Coach Stan Talifero will be hosting 2 Table Tennis Camps for children ages 8 to 14 at the Oconee Veterans Park Community Center. The first session will start on Monday May 24 and finish Thursday May 27. The second session is Monday, July 19 – Thursday, July 22. Each day starts at 9 AM and ends at 12 noon. $80 per session.

Spots are limited. Call Stan directly at 313-550-5651.

It certainly has been awhile since I’ve updated this site, but that’s not without good reason. I was recently elected as Secretary of the board of officers for the Atlanta Georgia Table Tennis Association. And yes, I’ve already heard my fill of snickers and male secretary jokes every time I mention that. Since then I’ve been busy redesigning the AGTTA site while juggling half a dozen personal projects that have eaten what is left of my free time and sanity. I’ve been planning on adding some new features to the site that will hopefully help our community grow and socialize more easily. So keep checking back to see the updates. Anyway, enjoy the video.

Some nights, when I’m sitting at work all I can think about is heading home, grabbing my gear, and heading to the club to play a few games. But sometimes after a long day at work, sitting in Atlanta traffic, and nursing a lingering migraine, I want to do is sleep as soon as I get through my front door.

Somehow, I think paralympic athlete David Lega doesn’t have that problem. David has set over 14 world records in swimming, plays table tennis, owns his own company, works as a motivational speaker, and has written a book about his experiences without the use of his arms.

This Saturday, November 7, 2009, from 3:00pm – 3:30pm you can meet David Lega. He will be a special guest at the Abilities Expo Atlanta 2009 at the Cobb Galleria Convention Center. David Lega will give lessons and demonstrate adaptive table tennis. There will be 5 wheelchair divisions and 5 standing disabled divisions.

The Atlanta Abilities Expo is FREE.  Pre-register to save time.

Vladimir Samsonov wins Liebherr World Men's Cup

Vladimir Samsonov, the man from Belarus, won the 2009 World Cup in his eleventh appearance at the event. This is the 3rd time Samsonov has taken the title. He won his first and second World Cup title in 1999 and 2001.

Samsonov took out China’s favorite, Ma Long, in seven games during the semi-final then moved onto crush Chen Qi in five games. Video of both games are after the jump.

AGTTA Summer 2009 League Winners (clockwise from the top): David Wang, Joe Ryan, Edmond Sysomboun, Alex Lehocky, Michael Levene, and John Mar

Congratulations to:

John Mar – Open Class Winner
Michael Levene – Class A Winner
Toan  Nguyen – Class B Winner
Alex Lehocky – Class C Winner
Edmond Sysomboun – Class D Winner
Joe Ryan – Class E Winner
Jeffrey Ma – Class F Winner
Liming Xu – Class G Winner
David Wang – Class H Winner

Photos from the night are after the jump.

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Better late than never. Week 1 of the Summer Tournament series at Rhodes Jordan. Unfortunately I was only able make the first week. Photos are after the cut.

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Sooyeon Lee plays at Spin NYC (photo courtesy of SpinNYC.com)

Spin New York is a Table Tennis club started by celebrity actors Susan Sarandon, Alan Cumming, and Judah Friedlander. This video was their opening night party that was hosted by Vanity Fair. So don’t expect model Sooyeon Lee (rated 2400+) to battle out a point with you in perfect makeup, stiletto heels, and the world’s smallest cocktail dress every time you show up.

Susan Sarandon said she started taking an interest in Table Tennis after realizing that there is a subculture of folks who really enjoy playing the game (no kidding?). Spin houses 17 Joola tables one of which is centered like a stadium-like center court on, 9,000 square feet of playing room, Olympics quality cushioned flooring, a bar and lounge, lunch and dinner menus, coaches, robots, and locker rooms with showers. You can even rent out tables per half hour so you don’t have to wait for your turn to get whipped by the 2000+ level player who has kept the table for the past 2 hours.

If you happen to be in the area, the club is located at 48 East and 23rd St., Between Park and Madison New York, New York 10010 and is open from 11AM to midnight 7 days a week.

If you love table tennis and live in New York, it might be worth it to at least swing by the club and check it out. Just be ready to drop $1000 on a 1 year membership.

Now if we can just get another celebrity who lives in Atlanta to do the same thing (minus the membership fee). I wonder what Whitney Houston is doing these days?

"Uhhh, I meant the new SHOE helped me win... not glue"

Perusing the ITTF site I noticed that there is a new series of videos called “ITTF World of Table Tennis.”  In the first episode the ITTF recaps the World Table Tennis Championships and has one on one interviews with Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, and Wang Hao. The interview of interest is the Wang Hao one where he practically admits to cheating as if it were nothing serious.

Fast forward to 23:00 if you want to see the Wang Hao interview, or just read the transcript of the question below.

ITTF: You’ve been good at using your tactics before, but never this good. How come?

Wang Hao: Well I think the new glue has really helped me. Not only to win World Cups, but also today to become World Champion. I think I am the one who has benefitted the most from the new glue.

On September 1 2008, the ITTF bans Speed Glue, introduces the ENEZ device at major tournaments while at the same time doing little to penalize or deter players from cheating. Let’s face it, whether you’re a speed glue fanatic or not, using the stuff in competition is illegal and here we have the World Champion possibly admitting that he cheated in an interview on the ITTF site. Did anyone at the ITTF actually look at the final video before it was uploaded?

Now, there are two things to take note of here. First, I don’t speak Mandarin, but it is very well possible that there was an important detail lost in translation during the editing process. Why doesn’t he credit his win to his training, his team mates, or his coach? Second, the translator doesn’t actually say “Speed Glue” or anything to that effect, but something tells me that he isn’t crediting his win to standard water based glue. The interview in its current form just leaves too much to the imagination.

