This must be the same girl that had a 2-0 game lead on Marco.

Let's see if I recall the scouting report from Marco. She ripped every short underspin serve to her backhand, flat killed every fast deep sidespin into her backhand, and she flipped every serve short to her forehand for winners. All this as a 1200 player. I'll be prepared to serve medium long slightly left of her middle if I face her.

She came out firing, and so did her father.  Yes I was taken by surprise by her aggressive off the bounce style (much like Ariel Hsing) but it was compounded by her screaming father who aggressively and loudly clapped each and every point she won, even if it was simply an unforced error on my part.  This loud rude clapping began on the very first point of the match and didn't stop until I finally started winning. 

I must say that getting myself under control and turning this match around was one of the most memorable mental battles I've ever had in this sport.  I only wish I had given her father the finger after it was over.  That would have been icing on the cake but I didn't.  He surely deserved it. 

Ellen, btw, did nothing wrong.  She came out fighting and didn't cho unnecessarily or rudely.  She cho'd on her good points and not on my unforced errors.  I hope she continues to improve.  I also hope she never turns into an ass like her dad.  I wish her punk father would get a paddle and start competing himself, and find himself being rudely heckled on every unforced error so he can better understand his own rude actions.  But I doubt that will ever happen.  That punk will just continue to live vicariously through his daughter.  Imagine how sad it is that a full grown man cannot go out and win his own accolades, but that he needs to experience it vicariously through an 8 year old girl.  How sad indeed.  Punk. 

M

www.marco-borrillo.com

(be sure to click on Table Tennis)

I think my mental is getting tougher but I won't know for sure until I am in that exact same position again.  In Vegas I was playing a 1600 player who's parent was also being rude and I simply defaulted, losing 40 or 50 points.  I would say that this was poor mental toughness, but I wanted to make a statement.  If that father is proud of his son's win by default, then those people have more problems than I do. 

Lately the only "mental" training that I've been doing is to play lower rated events in local tournaments.  There have been 3 in the last 3 months.  So I've had many high pressure matches.  I have not won every single one of them.  But, I still put it on the line and I'm proud of myself for that.  Still, no one is rude to me here in AZ.  One night in a local club match I asked some spectators to be rude but they wouldn't.  Oh well. 

I can honestly say that I feel less pressure when I go out to the table than I did last year or in previous years.  I'm not sure why but I can take some guesses.  One is that my goal is no longer to achieve 2000.  In fact, I've pretty much given up that I ever will get there.  This pretty much removes that pressure to maintain a rating.  In fact, I am seriously considering switching to full time hard bat after US Open this year.

The other thing is that I have truly started to focus on just playing well as opposed to winning.  Saturday I played in the U-2000 and I was the highest rated player in the event with a 1797 rating.  I played a 1650 guy who was very hot and he beat me in 5.  The shots and blocks he made, as well as his overall consistency and mental toughness throughout the entire 5 games earned him the match.  Also, he changed tactics in the 5th which was also high level play.  This guy had a strange style, penhold but he hit the reverse penhold backhand flat.  I tried serving short he would push consistently sometimes 8 in a row.  Every time I looped he went for a strong flat-kill block right back into my middle.  It was very effective.  I tried varying the speed and spin on my loop but it didn't help, he blocked sometimes 4 in a row.  Anyway, he won the first 2, I won the next 2.  I won by being very patient with the pushes and then opening with very high slow spins and looking to use a sidespin loop to get the guy off the table and then finish to the other side.  This was a lot of work. 

In the 5th he came out with fast and flat dead serves.  I was looking to push his underspin serves.  This caught me completely off guard.  Not sure why I didn't come out expecting a change in tactics.  Just a brain fart I guess.  I was down 2-0 and then on my own serve he played well.  Before you know it it was 5-0 in the 5th.  Then I started to go 1 and 1 with him but too late to catch up.  So anyway, this was a tough match.  Maybe if I played him again I would rip him up not sure.  But on that day, at that moment, I had the wrong tactic or possibly he got hot, or he had the perfect tactic for me. 

