7 Best Table Tennis Blogs From Around The World
04 July 2016 | Posted in: Fun & Inspiration
About the Guest Post Author
Kevin Finn is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and the author of “The Table Tennis Player’s Guide to Health and Fitness”. Kevin’s love for table tennis began in high school and never left. As a player he specializes in playing defensively, losing frequently, and spending inordinate amounts of time researching and tweaking his setup.
If you’re anything like me, the time you spend thinking about table tennis and wishing you could play more far exceeds the time you have available to actually play!
Perhaps the only club in your area has limited hours, or maybe you’ve taken on a new project at work that is eating away at your training time.
Regardless, most amateur players are stuck in the unfortunate situation of having limited amounts of time to train and improve their game.
So how then do we get our table tennis fix?
Unlike other sports, you can’t just flip on the TV and have your pick of matches to watch—along with detailed commentary and analysis by sports analysts. Nor can you strike up a conversation at the water cooler at work…
“Hey, you hear about Tomokazu Harimoto winning the under 21 at the Japanese Open at only 12 years old? Crazy, right? What do you think about his ‘choing,’ too excessive?”
Not only would you be met with blank, confused stares, you’d also be labeled the office eccentric pretty quickly (trust me, I’m speaking from experience on this one).
In these situations, having another outlet for your table tennis passion is essential, this is where the power of the internet comes in! Table tennis blogs and online communities provide a valuable outlet for all that pent up table tennis enthusiasm.
In this article I will share with you some of the most useful and interesting table tennis blogs I’ve come across in my endless quest for more table tennis knowledge.
Disclaimer: This list is heavily skewed towards English speaking websites because—like a typical American—that’s the only language I speak (y solo un poco Español!). This excellent blog is also not included in the list because, if you’re reading this right now, you obviously are already aware of it!
So, without further ado, here’s the list!
Table Tennis Forums
There is no better way to tap into the lifeblood of the table tennis community and create a worldwide network of friends than table tennis forums. These are my favorite and seem to be the most popular at the moment:
- http://ooakforum.com/
- http://mytabletennis.net/forum/
- Honorable Mention: https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletennis
While table tennis forums aren’t blogs in the purest sense of the word, they are in many ways even better. Forums are active communities where you can gain access to the experience, expertise, and opinions of hundreds of players. For those of us whose local table tennis community is quite small (or non-existent), this is an invaluable tool.
Forums are a great way to get advice on equipment or to receive some unbiased feedback on your game (if you’re brave enough to post a match). They also allow you to live vicariously through other player’s experiences, like in this excellent blog on the OOAK forum: "A Half a Year in China: Memoirs of a Defender".
In this blog, Leatherback gives a first-hand, detailed account of his experiences training at the Chinese National Table Tennis Training Center in China. The blog is 20+ pages long, but is an absolute goldmine of information as he describes the exact type of training, equipment recommendations, and advice he received from the coaches!
This post is an excellent example of the kind of quality information that you can find in a forum that’s hard to find anywhere else.
Larry Hodges’ Daily Blog
Hard to talk about table tennis blogs without mentioning Larry Hodges’ blog. Larry Hodges is a USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame member and a professional table tennis coach. He also is an accomplished author with many books and publications under his name.
His blog updates Monday-Friday and typically comprises the following topics:
- The “tip of the week,” posted Mondays
- His experiences as a coach
- Updates on his various books and publications
- Updates on USATT meetings (he is a board member)
- A collection of useful or interesting table tennis links and news
- Delightfully cheesy attempts at table tennis related humor
Larry’s blog is reliably updated and is a great way to get a quick table tennis fix in between training sessions. I highly recommend you check it out!
Expert Table Tennis
Expert Table Tennis is a blog run by Ben Larcombe. Ben is a professional table tennis coach and is the mastermind behind the “Expert in a Year” Challenge where he attempted to bring a novice player to a top 250 English ranking as shown in this video:
If you head over to his coaching blog, you’ll find an extensive list of instructional articles with tons of great, beginner-friendly content. His “How to Play Table Tennis in 10 Days” is a standout resource that is 5,000+ words long and details a 10 step process to learning the fundamentals of table tennis.
