A TTD Meeting 2.5 Years in the Making

[Matt Hetherington]

Hi Everyone

Thought I'd share a little story. I joined TTDaily right near it's beginnings and have had many fun moments in the forum and made many new friends. Carl Horowitz was one guy who stuck with the forum for most of its days and we have had some great times here.

WELL

Most recently, I headed to the USA and had the chance to meet up with Carl and it was really awesome. We had a hit around (I showed Carl my trickshot onto the edge just to prove my legitimacy haha) and played a match, I'll leave you guys to try and guess who won the match.

It was awesome to meet Carl in person finally and a unique experience made possibly by a great forum which created a great group of friends from its beginnings. So thanks Carl for coming to see me and to TTDaily for making this possible

 

[ttmonster]

and now we await Carl's version ........... ...... but seriously this is a great forum that has brought together table tennis aficionados from all over the world. Kudos to Dan and all the forum members for being such a wonderful bunch !!! Its always been a pleasure to read and participate in the posts here .......

 

[Dan]

This is so cool! I cannot wait to meet you guys and get pictures like this. Like ttmonster said your all amazing here great posts, great community. I thank you all for this.

I hope it was a fun match and no bats were thrown

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy

 

[ttmonster]

I hope it was a fun match and no bats were thrown

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy

If Matt would have thrown bats, Carl would have taught him some cool Yoga moves to keep his temper in check

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Now why did I only join this forum recently........

Never the less - I agree, we need a big group photo one day

 

[Persistence TT]

I bet Matt won he trains very often as far as I know. Hope you enjoy dudes !

 

[Der_Echte]

TTF... I would bet (and win) lunch on that, but let's wait for official write-up.

 

[Der_Echte]

Carl is no slouch and knows a lot and can back it up, so even more so is Matt.

TT forums really facilitate this stuff.

This was practically unheard of a couple decades ago.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Okay. First, this was so totally fun hanging out with Matt, hitting with Matt, goofing around, looping. Please note, in that photo, you can see that my shirt is definitely covered with sweat. Matt definitely got me to do some running around.

Matt did do his trick shot; several times he got the ball around the net from the backhand side with his forehand with a nice inside-out side spin. And one of those times, he dead-on caught the edge. I'd like to think I set him up well fore it. Hahaha.

Even more impressive to me, he hit this backhand loop that was coming towards the middle of the table and by the time it was a foot and a half past the table it took a right turn and went about 8 feet straight to the right parallel to the back edge of the table. Hahaha. It was a thing of beauty.

We also went out to eat sushi after playing. We were joined by a whole cast of characters including Judy and Adam Hugh.

As far as the match we played, I can give you a hint who won. His name is Matt.

My USATT rating is 1668. It may be accurate. I don't know. I have only played 2 tournaments and the rating system in the US is not very accurate if you don't play a lot of matches. Matt's official ratting, based on the two tournaments he played in, is 2165. If he plays a few tournaments when he is not severely jet-lagged, or hung over, I think his rating would go up another 100-200 points; perhaps more. (Hint, the two USATT sanctioned tournaments Matt has played in, he was in no shape to play at his actual level). The bottom line is, he is a significantly better player than I am. But we had fun. Perhaps if he played with his right hand or gave me 8 points, I would have a chance.

 

[ttmonster]

Awesome man !! It would have been great to see some videos of you two playing .

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Awesome man !! It would have been great to see some videos of you two playing .

I think you are right. We may have to arrange that next time we hang which should be soon enough.

 

[Persistence TT]

TTF... I would bet (and win) lunch on that, but let's wait for official write-up.

I like chicken with rice or with mushrooms and sauce!

 

[TableTennisDaily]

Okay. First, this was so totally fun hanging out with Matt, hitting with Matt, goofing around, looping. Please note, in that photo, you can see that my shirt is definitely covered with sweat. Matt definitely got me to do some running around.

Matt did do his trick shot; several times he got the ball around the net from the backhand side with his forehand with a nice inside-out side spin. And one of those times, he dead-on caught the edge. I'd like to think I set him up well fore it. Hahaha.

Even more impressive to me, he hit this backhand loop that was coming towards the middle of the table and by the time it was a foot and a half past the table it took a right turn and went about 8 feet straight to the right parallel to the back edge of the table. Hahaha. It was a thing of beauty.

We also went out to eat sushi after playing. We were joined by a whole cast of characters including Judy and Adam Hugh.

As far as the match we played, I can give you a hint who won. His name is Matt.

My USATT rating is 1668. It may be accurate. I don't know. I have only played 2 tournaments and the rating system in the US is not very accurate if you don't play a lot of matches. Matt's official ratting, based on the two tournaments he played in, is 2165. If he plays a few tournaments when he is not severely jet-lagged, or hung over, I think his rating would go up another 100-200 points; perhaps more. (Hint, the two USATT sanctioned tournaments Matt has played in, he was in no shape to play at his actual level). The bottom line is, he is a significantly better player than I am. But we had fun. Perhaps if he played with his right hand or gave me 8 points, I would have a chance.

Haha this is a brilliant write up of the event! The gathering after sounds great to! Quality guys!

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Haha I'm glad you liked my backhand Carl, that's probably one of the better ones I've ripped out, the right angle after the bounce is pretty hard to get haha

I'll see if my rating goes up after Washington this weekend, maybe I'll beat Hao Shuai hahaha

Yep for sure we can meet up and video a match some time