Newgy’s Blog

Proper preparation is necessary if you want to play your best at a table tennis tournament. First of all, eating a big, healthy breakfast gives your body the energy it needs throughout the morning during matches. Usually, morning table tennis matches start around nine o’clock, so breakfast is an absolute must. Some feel that eating a large breakfast will upset their stomachs and choose not to eat at all. The problem with this is that without food, the body will not have any energy. If you don’t eat breakfast, your body will not have received food since dinner the night before. That’s a long time without eating any food. Eating during the tournament helps as well. Try to keep some power bars on hand or some kind of light food that helps to provide energy, as well as lots of water.

Stretching and warming up correctly are extremely important as well. A proper warm-up and stretch should last 20-30 minutes and should consist of jogging/biking and stretching. Without warming up, your body is prone to injury. After stretching, try doing some drills on the ping-pong® table to get your feet moving.

Getting an adequate amount of sleep the night before a tournament is also quite important. You definitely don’t want to be tired while playing. Not getting enough sleep can cause your mind to cloud up, causing frustration and poor match play.

Following these tips will definitely help you to perform your best in your next table tennis tournament.

Good luck!

Michael Landers

Mistakes – From recreation level ping-pong players to World Champion table tennis players, everyone makes mistakes. However, there is a huge difference between the average players and the pros. The average players make the same mistakes again and again. Once they are down 2-0, or lost the match, or driving home after the tournament, they discover the fault and possibly think of a solution. The good players pause after each point, they recognize the lapse, and know how to immediately correct the problem. Below I have listed several ways to think more between points and eliminate continued errors.

#1

When training in table tennis, be aware of your faults point by point. When I am training with my Newgy Robo-Pong table tennis robot, I am thinking of a match situation. After I make five errors, I turn off the robot. I will not allow myself to make mistake after mistake without stopping, reflecting, making the correction, and then continuing.

#2

Ask a better table tennis player to analyze your game point by point. When practicing with a higher-rated player, ask him or her to stop every point for two minutes and tell you what you did right and/or what you did wrong.

#3

Take significant time between points. The official rule says that “play must be continuous.” You are allowed to step back and reflect for five seconds to realize what went right and what went wrong during the point. You are not allowed to take 60 seconds lecturing yourself while pacing the barriers. At the six point break, towel off and keep your focus on the game.

#4

Stay in the court. Not only keep your mind on the game, but keep your eyes in the court. Even in practice, don’t let your eyes go beyond the barriers. If you see spectators or other matches or trophies or food, your mind will drift off.

#5

Practice like it’s a tournament. After winning the World Championships, Werner Schlager was asked if he had felt much pressure during the finals. He said that he didn’t feel any pressure because for many years, he had been able to think clearly and practice as if he was in the finals. When the final came, he was just thinking like he had been training.

Samson Dubina

A lot of times table tennis clubs can be seen to some people as a “fun time”, or not for serious table tennis play. I have people like that at my club, and it can sometimes be difficult to focus on your game while you are around them.

Here are a few suggestions of ways I have found to be useful in these situations:

1) The first thing I always do is ask to play somebody I know is also there to work on their game. If you get with someone like that, the quality of play will go way up.

2) Another thing that I found works well is getting to an area that not many people are. At my club many people like to joke around while not playing. And a lot of times it can get quite loud. But when I go to an isolated area, I can concentrate much more on playing.

3) Also, a great thing you can do before you go to your club, is have a set goal of what you want to work on. Coming to the club without something in particular that you want to improve can get you off track of playing serious. But, if you have something you want to accomplish, you are way more focused and committed to doing that certain thing.

All of those things are essential to having more effective club practice. And if you have people at your club who are not as serious as you, they can get in the way of you improving your game.

Perry Wilson

Footwork is very important in table tennis. Most players do not have great footwork. This is either because they don’t know how to move correctly, or they just flat out don’t move. A key part to moving is bending your knees. If you do not bend your knees you will not improve very much.

The first type of footwork is short distance footwork. This is when you are moving one step (or shuffle) to get a ball. You always move your outside foot first. The outside foot is the one that is farthest away from the ball. For example, if you’re moving to hit a wide backhand, you would need to move your right foot first. In order to do this you need to have a good spring in your legs. The only way to get a good spring to the ball is if you bend your knees and use the energy of your body going from down to up to move to the ball. Think of bending your knees like a spring. You push down on a spring and all that energy is waiting to explode. Then you release and all the energy makes a big impact. This is the effect of bending your knees.

Long distance footwork is almost the same as short distance, but in long distance you need to be more explosive and cover more ground. You need even more of a spring now which will require you to bend your knees.

The last common type of footwork is moving in and out of the table. If you are moving in to make a push or flip you need to have your right foot under the table. This will give you more reach. It is important to stay low (bending your knees) when flipping a short ball because you need to catch the ball at the top of the bounce. When you catch the ball at the top of the bounce you are catching it when it is highest, which means you will not have to lift the ball as much. If you don’t bend your knees you will not know when the ball has reached its highest point.

Bending your knees is very important in table tennis. Basically every single shot has something to do with bending your knees. If you do not bend your knees you are not going to improve very much and you will not reach the highest part of your game.

Pierce Scott

I got back from my three week Euro-trip recently and now I’m trying to finish up with all of the schoolwork that I missed. I’ve cut down on my table tennis training by a lot. I’m only practicing two days a week in order to get caught up with school. However, I’m still going to the gym for physical training five times a week just to stay in shape. I’m also practicing with the Newgy Robo-Pong table tennis robot a few minutes a night just to get a feel for the ball.

I’m not sure what my plans for this summer are. I may go to China or Germany, but right now I’m just focusing on catching up with all of the work. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the U.S. Open. My next major table tennis tournament isn’t until late August, so now is sort of an off-season for me. I’m hoping to finish everything with school as quickly as possible and get back to training!

Michael Landers