Showing posts with label table tennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label table tennis. Show all posts
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Table Tennis robots have advanced a bit...
...since mine, which I called Dragutin, was profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. 'He' was one of my training partners prior to the Paralympics in Seoul and Barcelona.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Ping-Pong: Head Game
From the New York Times
February 23, 2013
Ping-Pong: Head Game
By PICO IYER
A gold-toothed man of 76 polishes his $300 paddle. The tall, elegant gentleman who is used to overseeing maquiladoras in Tijuana silently pulls three-star balls out of a box. Mrs. Fukuoka, 80 next month, flicks shots into the corner at such cunning angles that she wins every other point. “I’m never tired,” she giggles, hiding her smile behind her bat, “because I never move.” At another of the eight championship tables, a bald guy and a grandmother exchange low forehand topspins with such relentless intensity they attain a rhythm that’s almost sexual.
This is not the kids’ game I grew up playing in my dorm at school.
It’s not the spring break romp that dissolves in giggles beside the pool at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood.
In Japan, Ping-Pong is how you keep your wits about you and your reflexes, limbs and senses intensely sharp. Almost every afternoon for nine years, I’ve walked 15 minutes uphill to our local health club, here in suburban Nara, or taken a bus to an ancient gymnasium in a nearby park, to engage in furious bouts of table tennis with a group of 30 or so Japanese neighbors who teach me about engagement in their retirement years as once they did with co-workers or family members.
I soon begin sweating even on mid-February days while some of my pals are swathed in jackets, mufflers and gloves and our breath condenses in front of us, indoors. When it hits 100 degrees in the old wooden space in July, I slip away discreetly after 90 minutes, while my aged friends continue for up to four hours. “Pico-san,” they say, next time they see me. “What’s up? You’re the youngest by 20 years and you’re the first to stop.” “I’m the only non-Japanese,” I want to say.
Some play tight, wily games with a Chinese “pen holder” grip mastered before World War II. Others brandish the long, cool “shake” forehands of a Western style.
With every stroke, I might be watching Japan address its central question: whether to honor the distant past or the future, Confucius or California.
It’s a sport of intelligence, of course, which is why eight of the first nine world table tennis championships were won by Hungary. It’s a game of authority, which is why it was invented, many claim, by imperial Brits in the late 19th century, perhaps as an after-dinner game for the Raj. It’s an exercise in unyielding patience: when the first point between two (defensively minded) players in the 1936 World Championship lasted two hours and 12 minutes, the umpire had to be replaced midpoint, one player started playing with his left hand, and the rules had to be re-evaluated on the spot to prevent matches that could go on for 16 days. I watch the high-toss serves of track-suited former salarymen, I hear the shouts (in quasi-English) of “deuce one!” or “all seven!” from adjoining tables, I dive for a lightning backhand drive from a toothless doctor and I think, “How can a training in attention be so ridiculously fun?”
Continue reading "Games People Play": Tennis: Love-Love by James Atlas, Solitaire: Me vs. Me by Francine Prose, Poker Is America by Charles A. Murray and Frisbee: Ultimate Sport by Jason Lucero.
Pico Iyer is a fellow at Chapman University and the author, most recently, of “The Man Within My Head.”
February 23, 2013
Ping-Pong: Head Game
By PICO IYER
A gold-toothed man of 76 polishes his $300 paddle. The tall, elegant gentleman who is used to overseeing maquiladoras in Tijuana silently pulls three-star balls out of a box. Mrs. Fukuoka, 80 next month, flicks shots into the corner at such cunning angles that she wins every other point. “I’m never tired,” she giggles, hiding her smile behind her bat, “because I never move.” At another of the eight championship tables, a bald guy and a grandmother exchange low forehand topspins with such relentless intensity they attain a rhythm that’s almost sexual.
This is not the kids’ game I grew up playing in my dorm at school.
It’s not the spring break romp that dissolves in giggles beside the pool at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood.
In Japan, Ping-Pong is how you keep your wits about you and your reflexes, limbs and senses intensely sharp. Almost every afternoon for nine years, I’ve walked 15 minutes uphill to our local health club, here in suburban Nara, or taken a bus to an ancient gymnasium in a nearby park, to engage in furious bouts of table tennis with a group of 30 or so Japanese neighbors who teach me about engagement in their retirement years as once they did with co-workers or family members.
