Adrian Crisan plays Bastian Steger - glimpses

Here are a few shots of Crisan playing against Bastian Steger in the German League Table Tennis matches:

Ping pong, Table Tennis strategies that you can use on the Table

A Ping Pong or a Table Tennis Strategy is an overall plan on how you must play against a particular opponent under specific conditions. This must not be confused with Ping Pong or Table Tennis tactics, which are much more detailed means of achieving the end goal, which is detailed by the Ping Pong strategy. If you do not go to a match with a strategy, you are battling against yourself.

When you watch World Class players, you probably feel that they are just trying to hit hard all the time, and there is no match strategy. Well, this observation cannot be too far from the truth. It is a well known fact that the Chinese trainers and coaches dissect their opponents' game to such an extent, that a detailed strategy is made sometimes months before an important competition. On the other hand, weaker players watch the top players and they themselves are unknown to the stronger players, which can be an advantage. For example, an almost unknown player, Kiril Skachkov, kept attacking Ma Lin's forehand (which everyone assumed was a huge weapon) with a backhand topspin down the line. Ma Lin could not adjust to this strategy and ended up with an embarrassing loss. This example shows that if you study your opponent's weakness, you can tackle players much stronger than you.

A Ping Pong (formal name of the sport is Table Tennis) strategy must be designed to use your own strengths or advantages, while minimizing deployment of your weaknesses and at the same time, exploit the weaknesses of your opponent. How is this done? Well, have you seen older players effortlessly beat back younger players when they don't even seem to have the right technique? How do they do it? Well, they are devising strategies even when they are warming up against an opponent they've just met. Measuring up the players strength and identifying weaknesses is a learned art for such old or experienced players. They make mental notes and execute them to the T, earning points in a bunch. Even after a match has started, their brain does not stop ticking, and they keep adding points to their mental notebook. The points that experienced players observe are not only technical, but also can be behavioral. For example, is my opponent over-confident? is he nervous? giving too much respect? agitated? The strategy is then deployed and more often than not, success is achieved.

So, how can you come up with your own strategy? Well, this varies a bit from person to person, but here are some hints that you can take in the following areas:

Focus on returning serve well, and only on service practice. Get hold of a trainer or a good server and practice. Try to incorporate the latest technology. For example, the backhand topspin return of services even from the forehand side. For example, Zhang Jike does it persistently. This is not an easy stroke, you need to keep working at it. Other service return methods is quick turn and forehand topspin hits for anything that is likely to come outside the table. Again, this is to be practiced before putting into play more often.

Service Practice - Spend at least 1-2 sessions a week during season and at least one session in 2 weeks during off season serving. Try to add at least one new service every 3-4 months, drop ineffective serves and use successful ones more often. Do not touch your 3-4 core servies though.

Read the spin on the ball well. This is highly underrated and more often than not, the leading cause for losing matches. This weakness is most often found in new players or players who do not train with professional or semi-professional Table Tennis players. It is very common to find players hitting blocks out of the table again and again without getting a clue as to why this is happening. Experienced players know that blocking high spun balls is easy only if the wrist is firm and there is no movement of your hand while making contact with the ball.
To improve reading of spin on the ball, paint the ball in a pattern, which can be observed even when the ball is moving and spinning. Many trainers use this method to teach their young players to spot the spin.

Example: Player A is aggressive, hits excellent 3rd ball attacks, is impatient, does not like to engage in lengthy rallies. His backhand is relatively weak, and he is turning even from his backhand to hit forehand strokes.
Strategy for play by Player B against Player A:

1) Receive Player A's serve deep, blunt out 3rd ball attack as much as possible. If possible, place the return near the net to extreme backhand, where it is suicidal to turn and hit the ball. If Player A does hit such a ball, be fully ready for a block and place it to the far side of Player A's forehand. If Player A does reach the ball, it is likely to be a lob or a pop, easy to finish.
2) Slow down rallies by receiving short, at times, block multiple balls to show your control over his attack (assuming your blocking is good). Try to push the ball 3 to 4 times, by which time, the aggressive Player A is likely to hit a desperate shot more often than not.
3) If you find that you are in good nick on that day (sometimes it shows even in practice while knocking before the match or early in the match), then launch your own attack and put Player A in defensive mode.

Note that the strategy for hardbat or sandpaper Ping Pong differs a bit compared to a faster, pips-in kind of Table Tennis. The spin on the ball in this case is hardly evident in this case. Usually, strategy for hardbat Table Tennis takes a lot of time, which is why you see very old players succeeding and beating younger players handily.

Xu Xin is the World No. 1 Table Tennis player

Charismatic left-handed Chinese Table Tennis player, Xu Xin is the new World No. 1 in Table Tennis. He has leaped places to occupy the pride of place in the January World Table Tennis Ranking list published by ITTF.

