OOAK Table Tennis Forum

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sport ... 879764.htm

Wow! Wang Liqin, Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Ding Ning and other big names playing in the USA over the weekend and no buzz whatsoever. No meaningful news coverage, totally ignored by the USATT, virtually no chatter on the forums, and from what I can gather from the few amateurish clips on YouTube there's not many live spectators either.

Sad.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

How can USATT miss out on this.

yes that's a huge waste of an opportunity!!!

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The guy who runs one of the clubs I frequent got a table signed by just about everyone who was there. I saw it!

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Sad.

Am I missing something or there is another important even leading to this 'ignorance'?

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We simply don't have that many people who play table tennis here. Granted, not all players are registered with them, but there are only about 8000 people who are members of the USATT, out of over 300 million citizens. In Illinois, the state where this event took place, there are only about 350.

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Shakehand Modern Defense
Butterfly Defence Pro ST, Butterfly Tenergy 64 (1.7), TSP Curl P-1R (1.0~1.3)

In the USA our children are force-fed sports in school beginning at about age 5. These include soccer (football), basketball, baseball/softball, tennis, gymnastics, swimming, American-style football, and golf. These are the sports that pervade American TV. So from a young age children have been exposed to these sports and have some understanding about how difficult these sports really are when they see the best athletes compete. In other words, a child (or adult) who has played soccer, for example, knows it's not as easy as it might look to someone who never played the game. So they appreciate the ability of the good players and understand the subtle complexities of a match.

But this is not true for table tennis. In the USA table tennis is a parlor game. Most Americans have no clue how difficult the actual SPORT of table tennis is to play. It's never on TV except perhaps for 1 hour every 4 years at 3AM on an obscure cable channel. When I tell people I play table tennis I have to add a detailed explanation. Table tennis gets no respect in the USA because the real sport is unfamiliar to 99% of the population.

Even a sport with similar recreational roots like cycling gets some respect because of the success of a few Americans like Greg Lamond and Lance Armstrong and events like the Tour de France which is covered extensively even if just once a year. So the problem comes down to the fact that Americans are very nationalistic. Let's get some top-ranked Americans competing and we will start to see table tennis events on TV. Right now the USA has Ariel Hsing...and she is getting a good amount of coverage. Perhaps we need a TT version of the Ryder's Cup...China vs the World. I think America would get into that if it could be made competitive.

BTW, and this is just personal opinion, I think these "professional" sandpaper events (and to some extent the Spin Clubs as well) do little to help the image of table tennis and simply perpetuate stereotypes that see our sport as not-quite-serious.

 

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I totally agree with everything you just said. By the way, there IS a China vs the World event. I don't believe it ever features any Americans though. The "World" team has enough on it's plate competing with China without our help...