I soon begin sweating even on mid-February days while some of my pals are swathed in jackets, mufflers and gloves and our breath condenses in front of us, indoors. When it hits 100 degrees in the old wooden space in July, I slip away discreetly after 90 minutes, while my aged friends continue for up to four hours. “Pico-san,” they say, next time they see me. “What’s up? You’re the youngest by 20 years and you’re the first to stop.” “I’m the only non-Japanese,” I want to say.
Some play tight, wily games with a Chinese “pen holder” grip mastered before World War II. Others brandish the long, cool “shake” forehands of a Western style.
With every stroke, I might be watching Japan address its central question: whether to honor the distant past or the future, Confucius or California.
It’s a sport of intelligence, of course, which is why eight of the first nine world table tennis championships were won by Hungary. It’s a game of authority, which is why it was invented, many claim, by imperial Brits in the late 19th century, perhaps as an after-dinner game for the Raj. It’s an exercise in unyielding patience: when the first point between two (defensively minded) players in the 1936 World Championship lasted two hours and 12 minutes, the umpire had to be replaced midpoint, one player started playing with his left hand, and the rules had to be re-evaluated on the spot to prevent matches that could go on for 16 days. I watch the high-toss serves of track-suited former salarymen, I hear the shouts (in quasi-English) of “deuce one!” or “all seven!” from adjoining tables, I dive for a lightning backhand drive from a toothless doctor and I think, “How can a training in attention be so ridiculously fun?”
Continue reading "Games People Play": Tennis: Love-Love by James Atlas, Solitaire: Me vs. Me by Francine Prose, Poker Is America by Charles A. Murray and Frisbee: Ultimate Sport by Jason Lucero.
Pico Iyer is a fellow at Chapman University and the author, most recently, of “The Man Within My Head.”
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Marty Reisman, 82, a Wizard of Table Tennis, Dies
December 7, 2012
Marty Reisman, 82, a Wizard of Table Tennis, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN in the New York Times
"Marty Reisman, a wizard at table tennis, the sport in which he captured national championships, won and lost fortunes on wagers and moved crowds to laughter — sometimes using a frying pan as a paddle — as an opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 82.
The death was announced by Table Tennis Nation, an organization he founded two years ago to make his sport even more fun. Cooper Fallek, its chief operating officer, said the cause was complications of heart and lung ailments.
Known as “the Needle” for his slimness and quick wit, Mr. Reisman traveled the world to hustle movie stars and maharajahs, winning enough to become a three-time millionaire — and losing enough to be a three-time former millionaire. Once, when an 11-year-old asked for a lesson, he suggested a side bet.
“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in March.
He was good enough to win 22 major table tennis titles from 1946 to 2002, including two United States Opens and a British Open. Many consider him one of the 10 best ever to play the game. In 1997, at 67, he became the oldest player to win a national championship in a racket sport by winning the United States National Hardbat Championship.
In an interview with Forbes magazine in 2005, Sir Harold Evans, the writer and editor, who is a table tennis aficionado, credited Mr. Reisman with “the greatest drop shot ever seen on the face of the earth.”
Mr. Reisman cut a flamboyant figure. He favored Borsalino fedoras and Panama hats and fashionable, bright clothing. Before beginning a game, he habitually removed a $100 bill from his roll to measure the net. He talked fast, forever promoting what he termed “the Reisman myth.” His signature trick was breaking a cigarette in half from across the table. If the bet was large enough, he would play sitting down. If it was very large, he would play blindfolded.
He had a cause bigger than himself, however. After the Japanese player Hiroji Satoh showed up with a new kind of paddle to beat Mr. Reisman at the world championship in 1952 in Mumbai, then known as Bombay, Mr. Reisman crusaded against it. The old kind of paddle, called a hardbat — the one Mr. Reisman liked — was covered with a thin layer of pimpled rubber. The new one had smooth, thicker rubber and no pimples, and propelled the ball at greater speeds. He lost the argument; the new model became the game’s standard.
Not least of his objections was that the newer paddle was relatively soundless; he liked to react to the whack of paddle hitting ball, in the manner of an outfielder running at the crack of the bat.
“Before, there was a dialogue between the two players, wherein a 6-year-old child could understand the difference between offense and defense,” Mr. Reisman told The Times in 1998. “Today a point is made or lost with an imperceptible twist of the wrist.”
Table Tennis Nation promotes a version of the old-fashioned paddle, one covered with sandpaper rather than rubber. The thinking is that sandpaper rackets foster longer volleys. “This racket is the purest reflection of a player’s ability,” Mr. Reisman said.