I don't know if having you in my corner on that day would have made much difference.  Sometimes I think this sport just does whatever it does.  I'm sure if I would have put more prep into the tournament that I would have had a better result, but that's not a mental discussion that's a physical or a training discussion.  I know that I was very mentally and physically exhausted going into this touranment with a lot of other stuff on my mind. 

BTW, I was the A and he was the D.  In order to advance, I needed to beat my B player 3 straight.  Which i did.  So I don't know if you can say that I had a good tournament or a bad tournament.  It was just one match.  I made it to the semi-finals and was up 3-1 in games (best of 4 of 7) but then ran out of time.  Bekah's brother had broken down on the highway and I had to leave.  Instead of defaulting I wrote in scores that ensured that my opponent would get to the final.  Otherwise that would have been me in the final against an opponent that I always beat quite easily.  So I would have had that U-2000 trophy, not that it means anything.  I would have had to beat a 1700 player to get it. 

Sometimes hard to catch a break in this sport. 

Marco

www.marco-borrillo.com

(be sure to click on Table Tennis)

"What you think as rude may only be a parent happily cheering their child, nothing more.  Some parents cheer almost anything just to show support."

I have a hard time believing that the parent of a serious student of Table Tennis doesn't know how to properly clap.  In many cases, these parents are over 1700 themselves.  Quite often they are in the 2100 range.  Some even higher.  They certainly do know the difference between an unforced error and brilliant play.  But you are right that I've let this bother me too much in the past.  Still sucks though. 

BTW, I am planning to attend the US Open.  I think after the kind of hours I've been pulling lately (7 days a week, 10-12 hour days with few exceptions since December) that I deserve a few weeks off before we open.  So I'll delay the opening to July 15. 

Marco

www.marco-borrillo.com

(be sure to click on Table Tennis)

Marco:

As someone who has known you for awhile, let me say this.  A parent or parents will always cheer for their kids when they are in competition.  Some are quiet like Lily Zhang's parents, some are vocal like myself, some are very vocal and cheering for every point like Ariel's mom.  Now, granted there comes a point when it does get irritating, but here is where you react differently than most others.  You end up letting this bother you, your play, your composure and your mental toughness or lack there of.

Unless the parents are taunting you, coaching in between points or shouting profanities, they are really within their bounds when cheering for their kids.  Their behaviour and their style of cheering is something that is beyond your control, what you can control is your behaviour, strategy, composure during the wild cheering.

10 years ago in my first nationals, my first RR consisted of Jerry Wartski, Misha Kasantsev (unrated) and Joshua Bernstein (unrated).  I barely beat both Misha and Joshua.  For those who are unfamiliar with Joshua, he was a young phenom who had been to the Tonight Show, Late Show.  He was coached by Marty Prager and Terese Terranova.  At that particular time, Brian Pace was living with Joshua as a hitting partner / coach.  Marco, how would you like to be in that situation playing against Joshua with Brian Pace, Marty, Terese, family and friends cheering wildly for every point that Joshua got.  It was not easy, but over the years I have learned getting upset while playing a match always ends up with me playing badly.

You better get used to parents cheering for their kids if you are going to play tournaments specially big ones like the Nationals or the Open.

Gerry

Jerry, come to an AZ tournament one of these days and you'll see that it is possible for a crowd to cheer their favorites and still be polite to the opponent.  Even NJ had a better attitude than California.  BTW, if someone said that to me (that people in NJ were nicer than where I was from) I'd be VERY ashamed.  To be frank, Californian's certainly have their fair share of  A-holes.  I'm not sure how it got that way, because when I was growing up it was supposed to be like some kind of dream land.  What a shock when I finally arrived and saw what it really is:  smog, gangs, idiots, traffic, and lame loud parents.  I haven't seen you being rude while watching your son's or daughter's games yet.  If you did, I'd lose respect for you. 

