beating ZK Gogoi and Selena Deepthi respectively.

Cadet Boys

Final:
Akash Nath (NB) bt ZK Gogoi (NB) 11-9, 11-9, 7-11, 11-4, 11-7

Semifinals:
Akash Nath (NB) bt SFR Snehit (AP) 11-5, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5
ZK Gogoi (NB) ZK Gogoi bt Sarthak Seth (UP) 11-5, 11-9, 11-9, 11-8

Cadet Girls

Final
Koushani Nath (WB) bt Selena Deepthi S (TN) 11-8, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-2

Semifinals
Koushani Nath (WB) bt Priyanka Pareek (Raj) 4-11, 13-11, 11-5, 14-12, 11-6
Selena Deepthi S (TN) bt Varuni Jaiswal (AP) 11-7, 11-7, 11-2, 11-9

North Bengal Boys, Tamil Nadu girls clinch titles at Kochi

North Bengal and Tamil Nadu won the Cadet Boys and Girls team titles at the Cadet and Sub Junior Nationals at Kochi.

CADET BOYS:
North Bengal bt West Bengal 3-0 (Gogoi Z K  bt  Jeet Chandra  9-11, 11-6, 11-9, 6-11, 11-7; Akash Nath  bt Debomitra Chakraborty  11-8, 9-11, 11-3, 7-11, 11-5; Gogoi/Akashnath  bt  Jeetchandra/Debomitra 11-5, 9-11, 11-4, 9-11, 11-9.

CADET GIRLS:
Tamil Nadu bt West Bengal 3-2 (Yashini S   bt  Moumita Dutta  11-1, 11-5, 11-13, 11-3; Selena Deepthi S  bt  Koushani Nath  11-9, 11-7, 11-8; Selena/Yashini  lost to   Koushani/Moumita 6-11, 3-11, 11-8, 7-11; Selena Deepthi  lost to Moumita Dutta 8-11, 5-11, 5-11; Yashini  bt  Koushani Nath  11-4, 16-14, 9-11, 11-8.

Soo Yeon Lee - Super Model and Top Table Tennis Player

Soo Yeon Lee is a Super Model, who has done several fashion assignments including Nike. For Soo, it's not Ping Pong for posing, it's serious Table Tennis. She is a serious Table Tennis player with a USATT rating of 2468 and is associated with Killerspin. It is interesting to see various personalities of different cultures and approaches associated with Table Tennis. Do you Like the glamour that Soo brings to Table Tennis?

Leszek Kucharski starts his coaching stint in India

Leszek Kucharski will start his stint as India's Table Tennis coach. He will train his new wards at Patiala.

Kucharski is a former world class player from Poland and takes over as India's coach after a decent gap. Massimo Constantini's term ended after the Guangzhou Asian Games last year. Anders Johansson had shown interest but backed out at the last minute.

It is rumoured that TTFI is paying a handsome salary to Kucharski.

Justin Bieber plays Ping Pong to ease his mind

Justin is relaxing by playing Ping Pong with his friends and finding support from his girlfriend, which is helping him get his mind off recent controversies.

2011 Maharashtra State Championship Table Tennis at Buldhana

Picture of a resort near at Shegaon near Buldhana

The State Championship TT tournament starts at Buldhana tomorrow. Many stars are participating this time. They include international players such as Sanil Shetty, Aman Balgu, Madhurika Patkar, Divya Deshpande, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe, and many others.

The tournament is expected to provide a lot of excitement to the players and fans in the state and even outside.

Even the junior sections evoke a lot of interested as some talented players prepare to face each other.

Swedish Legend Kjell Johansson passes away

Kjell Johansson, who laid the foundation for the successes that Sweden enjoyed for decades, passed away recently in his native Sweden. 

He was a world champion of Table Tennis, who ended the Chinese monopoly in the early 70s and arguably was one of the main reasons for the birth of a new generation of stars such as Appelgren, Erik Lindh, Jan Ove Waldner, Jorgen Persson and many others.

Johansson was called Hammaren, which means the hammer in Swedish, because of his hard forehand.