For 20 years, starting in the late 1950s, Mr. Reisman operated the Riverside Table Tennis Courts at 96th Street and Broadway. It became as famous in its orbit as Stillman’s Gym was in prizefighting. Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Vonnegut, David Mamet and a group of violinists from the Metropolitan Opera were regulars. Bobby Fischer found relief from the rigors of chess there. Freddie the Fence, Herbie the Nuclear Physicist and Betty the Monkey Lady were institutions at Riverside.
Usually lurking in a little back room was Mr. Reisman, hoping for a challenging match with a worthwhile wager. In 1972, The New York Times Magazine described him as “coiling and uncoiling in preparation for the occasional mongoose foolish enough to challenge him.”
Martin Reisman, the son of a cabdriver, was born in Manhattan on Feb. 1, 1930. He told Forbes that he came to the sport after a nervous breakdown when he was 9 years old and found it soothing. He was city junior champion at 13. Soon he was hustling for real money at Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club at 54th and Broadway, a former speakeasy with bullet holes in the wall. At 16 he was touring England with a three-man exhibition team.
Three years later, he and Doug Cartland became the opening act for the Globetrotters. They played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” with frying pans, and hit balls across the net with the soles of their sneakers.
His betting ways got him in trouble once when he was 15. Participating at the national tournament in Detroit, he had placed a $500 bet on himself with a man he thought was a bookie, dropping five $100 bills into his palm. The man turned out to be the head of the United States Table Tennis Association. Police officers escorted Mr. Reisman from the tournament.
He is survived by his wife, Yoshiko; his daughter, Debbie Reisman; and several grandchildren.
Mr. Reisman once marveled that he had built a career around a game usually played in the basement next to the clothes dryer. “A funny way to spend a life,” he said."
As I wrote about here, Marty was gave me my very first table tennis lesson. I'll miss him.
Marty Reisman, 82, a Wizard of Table Tennis, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN in the New York Times
"Marty Reisman, a wizard at table tennis, the sport in which he captured national championships, won and lost fortunes on wagers and moved crowds to laughter — sometimes using a frying pan as a paddle — as an opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 82.
The death was announced by Table Tennis Nation, an organization he founded two years ago to make his sport even more fun. Cooper Fallek, its chief operating officer, said the cause was complications of heart and lung ailments.
Known as “the Needle” for his slimness and quick wit, Mr. Reisman traveled the world to hustle movie stars and maharajahs, winning enough to become a three-time millionaire — and losing enough to be a three-time former millionaire. Once, when an 11-year-old asked for a lesson, he suggested a side bet.
“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in March.
He was good enough to win 22 major table tennis titles from 1946 to 2002, including two United States Opens and a British Open. Many consider him one of the 10 best ever to play the game. In 1997, at 67, he became the oldest player to win a national championship in a racket sport by winning the United States National Hardbat Championship.
In an interview with Forbes magazine in 2005, Sir Harold Evans, the writer and editor, who is a table tennis aficionado, credited Mr. Reisman with “the greatest drop shot ever seen on the face of the earth.”
Mr. Reisman cut a flamboyant figure. He favored Borsalino fedoras and Panama hats and fashionable, bright clothing. Before beginning a game, he habitually removed a $100 bill from his roll to measure the net. He talked fast, forever promoting what he termed “the Reisman myth.” His signature trick was breaking a cigarette in half from across the table. If the bet was large enough, he would play sitting down. If it was very large, he would play blindfolded.
He had a cause bigger than himself, however. After the Japanese player Hiroji Satoh showed up with a new kind of paddle to beat Mr. Reisman at the world championship in 1952 in Mumbai, then known as Bombay, Mr. Reisman crusaded against it. The old kind of paddle, called a hardbat — the one Mr. Reisman liked — was covered with a thin layer of pimpled rubber. The new one had smooth, thicker rubber and no pimples, and propelled the ball at greater speeds. He lost the argument; the new model became the game’s standard.
Not least of his objections was that the newer paddle was relatively soundless; he liked to react to the whack of paddle hitting ball, in the manner of an outfielder running at the crack of the bat.
“Before, there was a dialogue between the two players, wherein a 6-year-old child could understand the difference between offense and defense,” Mr. Reisman told The Times in 1998. “Today a point is made or lost with an imperceptible twist of the wrist.”
Table Tennis Nation promotes a version of the old-fashioned paddle, one covered with sandpaper rather than rubber. The thinking is that sandpaper rackets foster longer volleys. “This racket is the purest reflection of a player’s ability,” Mr. Reisman said.
