(by Steve Hopkins) The ITTF Event Calendar has been pretty light in the first half of 2021 so as to not risk the Olympics in Tokyo.  There have been a few qualification events which needed to happen because they were cancelled in 2020, but for the most part players will be preparing for the Olympics […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTFWorld) Kay Stumper won the Youth Challenge Event in Tunis this week.  Stumper is a young German player (18 years old) who has been turning heads in Europe on the junior circuit – winning the European Youth Top 10 the last two years.  Stumper won the third Dusseldorf Masters Event (last […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The Junior Pan Am Games is an event for athletes between 18 and 21.  “Junior” is a misnomer for an American audience where we often use the term to refer to those 18 and under.  In this case, the event will feature the best young players of this hemisphere, and that includes […]

(By Steve Hopkins) PowerStroke Table Tennis Club is located in Saint Augustine, Florida.  The club is just off of I-95 on the Northwest side of the city, about 30 miles South of Jacksonville. The club has six professional tables in their air-conditioned facility.  Flooring and lighting are ideal for play of all levels.  As they say on their […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The title on the Borussia Dussedorf article today contains the perfect alliteration with Benedikt and the German word  “beendet” – a reference to Benedikt Duda closing out a perfect week.  And a perfect week it was – Duda won the Dusseldorf Masters event a week ago, was named to the Germany Olympic squad […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Located in Rosemead, California, in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley outside of Los Angeles, is a unique, full-time table tennis facility.   California Table Tennis offers 16 Butterfly tables, professional rubber flooring, and some of the best playing conditions available in the United States.  The club has 200 active members […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Kanak Jha and Benedikt Duda were the top ranked players in this week’s Dusseldorf Masters event.  Each advanced to the Final where Duda outlasted Jha for a 3-2 win with the players traded games and momentum. Sunday’s event was the fifth of seven events.  Like the other events in the series, there was […]

(by Steve Hopkins) China announced their Olympics squad today. The team includes World No. 1 Fan Zhendong, World No. 2 Xu Xin, and World No. 3 Ma Long.   There are no surprises here as the event seeding will be based upon World Ranking and Chinese players hold the top three spots in those Rankings. Interesting, […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The Boston Table Tennis Center is in Medford, just North of Cambridge and Somerville and only four miles from  Boston’s city center.  The club is just off I-93 (Northern Expressway), and near the Orange and Blue Lines, providing easy access to the greater Boston metropolitan area. The BTTC is a 3000 square foot […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photos by ITTFworld) Often there is a changing of the guard after an Olympics – a time when top players retire and move on to their next challenge.  In a normal cycle the Olympics would have occurred a year ago and the landscape of our sport would already have changed – but this […]