How can any serious player take the glue ban seriously now? What do players like Timo Boll and Michael Maze who have converted over to using Butterfly Tenergy rubber and have admitted to no longer speed gluing have to say?

EDIT (July 25): Chinese reader Yuewei watched the video interview and was able to correct not only me but ITTF’s terrible translator. Thank you for clearing that up Yuewei!

He was talking articulately about the “INORGANIC GLUE or GLUE BAN” which he thought might have given him some sort of edge over other top players. Yet the English interpretor translated Wang’s explicitly spelt “INORGANIC GLUE or GLUE BAN” into “the new glue”

Table Tennis Spring 2009 Winners (from left to right): Jason Zhang, Jimmy Tan, Yoshiyuki Okawa, and George Cooper

Congratulations to:

Eugene Utsalo – Open Champion
George Cooper – Class A Champion
Yoshiyuki Okawa – Class B Champion
Israel Orija – Class C Champion
Jimmy Tan – Class D Champion
Jason Zhang – Class E Champion
Tony Liu – Class F Champion

Photos of the night are after the jump

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Stone Mountain - The only place where lasers, fireworks, beer, humidity sound appealing for your July 4th Weekend

While most of the state of Georgia is getting ready to set off illegal amounts of fireworks tomorrow night, players from around the country are competiting right now at the US Open in Las Vegas.

• The USATT site has a link to the official 2009 US Open results page with day writeups by Larry Hodges.  Also there’s mention about video coverage by the USOC that will be available sometime next week. Great site, terrible navigation. Their Table Tennis section is a bit difficult to find.
• Bruce Liu of USATT Magazine has been keeping updates via Twitter. If you don’t what Twitter is, now is a great time to learn.
• Varghese over at Spin Mantra has been keeping daily US Open updates with his blog.
  
• Milpitas has been blogging and posted the cutest photo. Losing to someone that cute should be illegal.
  
• I’ve got nothing else so here is a video of a penguin playing table tennis.
  

Everyone gets “owned” at least once in a while. After you’ve loosened up and are starting to get use to your opponent, you are playing and notice an opening and go for the kill shot only to have the ball mockingly click back onto your side of the table before you know it. It happens to everyone. Above is a video by TTvirusPremium that shows some of the best moments where even pro players get humbled.

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve just recovered from a large data loss and have taken a few weeks to get back into my online routines. I am back now and hopefully will continue with the regular updates.

Other interesting news…

- The ITTF met on Friday June 26 to discuss why VOC racket testing is already considered a mockery in the table tennis community. It hasn’t even been a full year since the new rules have been implemented and teams and companies have already found alternatives for speed glue (Haifu Oil or Lamp Oil tuning anyone?). And everyone thought the banning of speed glue would ruin the game. It just goes to show that if you take away a dishonest player’s ability to cheat, he/she will just find another way around the system. So in an effort to “crack down” they’ve lowered the amount of allowable VOC’s to 4ppm (parts per million). Although, by this time next year I’m sure the Chinese will have discovered another substance they can use to tune or boost their equipment with.

- I had a brief love affair with a rubber by Dawei call Inspirit Quattro Utralight (IQUL) from Cole’s Table Tennis Supply. A full review of the rubber will be coming soon.

- Dynamic Table Tennis will be releasing a new DVD called Competition Table Tennis which is specifically tailored for players who are looking for a series of training exercises for the tournament season. Visit Dynamic Table Tennis and contact Brian Pace if you are interested in getting a downloadable copy before the link goes live.

I don’t know how to end this entry, so here’s a video of a penguin playing table tennis.

Table Tennis Bling-age! Winter 2009 Winners (from left to right): Michiya Suzuki, Juan Wandurraga, Jim Chiem, James Wang, and the Fili-Rican Assassin!

So apparently I’m a slacker, but at least I’m a slacker with a trophy. I’ve been meaning to post these photos for a couple of weeks now, but I’m just now able to get to the photos. Trophies were given to people with the best win/loss ratio for the Winter 2009 League.

Congratulations to:

Michiya Suzuki – Open Class Winner
Jackie Zhang – Class A Winner
Juan Wandurraga – Class B Winner
Jim Chiem – Class C Winner
Rick Merced – Class D Winner (boo-ya)
James Wang – Class E Winner

This was the first time I had competed in the AGTTA league, so when I started I had no idea what to expect. I moved up 200 points in my rating over the 10 week period. I have no one to thank except my coach Didi DeSouza who was not only able to identify my terrible strokes, but also worked on my footwork and strategy with me. Keep an eye on the site since I’ll be doing to a coaching profile on him in the next few days.

After the jump are a few photos from the night…

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"Damn it Dad! I told you a million million times that I wanted a BLUE car!" - Wang Hao photo courtesy of GettyImages

China wins all the Gold Medals, and no one is surprised. Let’s face it, when your favorite team keeps winning without breaking a sweat cheering for them gets kinda old. Don’t take me wrong here, I adore Wang Liqin’s ridiculously powerful loop, Ma Lin’s intimidating staredown, and Wang Hao’s ability to Cho! his way to a win. At this point in time, China will continue to dominate the sport for years until other countries start training like they do.

What we need is a good Cinderella story and the number one 18 year old player in the world was there to give us one.