Xu won many points by taking the Grand Finals title and also earned handsome bonus points, without which it would not have been possible to overtake the World and Olympic Table Tennis Champion, Zhang Jike. It may be recalled that Xu Xin attended the London Olympics, but only as a P-card holder. His results seemed subdued just before and after the Olympics, probably partly due to the disappointment of not being chosen in the core team (eventually Zhang Jike, Wang Hao, and Ma Long). However, the spectacular event seemed to have done good to his motivation and he is now back in action. Critics attribute his recent success to playing more near the table. He beat veteran Wang Hao in the Grand Finals.

Xu Xin's best performances so far have been the World Tour (formerly called Pro Tour) events, where he has already amassed titles and is closing in on the round number 10. Other than this, he has Gold medals in the Team and Doubles at the World Championship level.

Xu Xin endorses the Stiga brand of Table Tennis equipment and has a couple of impressive videos produced by the company, which you can watch here:


Yes, stylish indeed! He reportedly uses a Stiga Rosewood as his blade and Stiga Calibra LT for his backhand and DHS Neo Skyline TG3 for his forehand.

Xu Xin (was born in Jiangsu, China on January 8, 1990. Although he is just 23 years old, he has spent considerable time in the Chinese squad.

His name in Chinese simplified is 许昕, and traditional 許昕

Here's a tribute by XuXin111 on Youtube:

Indian National Table Tennis Championships at Raipur starts today.

The 74th Senior National Table Tennis Championships start at the Balbir Singh Juneja Indoor Stadium, Raipur. The Championships run from 7 to 12 January 2013.

PSPB and Maharashtra are the top seeds in the Men's and Team events. PSPB will fight hard to get back the Women's title, while it will be a great surprise if anyone is able to even give a semblance of a fight to the PSPB men. The star players will be Poulomi Ghatak, K Shamini, Ankita Das, Madhurika Patkar, Pooja Sahasrabudhe, Divya Deshpande, Mamta Prabhu, Sharath Kamal, A Amalraj, Soumyajit Ghosh, Sanil Shetty, Soumyadeep Roy, G Sathiyan, Subhajit Saha, and Sourav Chakraborty.

Send friend request to "Menas Jagadish" on Facebook and get latest updates.

More news:
http://www.tabletennisbug.com/2013/01/delhi-wins-national-womens-team-table.html
http://www.tabletennisbug.com/2013/01/soumyajit-and-sanil-are-top-seeds-in.html

Ma Lin and Ovtcharov debate midly over an edge point

In the end, Timo Boll deliberately served on the wrong side and gave a point away. In a way, ended the controversy.

This was not a heated argument because it was a friendly match (China vs World). Loved how Timo was smiling throughout. Ma Lin is fiercely competitive even in a friendly, that's how he is and its fantastic too. Ovtcharov was searching for the truth. All in all, personality traits coming out in a single point. Interesting to watch.

Excuse the not so good audio.

Estee Ackerman cannot play Table Tennis on Sabbath

Estee Ackerman vosizneias.com

Religion won over sport when Estee Ackerman refused to play her Table Tennis match on a Friday night. The event was the US Table Tennis Nationals.

The Jewish girl feels that her religion, Judaism is also very important. Estee is ranked fourth in her age group in the US. She aims at winning a medal at the Olympics sometime in the future.

Swansea Table Tennis is on the right path!

Swansea Table Tennis is on an upswing, thanks to a pilot scheme for promotion. Table Tennis sessions were first introduced at Penyrheol Comprehensive School and then rolled across the city after tremendous success. A 5x60 scheme was started, in which kids were encouraged to play at least for an hour (60 minutes) for 5 days in a week. Read more here:

http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=46496

Bollywood Table Tennis

Some Bollywood actors are avid Table Tennis players. Here are some celebrity pictures-

Amitabh Bacchhan

Amitabh on memsaab.com

Arjun Rampal

Chitrangada

Chitrangada photo on gobollywood.com

UK Olympic funding, Table Tennis loses

Table Tennis has lost a bit of support from UK sport as players prepare for the 2016 Olympic games at Rio de Janerio. Other sports that suffered are Basketball and Wrestling. The big gainers in percentage terms were Boxing, and Gymnastics. Rowing received the highest funding followed by Cycling, and Athletics.

Since UK Sport funds athletes who are likely to win medals and there was sharp focus on Table Tennis players' performance, it is not surprisingly that they took this decision. Here's hoping that the younger players prove their detractors wrong, work hard and get into medal contention at least for 2020.

Sunny Deol stays fit with Table Tennis

Sunny Deol, who is struggling recently with injuries, has found an innovative way to stay fit- by playing Table Tennis. Since he needs to avoid heavy weight lifting to avoid any danger to his back, he is indulging in bouts of Ping Pong after his regular gym workout. A special room kitted with all Table Tennis amenities has been set up for him.

It is rumoured that daddy Dharam ji is also a decent badminton and Table Tennis player too.

Here's Shahid Kapoor and Pankaj Kapur also playing Table Tennis. Many Bollywood stars, including Amitabh Bacchhan, Chitrangada Singh, Arjun Rampal, and others play Table Tennis.

Editor