For 20 years, starting in the late 1950s, Mr. Reisman operated the Riverside Table Tennis Courts at 96th Street and Broadway. It became as famous in its orbit as Stillman’s Gym was in prizefighting. Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Vonnegut, David Mamet and a group of violinists from the Metropolitan Opera were regulars. Bobby Fischer found relief from the rigors of chess there. Freddie the Fence, Herbie the Nuclear Physicist and Betty the Monkey Lady were institutions at Riverside.
Usually lurking in a little back room was Mr. Reisman, hoping for a challenging match with a worthwhile wager. In 1972, The New York Times Magazine described him as “coiling and uncoiling in preparation for the occasional mongoose foolish enough to challenge him.”
Martin Reisman, the son of a cabdriver, was born in Manhattan on Feb. 1, 1930. He told Forbes that he came to the sport after a nervous breakdown when he was 9 years old and found it soothing. He was city junior champion at 13. Soon he was hustling for real money at Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club at 54th and Broadway, a former speakeasy with bullet holes in the wall. At 16 he was touring England with a three-man exhibition team.
Three years later, he and Doug Cartland became the opening act for the Globetrotters. They played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” with frying pans, and hit balls across the net with the soles of their sneakers.
His betting ways got him in trouble once when he was 15. Participating at the national tournament in Detroit, he had placed a $500 bet on himself with a man he thought was a bookie, dropping five $100 bills into his palm. The man turned out to be the head of the United States Table Tennis Association. Police officers escorted Mr. Reisman from the tournament.
He is survived by his wife, Yoshiko; his daughter, Debbie Reisman; and several grandchildren.
Mr. Reisman once marveled that he had built a career around a game usually played in the basement next to the clothes dryer. “A funny way to spend a life,” he said."
As I wrote about here, Marty was gave me my very first table tennis lesson. I'll miss him.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
For Young Olympic Hopefuls, Table Tennis Is All Business
"In Friday’s editions of The New York Times, Somini Sengupta told the story of an unlikely incubator of Olympic talent: a nondescript warehouse in Milpitas, Calif., known as the India Community Center Table Tennis Center.
Built by Indian immigrants who found success in Silicon Valley, the center has become a powerhouse of amateur table tennis. This year, three of the four players who will represent the United States in the London Olympics train at the I.C.C.: Lily Zhang, 15; Timothy Wang, 20; and Ariel Hsing, 16.
In 2010, a video production company called California Is a Place profiled the center. The video, which features Hsing, offers an intimate glimpse into the training habits of the teenage and child athletes there — a place that is fun and games for some, and all business for others."
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Table Tennis Beside a Bank, and Other Contests Intended to ‘Reclaim’ Midtown
An unorthodox table-tennis tournament played against the Bank of America building in Manhattan on Friday was part of a project by the artist Zefrey Throwell.
Article
Friday, March 09, 2012
A Throwback Player, With a Wardrobe to Match
With his vintage clothes and classic paddle, Marty Reisman is a relic from a bolder era of New York table tennis.
Marty Reisman wears vintage Borsalino fedoras because no one makes a good hat anymore.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Marty Reisman studies a portrait of himself at SPiN on East 23rd Street.
Carl T. Gossett/The New York Times
Marty Reisman at the Riverside Table Tennis Courts, at 96th Street and Broadway, in 1960.
He is known to measure the height of table tennis nets with $100 bills
because, sure, a $1 bill is just as long, but why be “chintzy” about
it?
He likes the city’s trendy new Ping-Pong parlors just fine,
particularly if some hot rapscallion has the gall to challenge him.
But Mr. Reisman misses his friends, those relics from the underbelly of
a postwar New York that loved a good showman, winked at a friendly — or
not so friendly — wager and supported these habits with a series of
underground money matches among the game’s best.
“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” Mr. Reisman, 82, said. “Never backed down from a bet.”
But with the death last month of Mr. Reisman’s friend and rival, 94-year-old Sol Schiff,
the man known as “Mr. Table Tennis,” the game’s departure from a bygone
city era has perhaps never been starker. Mr. Schiff’s tutelage came at
the 92nd Street Y, which no longer has a working table tennis court on
site. In a sport that once counted Americans among the world’s best,
the United States has not earned a medal since the game was certified
for the 1988 Olympics. (China has won 20 of 24 golds.)
While Mr. Schiff did not seek out money games as Mr. Reisman did, they
and other table tennis luminaries were once treated as kings at their
haunts, like Lawrence’s in Midtown Manhattan, where the walls were
dotted with bullet holes and other badges of its speakeasy past, or Mr.