At about 4:30 AM I was watching the WTTC on itTV like I had reminded you to. I was just in time to catch Kenta Matsudaira vs. Ma Lin in Round 4 of the tournament. Matsudaira (World Ranking:101) had overtaken Aleksander Karasevic (SRB), Oh Sang Eun (KOR), and Robert Gardos (AUT) at this point. Ma Lin (World Ranking: 2) feasted upon Alfredo Carneros(ESP), He Zhi Wen(ESP), and Tiago Apolonia(AUT). On paper this match up shouldn’t even have happened, but young Kenta wanted to show his heart and his skills to the world, and who else would be better than Ma Lin the only man who wear pastels and still intimidate the crap out of you. Watch the video below (and try to ignore the Japanese commentary).

Once the game started you could tell how intimidated Matsudaira looked. Ma Lin capitalized on it and before Kenta knew it 2 games had gone by. By the third game Matsudaira woke up and started to realize he could block Ma’s loop easily. Ma Lin came back and won the 4th match further squashing any hopes that Japan could win. But Matsudaira prevailed and pushed through to win two more games tieing the score 3-3. Watch the video above for the ending.

Ai Fukuhara - World Table Tennis Championship 2009 photo courtesy of GettyImages

The H.I.S. World Table Tennis Championships is now being broadcast live on itTV. In case you missed the live stream, they are providing Video on Demand of each match. Join some of the conversation with fans from around the world on the MyTableTennis.net forum in our Live Commentary thread while you watch the Live Feed.

Jörgen Persson (Photo By: Ayoade Ademakinwa)

Jörgen Persson announced his retirement today at the H.I.S. World Championships in Yokohama on Friday May 1st 2009 after losing to Jun Mizutani. “The motivation has gone”, said Persson. “I made a big effort to play in the Olympic Games but now it’s time to finish.”

Persson claimed the same thing after losing to another lefty, Timo Boll, after the 2005 Shanghai World Championships, but returned after a brief stint with coaching.

When asked if this was truly was the end of his career, Persson said “Yes, this time it’s true, it’s definite. Eighteen years ago I won the Men’s Singles title at the World Championships in Japan”, he reminisced. “Japan is special for me, I have a special relationship with the people here.”

Its always disappointing to see a legend go out on a loss, but his legacy and contributions to the sport won’t be forgotten.

Read the full article on ITTF »

Tournaments. Tournaments. Tournaments. I can hardly believe that its almost May already. Well if you’re looking for competition this Summer there are currently 2 upcoming tournaments in Atlanta in May (hopefully more will pop up). I’ll probably be at both competing and shooting photos in between my matches.

Atlanta Table Tennis Tournaments

• May 2, 2009 – AAU Sports District Qualifier at the Decatur Recreation Center. This is mostly an 18 & under tournament, but Ralph Presley stated that there is a U2000 division that takes place at 9 AM that has no age limit. So if you can get up that early and manage to get your entry form in by Wednesday April  29, don’t miss it.
• May 30, 2009 – The 2009 Atlanta Open Giant Round Robin Tournament will be at Lucky Shoals Park. This is an official USATT 1-star tournament. Entry deadline is Saturday May 23. There is a discount for early entry.

Southeast Regional Table Tennis Tournaments (if you want to travel)

• May 2 – The Charlotte Loopapalooza will be at the Hawthorn Racket Club in Charlotte, NC. This is a USATT 2-star tournament. Watch a video of the final round of last year’s Loopapalooza.
• May 23-24 – The Florida Hall of Fame Tournament will be at the Broward Table Tennis Club in Hollywood, FL. This is a USATT 2-star tournament.
• June 6 – The Ocala Open Orange Blossom Tour will be at the Presbyterian Church Gym in Ocala, FL. This tournament is only limited to 40 players, so enter early.
• June 13 – The June MCCC Round Robin is somewhere mysteriously located in Cary, NC. The entry form is nowhere to be found, so email Mike Babuin.

So you’re panicking over taxes. Yeah, me too. Thankfully, I get easily distracted.

I just uploaded some new photos from this past Monday’s League Night at Lucky Shoals Park.

AGTTA League Night at Lucky Shoals Park – Monday April 13, 2009

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Last year I decided it was time to upgrade my Sriver FX rubber to something with a little more kick in an effort to appease my inner Equipment Junkie. Like a lot of players, I went to Butterfly Online.  After perusing all of their different lines of rubber I began to notice that the descriptions for each rubber were about as useful as a pair of breasts on the back of a pig.

So I browsed, but never bought anything until one day Brian Pace popped up on the front page of the site giving the first video review of the Bryce family of rubber. Outside of his recreational racket and his reputation as a player, I didn’t know a lot about him. Shortly after seeing the video I bought a couple sheets of Bryce FX. There was something about the way he described the characteristics of the rubber that cut through the “Marketing Hype” that plagues just about every product description on the site.

When Brian would come out with another video about drills and exercises with the Amicus robot, I’d watch it hoping to learn something that I was missing from my own game. Then one day, Brian wasn’t doing videos anymore. Instead, I was watching a German player named Stefan Feth replace Brian for their instructional videos. Stefan’s techniques and methods are top-notch, but I was just getting used to watching Mr. Pace on the site. Shortly thereafter, Brian Pace would no longer be seen in any video on the site ever again.

Eventually the instructional videos stopped only to be replaced by videos of Jack Huang showing you how to perform a stroke for 2 minutes without any explanation or coaching tips whatsoever. I stopped watching the videos after that.

Fast forward a year and I manage to stumble across some news about Brian Pace’s new company. Some discussion surrounding it had popped up on a forum and shortly after that Mr. Pace himself logged on and started answering questions. After reading some of his posts I became intrigued by his enthusiasm for his new company, Dynamic Table Tennis. I wanted to learn more about his story, why he left Butterfly, and reveal the truth about American table tennis sponsorships. So I asked him for an interview and he agreed graciously.

