Familiar Names Reach Final Four at US Open

December 20, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins) Americans have featured prominently at this year’s US Open in Las Vegas. Jha and Jinbao join Kanamitsu and Yu in the Semifinals of Men’s Singles, and on the Women’s side, Amy Wang (NJ) and Yan Guo (TX) will face each other, while a pair of Japanese players will face off in the […]

What Type of Backhand Flip Should You Develop?

December 16, 2024

(by Larry Hodges) As a player, I’m old-school – my backhand flip against a short ball is light topspin, basically a standard backhand drive against most spins. Against short, heavy underspin, I just open the racket and drive up and forward, and focus on medium speed and spin, depth, and placement. But these days top […]

American Juniors in ITTF Youth Rankings

December 16, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT) As 2024 is coming to a close, here’s a quick review of the ITTF Boys’ Singles and Girls’ Singles youth rankings by category. The top players in U19 Boys should be familiar to all table tennis fans as China’s Lin Shidong and France’s Felix Lebrun are first and second among […]

WAB CLUB FEATURE: Silicon Valley Table Tennis Club

December 15, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins) The Silicon Valley Table Tennis Club is located in Milpitas, just North of San Jose on the Southern edge of San Francisco Bay. From this spot in Silicon Valley, they have easy access to Oakland (35 miles) and San Francisco (50 miles) finding themselves accessible to one of the largest hot beds […]

WTT Releases 2024 Earnings List

December 15, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT) Its certainly not at the levels of Basketball, Football, or Baseball, but when WTT released their 2024 Prize Money Leaderboard, they showed 6 figure earnings across the top 13 men. As you’d expect, World No. 1 Wang Chuqin led the way with over $261,000 in prize money. Lin Shidong was […]

Off-Speed Blocks

December 9, 2024

(by Larry Hodges) Why do so many players continue to pound the ball out at an opponent who is a step off the table, ready and waiting for that shot? They are not only ready for a hard-hit ball, but it lowers your own consistency as you continue to hit the ball hard against an […]

Nearly 1500 Players Set to Compete at US Open in Las Vegas

December 8, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins) The 2024 edition of the US Open Championships will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Convention Center in Las Vegas. Play will begin on December 16th, about a week from today. There are 115 events including the premiere Men’s and Women’s Singles, Men’s & Women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles, age-tiered […]

Chuqin, Shidong, Harimoto Finish Year at Top of Rankings

December 8, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTF) Wang Chuqin has ended 2024 in the same position where he started – atop the ITTF Rankings. Chuqin’s 8300 points is a sizeable lead that will give him a big advantage well into the Spring of 2025. Lin Shidong has finished his incredible year, climbing from outside of the Top […]

Mixed Team World Cup: China Wins, TeamUSA Finishes 8th

December 8, 2024

by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTF) TeamUSA had a tough fight to get through the Group Stage of the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup in Chengdu. With China in their group, there was no question as to which team would finish first, and only two teams would advance. TeamUSA was one of the remaining three teams […]

TeamUSA Advances at Mixed Team World Cup

December 3, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT) TeamUSA needed some help on the final day of group action at the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup in Chengdu, and that help arrived when India defeated Australia. China swept the group, losing only one game in three matches (that one lost point was USA’s Sid Naresh who won the […]