The Final Dusseldorf Series Event: Qiu Wins Today and Takes the Series Title

August 23, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) The 10th and final men’s Masters event concluded over the weekend. The winner, Germany’s Dan Qiu, his second series title. This week, the four seeded players were Franziska, Duda, Assar, and Qiu. Unlike many of the past events, play did not proceed as expected. The top three seeds were all eliminated in […]

USATT’s Thursday Night Live Series: Jennifer Wu puts Nittaku on the Board

August 20, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) USA Table Tennis conducted its fourth Challenge Series event on Thursday. This week, “America’s First Virtual Table Tennis Challenge” matched Jennifer Wu (2473) for Team Nittaku against Tahl Leibovitz (2457) for Team Butterfly. Table tennis is one of the few sports where men and women compete against each other in major tournaments […]

100th Anniversary of the Birth of Hikosuke Tamasu – The founder of Butterfly

August 20, 2020

Hikosuke Tamasu was born exactly one hundred years ago on August 20, 1920, in Yanai, Japan, as the eldest son of the Tamasu family. Hikosuke began to devote himself to table tennis, a sport for which there were few competitors at the time. Later, as he further honed his skills, he won prizes in all […]

PINGPOD featured on Balitang America

August 12, 2020

(Courtesy of Balitang America) PINGPOD: FIL-AM ENTREPRENEUR’S INNOVATIVE WAY TO MAKE TABLE TENNIS SAFE TO ENJOY AMID PANDEMIC NEW YORK — With social distancing in mind, PingPod is also the future of table tennis. PingPod co-founder and chief product officer, Ernesto Ebuen, said PingPod is the world’s first network of autonomous table tennis pods. Each “pod” is fully run […]

Take Table Tennis Photos Like a Pro

August 9, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) In this week’s PongNow interview, USATT’s Photo Historian Mal Anderson shared some tips on how to take the perfect table tennis photo. A two minute segment of that interview is posted below (click here for the full PongNow interview ). This article collects tips and tricks from Mal Anderson, Truong Tu, and […]

More NBA (table tennis) Updates

August 5, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) The NBA restart is underway, and table tennis side games continue. Most recently, fans were treated to photos of Dallas Mavericks Luka Doncic and Boban Marjanovic (photo above) making a full size table look really, really small. Not to be outdone, the Utah Jazz posted photos of their team table tennis […]

BUTTERFLY FAVORITES: Hitoshi Ueda Forehand Touch Serve Returns

July 31, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) This is a recent video posted by Japanese player Hitoshi Ueda. It shows two techniques for forehand short serve returns. *I am sure there is a lot of great commentary that I am missing (with my language barrier), but the instruction is pretty straight forward (visually) in the video. Arrows and repetition […]

BUTTERFLY FAVORITES: Anton Kallberg’s 10 Best Bundesliga Points

July 28, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) This is a 2019 video posted by Tischtennis Bundesliga. It is a Top 10 list of Anton Kallberg’s best points in the German Bundesliga. Kallberg is World No. 57 and he plays for perennial power Borussia Dusseldorf along with Timo Boll, Sharath Kamal Achanta and Krystian Karlsson. Kallberg has great technique and […]

Mai Sweeps Vietnam National Women’s Titles

July 25, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) Coverage from Vietnam – as we continue to try to provide current competitive table tennis for our community. This video comes from Phong Pham, an ITTF Level 2 coach in Vietnam. The video shows the 2020 Vietnam Women’s Singles Final from their National Championships which were held a week ago. The winner […]

Dusseldorf VII: Video Highlights

July 23, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins, photo by ITTFWorld) When Dang Qiu won the Seventh installment of the Dusseldorf Masters Series, he joined a strong list of winners including Timo Boll, Ovtcharov (twice), Duda, and Steger. This was the seventh event (6 were men’s events and 1 was a female event). The biggest story through the Semifinals was […]