Thank for chatting with me Brian. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your Table Tennis career?

I started playing Table Tennis in a USATT funded junior program with the hopes of producing an Olympian.  It was not a participation program, it was an elite junior program. We had Nigerian players ranked at 2500 as our coaches and training partners.  The group went from 75 kids to about 12 elite level juniors, and the more intense the training got, the more the number reduced until it got down to Oscar Melvin and I.  We would both went on to the live at the Olympic Training Center, and the program was unofficially over in 1988 but continued for 1 more year.

How and when did you get sponsored by Butterfly?

I was at my local Rec Center looking for a new activity, and Ty Hoff walked in. We played for about 1 hour. He gave me 2 yellow balls, and I went home and told my mother I was going to be a professional table tennis player.  The USATT funded grant was influenced by Bowie Martin Sr. who was running Martin-Kilpatrick which sold low level table tennis equipment.  They were also the North American distributor of Butterfly equipment, and the top juniors in the program received a small sponsorship.  It was some rubber, shirts, shorts, shoes, and a bag.  It did take me a while to become one of the elite 6 that would receive the sponsorship. Since I started with them, I felt obligated to stay.

On a forum recently you stated that being sponsored is an illusion. For a lot of players once they’ve attained a decent rating they’re next goal is to get sponsored in order to help pay for equipment, travel expenses, etc. Tell me about your experience being in that situation and what it was really like.

If anyone that has hopes of getting sponsored, you may want to skip this because the answer is going to break your heart…

Being sponsored is an illusion, and most players become disenchanted after the experience. If you are able to get to 2400-2500, have a unique talent, have a good image, and are good with people you MAY get a sponsorship. What will happen is your name will be used to push certain equipment, and you will never know how much money they make off of it. My sponsor has never paid for my expenses to any competition. I have done exhibitions and had my expenses paid, but NEVER a competition.

The amount of equipment you get is so small it is not worth the headache. I know in my adult life I did not need a sponsor. I just needed rubber and glue, and that cost less than $2000.00 per year. What makes it worst is I was met with the most amount of resistance when I moved to Europe to play train and compete. They want you to get better, but are not in favor of you going to live in the table tennis hotspots for improvement. Living an American lifestyle and playing table tennis is the best way for the companies to make money.

So usually a player never gets any kind of financial reward. Not from prize money or sponsorship, but the company I worked for had bigger profits every single year. None of those profits were passed along to the players that they promoted to make the money. That is the illusion. It is the illusion that you are going to get a return on your investment if you get sponsored. The truth is the company is going to get a return on their investment of promoting you.

What do you mean by an ‘living an American lifestyle‘?

To play table tennis in this country at any level requires you to live like an American, which means finding a place to train. It may be a school, fitness club, or table tennis club and not every player around you may be interested in that level of commitment. You will have to work a regular job to supplement your life, competition, and expenses. That lifestyle takes away from your focus on hardcore training. The only people that really understand this are players like me that have lived and train abroad. You wake up, train, go home and eat, take a nap, train again, go home and eat, then go to bed.  That is the culture of table tennis when you live and train abroad.  That lifestyle allows you to be fully focused on training, and there are no distractions.

Do you think the companies promote table tennis as a recreational activity like bowling or billiards and less like an athletic sport in order to be more profitable in America?

Having worked for 2 different table tennis companies I can say that they don’t know who to promote to the recreational players, because they can’t find them. There is an estimated number of people in America that play table tennis. 19 million is the number that I heard, and historically we have not been able to find them, group them together, and use them to change the demographic of what table tennis is in this country. Those people find the companies to buy equipment to play in their garages, basements, patios, and attics.  We haven’t organized the sport enough on a National scale for those players to leave their ping pong environment.

We can account for the 7000 competing members that have a USATT membership. But they are making a killing off the recreational ping pong players. The Butterfly “Brian Pace” racket made $126K in 2009 in profits, and what is more depressing is I only got 1.5%. That is the crime.

The companies don’t value the player enough to pay them.  They value them enough to market and promote them.  My racket has been the number 1 selling racket in the “6 Racket line” that includes Danny Seemiller, and Todd Sweeris.

Do you think that this situation only happens in the US, or is it a common occurrence in Europe and Asia?

In Europe it is different in a lot of the places that I played. In Sweden, the club gives you equipment, and they give you a salary if you are good enough to make it. So being sponsored by an individual club that has deals with different sponsors is a very different approach. It is a more honest and controlled approach, because if a player is a good then it is in the club’s interest to keep him. Eric Owens, won the US Nationals, and soon after that he left Butterfly. He beat back the 2 Chinese players that have the most Nationals titles in recent history, and he did not get a pay upgrade, so he left. Whatever amount he was asking for, they did not give it. The same goes for Mark Hazinski, Razvan Cretu, and a few others. The main problem is the companies don’t really value the players. At least, not enough to get pay the players over 2400.

Killerspin has come in and done more to value the players, and most of the players that left Butterfly have gone to them. The roster is mostly Europeans and foreigners, but it is a move in the right direction.

So if American players don’t get paid a salary for winning or receive travel expenses or tournament entry fees, other than free gear there is no incentive. How does a sport grow if you can’t get paid to do it professionally?

Brian Pace at the US Open - photo by Robert Trudell of Outpost81.com

The players get paid a bonus if they win the Nationals Men’s Singles or Doubles, North American Championships, and a couple other events. I won 3 Collegiate Titles, and that is what is promoted on the “Brian Pace” racket, and I never got 1 bonus for that. Let me explain the numbers so you get a since of realism. I starting playing table tennis in 1986, and I officially started paying my own expenses in 1989, and it took me 10 years to win a National title, at the rate of $20K per year in expenses. After 10 years and approximately $200K in expenses my sponsor creates a product off my hard work and dedication, and has made over 1 Million Dollars in profits. That is why I got 1.5%, TOTAL.

