(by Steve Hopkins) Timo Boll’s VLOG this week focused on his support of Germany’s Paralympic Players as they work to prepare for the Tokyo Paralympics later this year.  As a part of the video, he practices with Valentin Baus and Thomas Schmidberger, two of Germany’s top wheelchair players.  Boll, one of the World’s best able-bodied […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The South Korean Olympic Trials concluded last week.  Butterfly player Sangsu Lee (World No. 22) upset Jeoung Youngsik (World No. 13) to take the second team position.  Jan Woo-Jin (World No. 11) has already qualified by World Ranking. It is likely that Youngsik will be appointed to the third position, giving Korea a […]

(by Steve Hopkins) With the Rhode Island Table Tennis Club currently in operation with limited hours, we were initially hesitant about running a winter juniors group.  However, even with our sign up form going out while Rhode Island was in a state of lock-down, the class filled up in 4 days.  Here are some notes […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The Butterfly-sponsored Borussia Dusseldorf team continues to cruise in the Tischtennis Bundesliga, Germany’s professional table tennis league.  Over the weekend, Dusseldorf blanked TTC RhonSprudel Fulda-Maberzell 3-0 and last week they topped TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt 3-0 as well. The Dusseldorf squad’s run over the last two months places them securely atop the standings […]

(by Steve Hopkins) When Maze was in his prime, he was one of the most exciting players in the world.  His personal motto appears to be Never Give Up – fighting to prolong points and as you can see from this video, often hanging around long enough to change the result. Michael Maze continues to […]

(by Steve Hopkins) With the Bundesliga in full swing in Germany, Liebherr Ochsenhausen has regained sole possession of second place with their third win in a row.  *It will take a much longer streak to catch Timo Boll’s Dusseldorf Team (which remains undefeated in 2021 thus far), but all that the Ochsenhausen team needs to […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Lin Yun Ju is a rising star in table tennis.  Ranked No. 7, the 19 year old Chinese Taipei player is one of small handful of players consistently competing with the Top 3 (Fan, Xu, and Ma).  Yun-Ju is lightning fast, has amazing arm speed, and despite being small – he plays […]

(by Steve Hopkins) PongNow is an interview series talking table tennis with some of the best players and personalities in the sport. The guest this week is Larry Thoman – perhaps the foremost American expert in table tennis robots. He was also an important piece of the Nashville table tennis community, and was a fixture […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The top rating spots in Japan are held by young champions: Defending Men’s Champion Harimoto (age 18) and Defending Women’s Champion Mima Ito (age 20).  But both champions fell this year in their National Championships.  For Ito, she advanced to the Final only to lose to 27 year old Ishikawa Kasumi 4-2.  […]