(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

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 […]