That is how the industry positions the players. It’s to make money as much money off them as possible, and the reason Dynamic Table Tennis exists is for me to make money off my own hard work and dedication. It may seem like I’m bitter, but I’m not. I have accepted how the Table Tennis business world works in America. That is why I’m going to change it as I see fit.

Most of my peers have walked away disenchanted. The reason I had a long career is because I have always been planning this move. I did a 1 hour and 45 minute interview called, “I am Table Tennis”, and episode 1 is up at DynamicTableTennis.com. It explains that I have been working towards owning my existence and why it took me 15 years to get to this point. What may seem like bitterness is actually total acceptance that the rules are set up a certain way. What makes me and other ambitious table tennis professionals different was the choice we made to not play by those rules.

Not playing by the rules? How so?

The rules that are set in place favor the companies. They have all the keys, and we are sitting at the gate waiting to pass through to move on to financial reward in table tennis. We get sponsored by them, and they tell us the state of American Table Tennis based on the contract that they give us. If that is the case would we be informed that things have improved and it be reflected in your contract from a monetary standpoint? They get to choose if they want to pay a player.

I’ll tell you how I upset the balance. The conflict came when I asked Butterfly to sponsor the equipment for my Video Series, and I asked them for a tiny $1000.00 sponsorship because I did not want to give all that promotion for free. I upset the owner, and he said yes, but I would have to sign over the rights of my video to them. You are not following the rules when you go to the company that you have been sponsored by for 22 years and say, “Hey, how much do you want to pay to have your equipment in my videos.”

They don’t treat the association that way. They don’t go to USATT and say, “Because we are sponsoring the US Open, we want 98.5% of the entry fees.” They are fighting for that sponsorship of that event, not ownership of the profits. The video job I created with Butterfly was a job I fought for, and it took me over a year to get it.

I informed the company of what I was doing 1 year in advanced, so they knew. And, on top of that I offered this project to him at least 5 times, and he declined it every single time. I then mention that my racket royalties had never gone up in 10 years, and I was told, “Brian, for the racket royalties, there is NO money.” I then countered with, “On this Video Series, there is NO money”. And that was it. That was the last time I talked to anyone in upper management. After 22 years of loyalty I was told that, I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too.

At the moment that it seemed like I was going to shine bright and create something for myself, they wanted to end the relationship because they didn’t want to indirectly give me a worldwide platform. I understand that, but after 22 years, that is not how you end a relationship.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but somehow the companies are in on something, because I was aggressively asked to go to another company. To not do it on my own. Why would a company that I have been sponsored for my entire career make strong suggestions that I go to another company? The first thing it tells me that at the heart of it, they have no vested interest in me being successful. You would think if I created something that was truly mine, they would support me going off and being successful on my own. I still can’t wrap my head around that one 8 months removed.

Another way of not playing by the rules, is by making a move right past the companies and dealing with the world. Now, the world gets to choose if I can make a return on my 22 year investment. Players have historically got there financial rewards from the company they are sponsored by. That is exactly what it is, a reward which is based on performance. When the performance is over, so is the reward. I’m making an attempt to brand myself in the table tennis world with my logo the same way Michael Jordan branded himself. And to do that I will not let anyone choose how successful I’m going to be.

What I have experienced has led me to be believe that changing how the companies supplement the players that are committed to being a professional players has to change. Some people in my circle have not wanted me to talk about this publicly, because they think it will give them the impression I’m bitter. And I’m actually not, and if you ever sat down to talk with me one on one, you would feel my need to success, create something viable, and be responsible for table tennis being more popular.

The movement is bigger than Butterfly, because the sport belongs to the people. If the sport belongs to the people then that is the culture I want to reach. My angle in that movement is by teaching people how to play, but before that we have to talk about the bad culture in the sport.

That is how you change the rules.

It is obvious that the system needs to change, but how do you do that? What’s the first step?

It is hard to say what we need to do as a whole, but the DVD Series is me doing my part. There are some players that sit in the backseat, and there are some players that are in the driver’s seat. More players have to work towards creating their own existence from a financial standpoint.

If that happens, you will see more players having longer stints training abroad because they have a product or service that supplements them. You can’t change all the people, but you can change the culture. If all the players that were table tennis professional were creating their own products, then the culture would change. You would see a shift that favors players based on something that is real. If the public buys your product you are valid. If the public does not, then you have to go back and rethink your approach, your product, and your goals.

My goal is to educate, entertain, and inspire. That is the theme you will come away with from visiting my site each day. I want to turn it into a nice daily dose for the Table Tennis Junkie.

Brian Pace at the US Nationals - Photo by Robert Trudell of Outpost81.com

I recently found this Hard Bat Tournament that is going on in Delaware at local bars of all places. Originally they said that you could win a million dollars at the “National Championship in Vegas” (like its stated in the video), but then had an “oh crap” moment and changed it to $100,000 like its reflected on the webpage.

Now I find it interesting that a Food & Entertainment magazine out of Delaware and a beer company can somehow scrounge up $100,000 to pay beer drinkers to play at the National Championships, but the USATT can only afford to pay $3,000 for winning the Men’s Singles Championship. [Official Entry Form with prize payout] If I were Bud Light and donating $100,000 for a tournament, I’d want to make sure that event was packed out and well advertised.

Why is it we hardly see non-table tennis sponsors at major events like the US Nationals?

