Are You Maximizing Your Service Spin?

December 23, 2024

(by Larry Hodges) When you practice your spin serves – and you do, right? – after a few minutes, your arm and wrist are tired and you’re sweating right? No? Then you aren’t putting in full effort and therefore not getting full spin. When I say “tired” and “sweating,” there’s some literary license, but the […]

WAB CLUB FEATURE: Song Jeho Table Tennis Club

December 22, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins) The Song Jeho Table Tennis Club (“SJHTTC”) is centrally located in Los Angeles. The club is located in Korea Town near the intersection of S Grand View St. and W 11th St. with easy access to the Santa Monica Freeway and the 110. The club’s namesake is “Jay” Song Jeho, a strong player […]

Jha and Guo Win Open Singles Titles

December 21, 2024

(by Steve Hopkins, Photo USATT) Kanak Jha only got better as he maneuvered through the draw, eventually closing out the Semifinals with a 4-0 win over Koyo Kanamitsu and then taking the Final 4-0 over Jinbao Ma. This is Kanak’s first US Open win, and it puts a cherry on top of a great 2024 […]

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 […]