OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I could be wrong, but I remember at some point being told that betting companies finance (or in the past have financed) parts or all of ITTF's live streaming from Pro Tours.

I do not see any problem with gambling on table tennis or on gambling companies running a tournament apart from more of a philosophical debate about whether gambling is a bane on society (Australia has been having a long heated debate about poker machines in clubs and bars over the past couple of years). If you look past that, then the gambling company wins, the tournament organiser wins, the players involved win and the people watching online can choose whether they bet or just watch the action.

There is a difference between betting and illegal betting. I believe it is public knowledge that you risk being fined 10,000 Euros if it is discovered that you have cheated or affected the outcomes of matches in the Challenger series for betting gain. A number of players have been cut out of the Series permanently for suspicious betting activities.

I believe the problem with the hardbat tournament was the use of "World Championships of Ping Pong" which they felt was a threat to their own World Championships events as it could create confusion in the minds of the public. It don't think it had anything to do with betting or that they weren't involved in running it.

I think most of us thought he went a little overboard. But it's a difficult tournament to play and quite a few of us lost our heads at least a few times.

I found it very difficult at the start as it's been 4 years since I've really much much against chop. Also, we don't have any competitive level choppers in Australia which doesn't help. I can't think of any better pure chopper so yes. I should really have won the semi against him. I had 2-1 and 9-9, then 5-0 and 7-3 in the 5th. I just missed a few too many shots towards the end. I feel I have infinitely more power in my forehand than I've ever had before (due to all the work I did in Austria) but I'm not yet good enough at controlling my body rotation when going full power. Also I had trouble finding the right distance to the table and was often caught too close which inhibited the rotation and timing.

But all in all happy with my progress.

The guy in the black is using doubt Butterfly Super Anti. Rated 2000 in Germany, so that's approx USATT 2300.

Did you mean double, so he's using it on both sides?

Just how recognized is table tennis in the USA? Here's a recent example of one journalist's attempt to nutshell our sport for the general public: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/top-10-oly ... --oly.html

You'd think we were playing tiddlywinks or hopscotch.

SOME OF THESE MUG SHOTS ARE PRETTY FUNNY



See 'em all at this link.

Gionis and Kreanga looked like they had a massive hang over that day
Allan Bentsen looks like a burglar or a hooligan or something (that goes for Michael Maze also)
Joo Saehyuk seem to have left them with a photo from school when he was like 15 or something.