His blog also includes an excellent podcast where he interviews top players and coaches who share their experiences and give advice aimed at improving your performance.
As if all that wasn’t enough, Ben is also the founder of EquipmentJunkie, a website dedicated to providing honest reviews of the latest releases from the top table tennis brands. If you’re looking for a little guidance on how to choose equipment that is right for you, definitely give it a look!
PingSkills
If you are still a beginner or intermediate level player, you definitely should take some time to check out PingSkills excellent YouTube Channel. They have a very active channel which focuses on instructional videos and they even have a daily “Ask the Coach Show” where they answer questions submitted by their followers. Here’s a snippet from one of their more recent episodes that I found particularly insightful:
They also have a website along with a blog in written format, but it is not updated as regularly as the YouTube channel is.
If you’re not much of a reader and you prefer watching instructional and information videos regarding table tennis, I highly recommend checking out PingSkills!
Matt Hetherington’s Blog
Matt Hetherington is a New Zealand National Team Member and an ITTF certified level two coach. His website is easy to navigate and is full of great information regarding table tennis news, coaching tips, and interviews with professional players.
First time visitors should begin by checking out his growing list of table tennis interviews. He has interviews with current and former top players such as Timo Boll, Werner Schlager, Joo Sae Hyuk, and other top 100 and international table tennis players.
It’s always fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain and to hear first-hand how professional players juggle their training and personal lives!
Matt’s coaching blog is also worth checking out as he covers a wide range of important topics including:
- Service and receive
- Skill building and training
- Footwork and physical training
- Matchplay: goals, and mentality
- Matchplay: tactical
- “Pro Tip” blog (collaborative posts with insights from professional players)
His coaching blog posts tend to be concise and to the point and generally have at least 1-2 valuable take-aways. This post, for example, breaks down two of the most effective ways to receive a service and raises questions about the value of a long push in today’s modern game.
Table Tennis Daily
Not a blog in the traditional sense, but the Table Tennis Daily website is an impressive multimedia experience that is worth checking out. The front page has a useful news feed that covers the latest happenings in the table tennis world. They also have a fairly active forum, a robust collection of table tennis videos, live streaming of table tennis events, and a podcast.
If you just check out one thing from the site, I strongly recommend listening to this podcast where they interview the great Jan Ove Waldner!
I particularly enjoyed hearing Waldner’s thoughts on whether the recent changes to our sport have improved the game or made it worse (26:43). I’ll let you listen for yourself, but his thoughts on the issue mirror what I think most of us have been feeling!
Thoughts on Table Tennis
“Your #1 table tennis analysis blog. Detailed posts you can’t find somewhere else. A blog of a table tennis lover for table tennis lovers and people who want to become one.”
Coming from the flashy Table Tennis Daily website to this one may be a bit of an adjustment, but I think this blog deserves a mention on this list due to its unique, in-depth articles regarding some of the more abstract and obscure aspects of our sport.
Just a heads up, the blog has only been updated once so far this year (perhaps this article will spur further posts though). If you head over to the article list page, however, you will find a nice list of articles dating back to late 2014.
In contrast to Matt Hetherington’s blog, these blog posts tend to be a bit longer and thought-provoking. In "How to Control the External Flow of Play", the author explores how body language and behavior during a match can influence outcomes.
In another post, the author uses his background in mathematics to make a compelling argument for why you shouldn’t always choose to serve first.
If you are looking to really delve into the minutiae of our sport and change your thinking about certain aspects of the game, then this is the blog for you!
Wrapping Up
Table tennis is a thinking man’s sport. There is so much to learn regarding tactics, proper technique, equipment, and proper training methods. Use the websites listed above to become a student of the game. Connect with other players from around the world and tap into the amazing depth of knowledge that can be found in table tennis forums. Study up on proper technique/tactics and make sure you know how to choose equipment that is optimal for your playing style. Learn from the best by studying the pros through videos and interviews. Do these things and you will be amazed at the positive impact it will have on your game!
If I’ve missed any websites/blogs that you think deserve a mention, make sure you let us know in the comments sections below!
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