Through my research it’s one word, “Demographic”. In the process of going back to school to take classes in video editing I found that the demographic for table tennis is “White male, bald spot, and 45 years old.” That demographic will never get a Corporate sponsorship from XBox, Coco Cola, etc. I think once “Beer” comes into play it changes the demographic. Now, you are going to be attracting the type of people that go to football, baseball, and basketball events. The corporate office that approved this deal is not interested in high level table tennis, because it’s the wrong atmosphere. You will never see people playing a game of pick-up basketball and drink beer at the same time. I think they are marketing the group that can drink and play pool, foosball, darts, and table tennis with at hard bat. What they don’t know if all the USATT Members that play with the hardbat are going to scoop up all those spots, so the beer drinking people that love to play hardbat will get scorched by the average 1500 USATT Member.

So what advice would you give to a player who is training and wants nothing else than to be sponsored?

I would say for the player to really try to factor what they are getting as a sponsored player. It truly does seem as if being sponsored is the goal standard, but I have still yet to understand how it gives you the type of financial reward that would allow you to support your family. Butterfly passed up on a really good up and coming player a few years ago. His name is Michael Landers, and he is full of talent. He has a 2550 ranked player as a coach. He does not need to be sponsored, and I saw his mother all but beg for them to give their son a chance. They passed on it, but he still wears Butterfly. The way to catch their eye is to not wear their equipment, because it does not give them free promotion.

In a perfect world, how do you think sponsoring should work?

The ideal situation is for both parties to get something out of it. The sponsors need players, because it brings identity to their brand, and pushes the sales of their equipment. Without players to bring an identity to that blade, it is just a piece of wood. They value players enough to promote them to move their products, but not enough to pay them. The sponsors are standing on the shoulders of the players to exist, and giving something back to the players with true National or International potential is a way to change the culture.

How does one change it so that it benefits everyone?

If a player is on the National or International training pipeline, then they have to be compensated accordingly. I think that is a problem with that is value. I was talking with a table tennis executive that has a kid that is involved with another sport. He told me that his kid is ranked as one of the top athletes in the world. That kid has no sponsorship deal with any company, and that is because in that sport the culture does not demand it.

So how could that executive ever bring himself to give money to a kid that is 2400 with a lot of potential? His kid that has no sponsorship deal does not push a product, so not having a sponsorship has some justification. But the 2400 player that they are sponsoring has equipment that is being promoted. So the companies have to create some type of system of value, because they are not involved in the development of the player, but they are involved in the promotion (and profit) of the player. The players gets the glamour of being sponsored, but they are so concerned with how much equipment and clothing that they are getting, that they are never concerned with getting some type of money.

What made you create Dynamic Table Tennis?

I’ll tell you a quick story. In one of my Business & Ethics classes I kept having all these philosophical debates with my professor over the how corporate America takes more than they give. So my professor sent me to the public library to read a book, and he told me that we would not have another conversation about ethics until I read that book. It’s called Pimp: The Story of My Life, written by an actual pimp named “Ice Berg Slim”.

One of the most disturbing stories I read in the book forever changed my approach about any type of structure. In the story Ice Berg was having problems with one of his girls and an older pimp told him to beat her with a clothes hanger, make her a bath, and give her some pain pills, and he did. And she was so grateful that he made her a bath and gave her pain pills, that she forgot that he had beaten her up in the first place. That is what my professor wanted me to walk away with, and we never had another debate.

How did it relate to me, you ask? I had been sponsored by Butterfly my entire career and the $1100 I got a year from the 1.5% of the racket sales was like the pain pills. They were making over $100K, and the money I got was enough for me to still be grateful that I was getting something. That changed for me in 2004, but I couldn’t do anything about it yet. I had these training videos I had been sitting on for 10 years, and that is when I started to move onto program “PIMP MYSELF”.

Pimping yourself seems degrading, but it is everywhere. You see it when you see Jay-Z, Kimora Lee Simmons, P. Diddy, 50 Cent, Madonna, and Kim Kardashian. They are pimping themselves to the world, and in control. They are the face of the companies they own, and they run the company. They are not figure heads, they are the owners. So when you look at Dynamic Table Tennis, know that it has taken 15 years for me to create something that I’m pimping myself.

Here are the results for the 2009 NCTTA National Championship.

Men’s Singles: Mark Hazinski (Texas Wesleyan University) def. Eric Owens (Midwestern University) 4-2
Women’s Singles: Judy Hugh (Rutgers University) def. Jasna Reed (Texas Wesleyan University) 4-3

Coed Team: Texas Wesleyan University def. Puerto Rico 3-1
Women’s Team: Texas Wesleyan University def. University of Toronto 3-0

Men’s Consolation Singles: Guilherme Dalcin (Lindenwood University)
Women’s Consolation Singles: Pam Fontaine (Texas Wesleyan University)

Men’s Doubles: Carlos Alvarado (Columbia University) & Tahl Leibovitz (Queens College)
Mixed Doubles: Mark Hazinski & Ines Perhoc (Texas Wesleyan University)
Women’s Doubles: Jasna Reed & Ines Perhoc (Texas Wesleyan University)
Paralympic Singles: Tahl Leibovitz (Queens College)

To view specific match details or confusing tree diagrams visit the NCTTA 2009 Championship official results page.

This weekend starting Friday April 3 is the National Collegiate Table Tennis Assocation’s (NCTTA) National Championship will kick off in Rochester, MN. Two schools from Georgia will be competing in the Men’s/Coed and Women’s Teams: Georgia Tech and Georgia State.

Can’t find a reason to go to Minnesota? Its okay, neither can I. Follow the tournament progress via the NCTTA’s Twitter feed or you can just visit the official site.