Reisman’s eponymous parlor on 96th Street near Broadway.
Today, New York’s best-known table tennis personality may be the
actress Susan Sarandon, who, as co-owner of the “Ping-Pong social club”
SPiN on East 23rd Street, helped guide the game’s unlikely recasting as
a chic staple of urban night life.
Mr. Reisman, if photo archives are any indication, may have been the
first player to reach the intersection of champion table tennis and
immutable style. This week, during a trip to the site of his old parlor
on the occasion of Mr. Schiff’s recent death, he wore a dark brown
Borsalino, tinted glasses and a red turtleneck.
Before owning the shop, Mr. Reisman starred as the halftime act for the
Harlem Globetrotters in Europe and competed for prizes as lofty as
world championships and as lowly as a $50 war bond in Columbus, Ohio.
After owning the shop, he invested in a chain of Chinese restaurants.
The former national and international champion is a three-time
millionaire, he said, and a three-time former millionaire.
Mr. Reisman said he operated the parlor, in what is now the back of a
cellphone store, from 1958 until the late 1970s. He installed a
closed-circuit television on the sidewalk, so pedestrians and passing
drivers could watch the matches.
“It looked like a hustler’s paradise,” said Tim Boggan, the historian
for USA Table Tennis, the game’s national association.
Mr. Reisman reached a new audience in 2008 when, during a surprise cameo on the “Late Show,” he tried his signature parlor trick: breaking a cigarette in half from across the table.
“Look, the shoes match the shirt,” the host, David Letterman, noted, pointing to his bright red sneakers.
It is in this capacity — as the throwback magician, with outfits to
match — that the city’s young talents know Mr. Reisman.
On Tuesday, Mr. Reisman hoped to find some of them, traveling to SPiN
with two paddles in his bag. Each was covered in sandpaper. He prefers
that he and any opponents use these classic paddles, not the spongy
material that has come to dominate the game.
“The modern game is played with fraud, deceit and deception,” he said.
“This racket is the purest reflection of a player’s ability.”
The below-ground club, at least, seems to know its history. Mr.
Reisman’s likeness appears in no fewer than three places, including one
portrait in which he wears leopard-print pants. In the painting beside
it, a female player in a black bikini top holds her racket in a belt
loop of her cutoff jeans, her hands raised behind her head.
“You look fantastic up there!” a young blond employee said after Mr.
Reisman entered, referring to a photograph in the upstairs lobby.
“You look fantastic down here,” he said, shuffling toward the courts.
Once he got there, he trained his eyes on a player, Mark Croitoroo, 20,
practicing a serve that concealed the ball with his body until the
moment of contact. Mr. Reisman does not care for such ploys.
He asked if Mr. Croitoroo would mind hitting a few with the sandpaper
racket. Mr. Croitoroo obliged. And so they began exchanging strokes,
the older man pursing his lips with each forehand, the younger
appearing to grow restless with the rally.
Suddenly, Mr. Reisman began to turn his shoulders, tucking his right
arm against his body. He flicked a backhand with a quick jolt of the
wrist, dooming Mr. Croitoroo to a wayward return on his own backhand
side.
Mr. Reisman smiled. Mr. Croitoroo smirked, complimenting the shot. He
said he should probably return to his practice. Mr. Reisman thanked
him.
“He’s a hustler,” Mr. Croitoroo said later, as he watched the legend try another trick.
Mr. Reisman looked across a table at a man with a camera.
Did anyone, the old paddler asked, doubt that he could hit the lens with his serve?
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 9, 2012
An earlier version of a headline on a video accompanying this article had an incorrect age for Marty Reisman. He is 82.
Follow the link below to see some video of Marty in action:
Correction: March 9, 2012
An earlier version of a headline on a video accompanying this article had an incorrect age for Marty Reisman. He is 82.
Follow the link below to see some video of Marty in action:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/nyregion/marty-reisman-a-throwback-to-a-bolder-era-of-table-tennis.html
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Loosening China’s Grip on Table Tennis
By DANIEL KRIEGER
Published: May 13, 2011
As players of Chinese ethnicity continue to dominate, the sport’s governing body recently changed its rules to make it harder for players to represent other countries after relocating.
It's always good to see coverage of table tennis. There are lots of familiar names in this article for me, including David Zhuang, who was my coach prior to the '92 Paralympic Games.
