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Table tennis has 4 problems: 1) If you do not start playing seriously from a young age, reaching a decent (2600) playing level is impossible. Even at 2600 a serious professional will make you look like an idiot when you play them. 2) The sport is too expensive. $25/hr for table time...

Festus Ayinde from Nigeria did this in the 80s. I assume other players did it as well back then but it just wasn't as popular. Maybe it was harder with the 38mm ball.

Most pro players coming from overseas to the USA know this is a death sentence for their game. They can coach and make money. Practicing seriously is out of the question. And to the surprise of many, practicing 3 hours a day is not practicing seriously for a professional player. People can...

If you aren't on a team and getting paid for your results, then how you play is up to you. You say you have fun chopping and it is what you like to do, then do it. If you want to maximize your ability to beat other people, then you might want to change styles. But you said you have fun...

Am I reading this correctly? The guy is 19 and retiring from the 2nd national team to go to the Beijing University of PE? Why? Unless he is injured and cannot compete anymore, he could play tournaments and earn a decent living in China. I know people in China who "attended" sports...

Do not buy a powerpong. Mine broke after only 2 weeks of use and they wanted a lot of money to have it fixed. It is completely ridiculous. Also the customer service is very lacking. Butterfly is an established entity and I would assume things would go a lot more smoothly with them. I regret...

Be careful buying the Powerpong. I paid a lot for extra faster shipping (3 days) and mine arrived 12 days later. When I complained they explained it wasn't their fault but wasn't offered a refund for my shipping. After about 20 days of use, it broke. I have to pay over $200 to have it fixed...

Does anyone else think Xu Xin is injured in his left leg? It looked to me like he was afraid to put all his weight on it and push off.

I think the rating system in the US is very problematic. You can get readjusted or not readjusted arbitrarily. If you have no rating and play one match and lose, you are assigned a rating of the player you lost to minus 10 points. So if someone off the street played Kanak Jha and lost 11-0...

Tahl's opponent (Xi Sheng) is rated close to 2800 and the only reason he is rated that low is that he didn't play enough in the USA when he was visiting here. He was undefeated during his stay. He played for the Hubei team in the Chinese national championships which placed 3rd: He even won...

That blade handle looks awesome!

Amen! I am currently watching a player, who was formerly ranked top 5 in the world, coach their young child. They mainly feed multi-ball and say very, very little. Kids don't have a lot of control over their bodies and just naturally find the best ways to do things for their body type. The...

Can someone explain the Yoo Nam Kyu resignation to me? It sounds like he wanted to determine the Olympic team through many (infinite?) competitions and someone recorded him? What? And he got into trouble?????

I watched the video and think that it can be useful for a lot of players. There are 10,000,000 ways to hit the ball and what is optimal for you might not be the optimal motion predicted by physics or math. Even if your motion is optimized using physics, how much better is it and can you...

It happens to Wang Chen all the time in the USA. So much so that she has basically abandoned the serve and now uses the shovel serve when she plays.

If the ball is long force yourself to loop, even if you miss. You will probably lose a lot in the short term but eventually beat these people after some time. You can also vary the spin by pushing heavy then pushing no-spin. This can force the opponent to miss as reading spin is not easy...

Even in the video he said he was hanging out in the club a lot from ages 8 to 14 and already the number one (I guess junior) player in Rio when he was 13. Who knows if he had any experience playing before that? If you are serious about your goal, you need to play 6 hours a day minimum and...

One thing I would want to ask Ovtcharov is how he does his backhand push. Why does he do it that way? Many pros try to just push with their forehands but Ovtcharov seems to have no problem pushing with the backhand and his technique is a bit different than other pros.

Great Video! I think it is really valuable to hear the pros talk about what they think about when they play and listening to the advice they give.

This question is hard to answer. Years ago, it was thought that players peaked when they were young in their early 20s. With the success of Timo Boll and some others, some players are playing extremely well close to 40. I think a lot depends on the player's style and their ability to stay...