Yeah I know its April Fools Day, and I’m supposed to do some kind of gag with the site, but the pollen is getting to me and I’m drawing a blank. After the jump is a complete list of all the qualifying schools that made it into the Championship.

Men’s/Coed Teams

1. Texas Wesleyan
2. Princeton
3. Puerto Rico
4. Columbia
5. Lindenwood
6. Toronto
7. Virginia Tech
8. Wisconsin
9. Rutgers
10. Minnesota
11. Illinois
12. RPI
13. Duke
14. Texas
15. Georgia Tech
16. California (Berkeley)
17. UCLA
18. Mississippi College
19. Brown
20. Michigan State
21. Washington
22. Wichita State
23. Boston
24. Virginia

Women’s Teams

1. Texas Wesleyan
2. Rutgers
3. Toronto
4. Stanford
5. Mississippi College
6. UCLA
7. Wisconsin
8. Columbia
9. Illinois
10. Duke
11. Georgia State
12. Tufts
13. California (Berkeley)
14. Caltech

In case you missed the Cary Cup last weekend (like I did), Brian Pace was awesome enough to get some really good highlight video. The video features Eric Owens, Stefan Feth, Wang Zhen, Robert Roberts, Sara Fu, Amereesh Sahu, Ragu N, Sara Fu, Michael Landers, Chris OBrian, Dan Barrett, Paul David, Keith Evans, John Wetzler, Thomas Yu, Kim Bong, De Tran, Han Xiao, and Heather Wan.

Part 2 is available in HD quality on the Media page at the DTT website under the Tournament Highlights section. Atlanta’s Didi DeSouza can be seen playing against Mark Hazinski. And while you’re on that page, be sure to watch part 1 the “I am Table Tennis” interview with Brian Pace. In the next week I’ll be posting an interview that I am doing with Mr. Pace on his views of the sport and the business behind it.

Brian Pace can crush your loop with ease, and lift city buses using only his hamstrings - Photo by Robert Trudell (outpost81.com)

Butterfly sponsored Brian Pace has recently ventured out onto his own as a free agent to form his own company, Dynamic Table Tennis (DTT). A project 15 years in the making, Pace made the tough decision to leave his sponsor of 23 years in order to pursue a project so near and dear to his heart that he felt he needed to do it himself.

DTT is a series of 7 video training system that will be available on DVD, and also in two downloadable formats: (that cost less than the DVD) Windows Media and Quicktime MP4. The videos center around what Pace calls “Dynamic Harmony” which is a “systematic approach to how to play each shot technically perfect” and applies to every stroke that the series covers. It is designed to be watched repeatedly in order to strengthen your skill with each stroke. Thankfully it looks like the music actually bearable to listen to if you like it, and paced evenly with the video enough that you can ignore it if electronic music isn’t your taste.

What is admirable is that this is the first time an American Table Tennis player has done something like this fueled entirely by self-determination. Most training videos available today are sponsored by major retailers like Killerspin or Butterfly and feature European and/or Asian players, and at times are more often advertisement or interview fluff than substantial content. DTT looks to crush those stereotypes and be the first high quality American Table Tennis training video series. The first installment, Textbook Table Tennis is now available on his site. After the jump is a 5 minute long sample of the video.

Weekend Link Dump

• Qatar Open: Timo Boll finally spears his (Chinese) white whale and beats Ma Lin. (ETTU)
• Donate to the Sandra Paovic Solidarity fund (ITTF)
• Just in case you have a stack of money, Butterfly has a Timo Boll ZLC Limited edition for $219 (ButterflyOnline)
• Seems like quitting is contagious, Greg Letts of About.com resigned his position (About.com)

After the jump and amazing video of Timo Boll vs. Jun Mizutani and then against Ma Lin at the Qatar Open.

Just in case you’ve been asleep, haven’t checked your email, or haven’t played Table Tennis in Atlanta before, then you should know that the AGTTA returns to Chastain Park tonight at 7PM. Unfortunately, the Gym closes promptly at 10PM, so that means everyone will have to assist in putting away the tables.

Also, apparently management is a bit touchy about the condition of the floors. The AGTTA sent out an email last night stating:

The management of Chastain asks that AGTTA members exercise care when moving tables on the gym floor. If a table must be moved its legs must be lifted from the floor and rolled on the wheels. The table legs should never be slid on the floor.

Either the floors can double as dining tables, or their janitor is taking Thursday nights off.

"Man, when I'm number 1 I'm gonna have this thing gold plated"

Alas the Table Tennis gods smile upon Ma Long who defeated Wang Hao over 5 games. Earlier Wang Hao stopped Timo Boll’s advancement over six games (11:8, 8:11, 7:11, 11:5, 11:9, 11:7).

The women’s event also had an upset win by 19 year Ding Ning of China over Guo Yue in six sets.

Video of the Wang Hao vs. Timo Boll match is available after the jump.

"Why can't you hit it faster? Don't you love me?" - David Zhuang with his Wife/Coach (seriously) - Photo by Robert Trudell

Happy Valentine’s Day! For most single folks, today really sucks. But fret not! If you have Comcast, the Tennis Network (Channel 127 in Atlanta) is broadcasting the 2008 Killerspin SPINvitational today. They’ll be showing two of the quarterfinal matches. Maze vs Blaszczyk at 5:00PM and Kreanga vs Lei at 5:30PM. This is a rare event since Table Tennis on TV in the US is practically unheard of.

If you’re otherwise tied up or can’t set your DVR, don’t worry. There will be 9 more broadcasts of this tournament.