So what you are saying to me is: I need to get used to rude A-holes (mostly from California and a few from Florida) because there's nothing I can do about it.  Well, I guess I can't argue with you there.  No surprise at some of the names you mentioned btw.   But maybe if I write about it, a few people will read it and some will think about it and maybe, just maybe, next time they are in a tournament they won't be blatantly rude at least not on the first point of the first game.  (If the score was deuce in the 7th, I just might cheer an unforced error too.  Maybe). 

Interestingly, I played Josh Bernstein once.  I don't remember if I won or lost but I think it was close so he must have been not much more than 1700 at the time.  I do remember someone saying he had been on TV. 

Marco

www.marco-borrillo.com

(be sure to click on Table Tennis)

"What a shock when I finally arrived and saw what it really is:  smog, gangs, idiots, traffic, and lame loud parents"

I know this is getting a bit off topic, but you probably should have put smog at the end of your list.  The smog levels of today are so much less hazardous than 35 years ago when I was growing up here.  Back then, there were about 200 or so 1st stage smog alerts per year.  Now there are maybe between 5 and 15 per year.  Sure, we still compete with Houston for the smog capital of the country, but it's not that bad anymore.  The measuremnt levels have changed over the years, too, so it's actually easier to reach a 1st stage level now.  Back in the day when I was about 10 or so, you could go outside on a summer day, and in about 30 minutes, your lungs would be burning and you'd hurt all day.  Now, if I were in shape enough to do so, I could do a 40 mile bicycle ride on a 1st stage day and not feel anything out of the ordinary.  Don't get me wrong, there is still smog, but it's not the yellow/sulpher air of Philadelphia that I've seen.

As far as idiots and traffic, they are almost the same thing.  If there were no idiots, there would be no traffic.

Back on topic to a degree.  A couple of years ago I played Gerry's daughter, Mariel, at the West Covina tournament and if I recall correctly, you and Gerrry watched my match with her.  I think it was the only time I've seen Gerry watch a match without a camera in front of his face.  I lost, but was the only one in the RR that even remotely had a chance of giving her a decent match.  I don't recall hearing Gerry at all, but I usually don't hear things like that anyway - too many HS basketball games in small gyms under my belt to let stuff like that bother me.  Oddly enough, Mariel was trying out what I thought was a new serve, she was hitting way too high and I ripped 2 in row right past her, I heard you say something to the effect of "Impressive".  Other than that I'm pretty impervious to crowds.

Drivepen

"Growing darkness...taking dawn, I was me...but now he's gone - Fade to Black"

> She worked very hard this year and is nearly 2000 rated today, IIRC. ;-)

http://outpost81.com/Nationals/Ellen_Hwang_Table_Tennis_Photos.htm

I found some additional photos that show Ellen's been up to some Monkey Business:

--Rob

first off, I played her once and I described how she played me.  I have no idea how she plays others.  She mostly countered everything.  I think I should know how she played me.  But you can continue to argue if you want.  I guess you are saying she was a counterlooper and I just imagined the rest? 

In fact, the way I beat her was to simply serve short underspin to her middle, which she pushed usually fast and deep, and then I had to slow spin high and deep, which she tried to smash off the bounce with both wings but couldn't (at least not with good consistency).  That's still a lot of work to beat a 1200 player.  But that's fine. 

Weight has nothing to do with rating.  Heavyspin weighs a lot more than me and he is 2200+.  If I was in better shape I'd be closer to 1950 than 1800.  Either way I shouldn't have to work hard to beat a 1200. 

But, understanding that a 1200 junior can be 500 points underrated in this sport, that was not the real issue.  The real issue, as I said, was the rude dad. 

So you want to start arguing about "what is the definition of rude?"  Do we really need to go there?  You sound like Bill Clinton trying to argue "what is the definition of sex" or "what is the definition of smoking."  Did he inhale?  Was felatio the same as sex?  You mean you don't know the difference between being a rude spectator and being a polite spectator?  I have to spell it out?  Clapping very loud and for a long time on unforced errors from the very first point?  Clapping loud and loudly saying something in Chinese when I miss my own serve?  Is that clear enough or do you need