100th Anniversary of the Birth of Hikosuke Tamasu – The founder of Butterfly

Posted on August 20, 2020

Hikosuke Tamasu was born exactly one hundred years ago on August 20, 1920, in Yanai, Japan, as the eldest son of the Tamasu family. Hikosuke began to devote himself to table tennis, a sport for which there were few competitors at the time. Later, as he further honed his skills, he won prizes in all […]

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Dusseldorf Masters X Video Highlights: Featuring Duda and Assar

Posted on August 18, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) After the Dusseldorf Masters X event concluded last weekend, Benedikt Duda was the last man standing.  It was his second win, the only repeat winner except for Dima Ovtcharov. The highlights video below was posted by BorussiaDuesseldorf (the host of the event).  This includes some of the best points across the whole […]

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Practice to Master One Skill

Posted on August 18, 2020

(By Truong Tu) People watch video of high level matches with many amazing rallies and think that they have to practice fancy drill combinations. We need to admit that unless we have already reached the National or International level, our rallies usually end within 5 shots or less. Therefore, mastery of the basic skills and […]

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Steve Isaacson Interview: The Hall of Fame

Posted on August 17, 2020

(Intro by Steve Hopkins) As I have been collecting stories from Hall of Fame members, players, and personalities in the sport, I recently had opportunity to converse with Hall of Fame Member, Steve Isaacson.  I will be sharing some of his many stories in a series of articles over the next few weeks.  This article […]

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Coaching Tip of the Week: Should You Develop Your Forehand Push?

Posted on August 17, 2020

(By Larry Hodges) At the lower levels, pushing is often over-used; at the higher levels, spectators often underestimate its value. All top players have excellent pushes. However, advanced players – and even intermediate players – rarely push against deep backspin to the forehand, unless they are very defensive choppers. It’s simply better for them to […]

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Dusseldorf Masters X: Duda Doubles Down

Posted on August 16, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) The 9th men’s Masters event concluded over the weekend.  The winner, Germany’s Benedikt Duda, the only player except for Ovtcharov to repeat as a Series Winner (Dimitrij Ovtcharov has won three times). This week, the event progressed almost exactly by seed.  The top 7 seeds all advanced, and the only early upset […]

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WAB CLUB FEATURE: Hoboken Table Tennis

Posted on August 15, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) Hoboken Table Tennis, Hoboken’s first social ping pong club, is located at 1012 Grand Street (3rd Floor) in Hoboken, New Jersey.  The club has easy access to 95 to the West and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels provide easy access West to Manhattan. HiTT is a BYOB table tennis facility with 8 tables, […]

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PongNow: Lily Yip and Adam Hugh

Posted on August 14, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) The PongNow interview series discusses table tennis with some of the best players and personalities in the sport. In this edition we have Hall of Fame member and former US Olympian Lily Yip, and her son Adam Hugh (a player and club owner with a distinguished resume of his own).  Enjoy […]

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USATT’s Thursday Night Live Series: Adar Over Amy, Team Butterfly Up 3-0

Posted on August 13, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) USA Table Tennis conducted its third Challenge Series event on Thursday.   This week, “America’s First Virtual Table Tennis Challenge” matched Adar Alguetti (2541) versus Amy Wang (2505).  Table tennis is one of the few sports where men and women compete against each other in major tournaments using the same rating system – […]

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Challenger Attack: A Non-Pro Review

Posted on August 12, 2020

(by Steve Hopkins) I recently had opportunity to try Challenger Attack, Butterfly’s pips out rubber designed for high tempo attacking with heavy spin possible. I’ve been playing with Butterfly Dignics 09C, so the change was a big one.  I had never used short pips before, so I found some very interesting differences with this rubber […]

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