Show #278 - Mind Games

7 years ago


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On This Day - 2:35

Lots of interesting birthdays.

Tip of the Week - 4:42

Plan for the year ahead!

Drill of the Week - 9:17

Introducing placing the ball to more than one position when you are doing a drill.

Tournament Wrap - 13:03

ITTF Star Awards

Playing Unfit - 19:36

Ernst: Yesterday, I played table tennis in not a perfect shape. I got a fever but I was still insist to play. Usually, I can land the ball perfectly on the table, but yesterday almost all of my ball went straight to the net or went out of the table. Does it mean I'm still lacking consistency in playing table tennis?

Mind Games - 22:08

Nigel: Do you have advice about mind games. I recently played in a match in my local league. I was just about to start serving in the 3rd game of a match. The score was 1 - 1in games. An opponent who i had just lost to in a close match was sat watching but called me over and said i needed to throw the ball higher on my serve. This has never been said to me before and as far as i can tell i am usually very close to the required 6 inches height if not higher. It being a local league most people don't complain as long as you are obviously not gaining an advantage. The umpire who was also one of the visiting team said nothing. Nor had my opponent who i was actually playing said anything. My own team afterwards have told me that my serves are on par with most players who play in our league .i.e not always perfect but not played in a way that gains an advantage...e.g serving out of a hand or spinning the ball or throw the ball away from vertical. I asked the opponent who was sat down to leave the decisions to the umpire. But i was put off by his comments and lost that game 2 - 11 and ended up losing that match. The opponent who had made the comment went on to play another match and served using a throw of about 2 inches. In fact the rest of my team said that is how he had served in every match that evening. In hindsight i think the comments were mind games to put me off. I do tend to be a bit of obviously nervous player. So how to keep concentration and how to deal with mind games from the opposition.

Timeouts - 29:06

Temitope: When are the very best moments, period and time to call for time out in a Tournaments?

Re-Tossing - 35:08

Bryan: My question for you is am I allowed to catch the ball and toss it again during service? I've played tennis for 6 years and I know I'm allowed to do it. I was wondering if that was the same for table tennis.

Warming Up - 36:13

Mehmet: I wanna ask How many minutes we have to work on the table?

Links in this Episode

The Goonies

PingSkills YouTube Channel

The Relative Age Effect

ITTF Star Awards

The Star Table Tennis Points of 2016

PingSkills Show on the Paralympic Games