Published: May 13, 2011
As players of Chinese ethnicity continue to dominate, the sport’s governing body recently changed its rules to make it harder for players to represent other countries after relocating.
It's always good to see coverage of table tennis. There are lots of familiar names in this article for me, including David Zhuang, who was my coach prior to the '92 Paralympic Games.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Weathering a Midlife Crisis In the Haunts of Table Tennis
As part of a midlife crisis last April, Bob Eckstein embarked on a tour of New York City’s table tennis haunts, seeking to build street cred and finally master the game.
Click the title to read the NY Times article.
The author mentions taking lessons from 'The Chief', George Braithwaite, who had been a member of the U.S. delegation to China -- part of 'Ping Pong' diplomacy instigated during the Nixon administration.
I also had the pleasure of playing with the ageless Braithwaite, who was my first coach's (Sam Hammond of Ghana) practice partner back in the '70s. You can read a bit more about that if interested here.
Click the title to read the NY Times article.
The author mentions taking lessons from 'The Chief', George Braithwaite, who had been a member of the U.S. delegation to China -- part of 'Ping Pong' diplomacy instigated during the Nixon administration.
I also had the pleasure of playing with the ageless Braithwaite, who was my first coach's (Sam Hammond of Ghana) practice partner back in the '70s. You can read a bit more about that if interested here.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
China to build racket-shaped hotel
'The design idea is from ping-pong. An erected ping-pong racket has a perfect architectural shape for a hotel,' said Jin Chang, director with Huainan Municipal Bureau of Sports. -- PHOTO: CHINA DAILY
CHINA - A 150M TALL hotel designed in the shape of a ping-pong racket will be built in Huainan city, East China's Anhui province, as part of a complex to tap the wealth of the sports industry.
The hotel, located in a planned Olympic park covering an area of over 67 hectares, has an estimated investment of 300 million yuan (S$58 million). It will feature three parts, the top designed for sight-seeing, the middle will house guest rooms, and bottom used for conference facilities.
'The design idea is from ping-pong. An erected ping-pong racket has a perfect architectural shape for a hotel,' said Jin Chang, director with Huainan Municipal Bureau of Sports.
The buildings were all designed by Mei Jikui, a renowned architect for sports structures. Supporting facilities such as a swimming pool are also included in the plans.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Dick Miles, Record-Setting U.S. Table Tennis Player, Dies at 85
Miles had a powerful forehand and exceptional defensive skills, which helped him win a record-setting 10 national championships.
Dick Miles, right, with Erwin Kline in 1961. Miles was known for his strong forehand stroke.
One of the real greats in my sport. Click the title above to read the NY Times article.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Table tennis mittens
Finally, what we've all been waiting for...table tennis mittens!
See them in action by clicking the title
See them in action by clicking the title
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Glad I never faced this guy across the net -- Part Deux
A Ping-Pong-Playing Terminator
Your table-tennis dynasty is toast
From the latest issue of Popular Science
Your table-tennis dynasty is toast
From the latest issue of Popular Science
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Ping-Pong Prodigy
Lots of table tennis news this week. From the NY Times:
"OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. — Three times a week, Michael Landers takes the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station. He rides the subway downtown for two stops, then walks two blocks to SPiN New York, at 23rd Street and Park Avenue South, where for three hours he practices table tennis in his quest to become the best player in the United States. On the train home, he does his math homework.
At 15, Landers is the youngest player to win the men’s national singles championship. He overcame a three-games-to-one deficit in the best-of-seven final on Dec. 19 in Las Vegas, where controversy almost derailed his bid. Six of the eight quarterfinalists defaulted after protesting what they considered to be insufficient prize money. Landers was ushered straight to the final, where he defeated his higher-rated opponent, 26-year-old Samson Dubina."
Click on the title bar to read the entire article.
"OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. — Three times a week, Michael Landers takes the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station. He rides the subway downtown for two stops, then walks two blocks to SPiN New York, at 23rd Street and Park Avenue South, where for three hours he practices table tennis in his quest to become the best player in the United States. On the train home, he does his math homework.
At 15, Landers is the youngest player to win the men’s national singles championship. He overcame a three-games-to-one deficit in the best-of-seven final on Dec. 19 in Las Vegas, where controversy almost derailed his bid. Six of the eight quarterfinalists defaulted after protesting what they considered to be insufficient prize money. Landers was ushered straight to the final, where he defeated his higher-rated opponent, 26-year-old Samson Dubina."
Click on the title bar to read the entire article.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
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