The quickest way to improve your win percentage

Table tennis rallies are short. In fact they are very short. Various studies over the years have shown that the average table tennis rally is anywhere between 3 and 5 shots. What can we do with this information? For me, it seems fairly obvious. If you want to increase the number of points you win, you should focus a lot of your training on the first five shots of a rally. Keep reading

What should beginner table tennis players learn first?

I recently started coaching two complete beginners, both adults. One had never played table tennis before, the other played a little bit for fun when a kid, but nothing for the next 30 years. Both have a similar goal – to be good enough at table tennis to join a club and possibly play competitively in a local league. This is a great goal to have, but it’s not easy. There is a lot to learn. And when there is so much to learn, what should you focus on first? Keep reading

Benefits of an unconventional playing style

Table tennis coaches (myself included) often favour teaching a modern topspin game – service from the backhand corner, playing forehands on ¾ of the table, playing topspin strokes as often as possible, attack, attack attack! But this isn’t the only way of playing table tennis. In this blog post I explore the benefits of unconventional playing styles. Keep reading

Review: table tennis school at Werner Schlager Academy

I had great pleasure in attending the Werner Schlager Academy between 14 – 17 May 2015. Based in Vienna, it is a training base for over 50 professional table tennis players. It’s one of the main table tennis centre’s in Europe, rivaled in size and facilities only by the German national table tennis centre in … Keep reading