• Sunday February 15 (11:30AM, 5:30PM,6:00P)
• Saturday February 21 (5:00PM, 5:30PM)
• Sunday  February 22 (8:00AM, 11:30AM)
• Saturday February 28 (5:00PM, 5:30PM)
• Sunday March 1 (7:00AM, 7:30AM)
• Thursday March 5 (7:30AM)
• Saturday March 7 (5:00PM, 5:30PM)
• Sunday  March 8 (8:30A.M)
• Thursday March 12 (7:30AM, 2:30PM)

In the mean time enjoy my selection of random links and after the cut will be a video of American Mark Hazinski vs. Zhang Yining from China at the 2008 Killerspin Holiday Open.

• Dan Seemiller resigns as US National Team Coach (USATT)
• Kuwait Open: Timo BOLL in semi final against CHEN Qi (ETTU)
• Successful Conclusion to Fourth Day in Kuwait for Romania (ITTF)
• David after the Dentist (Youtube)
• Watch Sports from around the world, including the Kuwait Open (ChannelSurfing.net)
  

We finally own the entire gym for a night

As a first time AGTTA League Player, I must say that I am extremely impressed with their system and setup. I was supposed to arrive early to get a shot of the entire setup without any players on it, but some antsy people just couldn’t wait to start hitting. Either way, fun was had by all. After a healthy warm-up I found my table and started my first match.  Overall I had successful night and won my table. In between matches I floated around and snapped a lot of photos. If you see a photo of yourself or someone you know, without a name on it or the name is “?” then go ahead and contact me and either send me the URLs to the photos or describe the photo and which page it is on and I’ll fix them.

Feel free to take a look at the entire gallery of photos here. After the jump I’ll post up some of my favorite snapshots of the night.

Alex LOOOOOPS!

Eugene staring down his opponent

Preston Serves

See the rest of the set »

Its about to get a lot more crowded...

Just a reminder that the AGTTA league at Lucky Shoals begins tonight at 7pm, not 6pm. The league will wrap up at 11pm. This should give those of you who are commuting to get some food and find your way to Lucky Shoals. If you’ve never been to Lucky Shoals Park click here to see a Google Map of the area. Never competed in the AGTTA league before? Go to their League page to view answers to any questions you might have.

Now if you’ve visited Atlanta Table Tennis before, you’re probably wondering why Tuan is looping over and over in the top right corner of the page. During the day I am a creative designer where one of my responsibilities is Actionscript Programming. When I bring my camera to a club I generally tend to shoot very fast in order to capture some great techniques from every player. Some photo bursts come out nicely, others not so much. While reviewing which photos to upload, I often come across series of 3-7 shots that show off a particular serve or loop. I thought it would be a nice addition if I compiled them into a nice little flash viewer.

Right now, I’ve only got the “Tuan Loops” shots resized and assembled, but as soon as I get more of them ready you might see yourself up there. See you all there tonight.

"Oh hey look, another title... ooh this one is heavy." (photo courtesy of ETTU.org)

In case you haven’t watched the Liebherr Europe Top-12, the title above should be enough of a spoiler for you. Timo Boll fought hard in the last round against Vladimir Samsonov.

In fifth set BOLL was the one who had fast lead and he maintained it until the end. In sixth SAMSONOV faild to finish the match,l even he had a chance. The decisive game went to BOLL. “It was very difficult match. I had a bad start, but I managed to get back. Nevertheless in the moment when I was losing, I did not think that I can lost the final”, said BOLL.

Final results in the Men’s and Women’s events and Youtube videos of a few of the matches are after the jump.

Women’s Event
1. LI Qian (POL)
2. LI Jie (NED)
3. LIU Jia (AUT)
3. WU Jiaduo (GER)
5. Elizabeta SAMARA (ROU)
5. Daniela DODEAN (ROU)
5. Tamara BOROS (HRV)

Men’s Event
1. Timo Boll (GER)
2.Vladimir SAMSONOV (BLR)
3. Michael MAZE (DEN)
3. Kalinikos KREANGA (GRE)
5. CHEN Weixing (AUT)
5. Dimitrij OVTCHAROV (GER)
5. Jorgen PERSSON (SWE)
5. Adrian CRISAN (ROM)

Click here to read the full article on ETTU.org.

Vladimir Samsonov vs. Kalinkos Kreanga (Semi final)

Timo Boll vs. Michael Maze (Semi final)

How did I learn to serve like that you ask? Its Maaaagic!

I know. It’s Saturday. You’re bored. I’m bored. You wish you were hitting some balls right now, and honestly, I needed a reason to post that ridiculous picture of Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

Seriously though, ETTUtv is broadcasting the Liebherr Europe Top-12 live right now.

Mens Group

Group A: Timo BOLL (Germany), Adrian CRISAN (ROU), Zoran PRIMORAC (HRV)
Group B: Kalinikos KREANGA (GRE), Michael MAZE (DEN), Jean Michel SAIVE (BEL)
Group C: Dimitrij OVTCHAROV (GER), Jörgen PERSSON (SWE), Robert GARDOS (AUT)
Group D: Vladimir SAMSONOV (BLR), CHEN Weixing (AUT), TAN Ruiwu (HRV)

Womens Group

Group A:  LIU Jia (AUT),  Daniela DODEAN (ROU),  Wenling TAN MONFARDINI (ITA)
Group B : Krisztina TOTH (HUN), LI Jie (NED), Tamara BOROS (HRV)
Group C: LI Qian (POL),  Viktoria PAVLOVICH (BLR), Elizabeta SAMARA (ROU)
Group D: LI Jiao (NED), WU Jiaduo (GER), NI XIA Lian (LUX)

After the Jump I’ve got a video of Ovtcharov’s great performance at the Danish Open Final against Ma Long two weeks ago.