(by Steve Hopkins, photo by WTT) The WTT Star Contender was the first event of 2025 on the WTT Tour calendar.  Tomokazu Harimoto, Dang Qiu, and Patrick Franziska (World Nos. 3, 9, and 10, respectively) were the top three seeds, but Danish player Jonathan Groth (World No. 25) was the biggest surprise. For Harimoto’s part, […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Central Ohio is home to Spin & Smash.  Its a table tennis club that is part ping pong social club and part table tennis training center.  The club is open every day – at least 12 hours every day except for Sunday (which is open with shorter hours).  In addition to regular club events, […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Eight teams atop the German League began battling in November, culminating in today’s Finals – with the winner claiming the German Cup.  The favorites this year included the deep Borussia Dusseldorf,  Saarbrucken with co-anchors Franziska and Jorgic, and Fulda with Ovtcharov leading the way. The surprises in the run to the finals […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Shandong Weiqiao dominated this year’s China Super League Finals.  After securing a 3-0 win over Shanghai in the Semifinal (Shanghai’s team includes both Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin), the squad went on to sweep Huangshi Base Huaxin 3-0 in the Final. At the start of 2025, the rankings of the Shandong top […]

(by Steve Hopkins) At the end of the regular season, Fan Zhendong’s Shanghai squad faced off against powerhouse Shandong Weiqiao (with Chuqin).  The the two team anchors faced off, it was Fan Zhendong that won the set – even as the Shandong team won the team match.  These two teams met again today in one […]

(by Steve Hopkins) For nearly 90 years, South Bend has been one of the centers of the North American table tennis world. Many of the best players, have played or trained there – and newest rendition of the club in the Beacon Resource Center is continuing this great tradition. The club features tournaments, a strong juniors […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Shock, and then confusion as Olympic Champions Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng file forms with the ITTF and WTT announcing their retirements.  Despite the forms being titled “retirement notification”, it has become clear that much of the move is due to fines being imposed by WTT for failure to participate.  For these […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]