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Jim Butler vs Kunal Chodri (2014 Nationals final) |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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Pretty simple. He told us at the club that he saw somebody else do it once (he told me and I forgot) and he thought it looked cool so ordered two pairs of shoes in different colors and has been doing it ever since. That's about all there is to it. I think it is kind of strange looking personally, but nobody has ever asked my advice about style, probably for good reasons. |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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Jimmy is a close friend. He is really happy he won, and I would never want to put words in his mouth, but based on conversations we've had I think he would probably agree with this. He has played at the highest levels and pretty much knows. In his prime, he was training on a regular basis (like every day) with guys like Erick Lindh and Peter Karlsson, and competing against the top guys in Sweden of that era, and now he plays maybe three times a week against three guys who are good -- 2450 range -- but all of them are over 40 and it's not quite the same. Actually, Jimmy thinks his forehand is technically more sound now, but he also knows his backhand just doesn't have the same consistency that it did. I think the larger balls help him a lot. It is really hard to get balls by him. I expect him to win more tournaments as he regains his form. |
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malin87
Super Member Joined: 05/21/2013 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 175 |
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The meaning of my comment was that i surpiced of the level i watched on the video..I know that in USA table tennis is not such a developed sport but i thought the level was higher than this..If Butler was #70 in men's world ranking in the particular match he didn't play likewise..
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NextLevel
Forum Moderator Joined: 12/15/2011 Location: Somewhere Good Status: Offline Points: 14845 |
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Jim has written that the professional environment for TT in the US is not good enough and that a tour/league needs to be built where the Chinese coaches can compete with the homegrown talent. We can be greedy but we have some pretty good athletes in the sport. Keeping them and growing them is the key. The good thing is that Lily actually likes table tennis. It might not just be a stepping stone to other things for her.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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He was world #70 in 1993, not 2014! With that said, he had a win not too long ago at a tournament here in Houston over a guy rated > 2700. Jimmy still has incredible timing and ball feel, and his serves are filthy and very well disguised and he knows how not to beat himself on key points. At his prime he probably consistently hit his backhand harder than most people in the world. The crazy thing is that it is right around two years since he came back off a nine year layoff -- that after an earlier eight year layoff! In other words, he has played 2-3 years out of the last 21. Of course, if you are saying that US table tennis has been in a severe slide, well that is pretty obvious, at least for men. I am very glad my friend won the tournament, but it is not good news for US table tennis. There is no future here for a table tennis player. Why should anyone play this sport seriously here? That is the harsh reality. How many people in the US make the bulk of their living by playing table tennis,,as opposed to coaching it? The few who try, what do they sacrifice and how well does it work out for them? It's better to go to Princeton. There is no doubt about it. |
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malin87
Super Member Joined: 05/21/2013 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 175 |
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yeap i meant that if a guy that has played 2-3 years out of the last 21 won the nationals( of a population 230M ) indicates that the sport doesn't work right in the country..
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suds79
Silver Member Joined: 08/20/2012 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 878 |
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Jim is well into his 40s. Your first post was very condescending regarding the title and Jim's achievement. Several people have informed you about a great table tennis career he has had yet you still continue on. Can't you say "i didn't know he was that good at one point. My bad." and be done with it? Instead you keep digging yourself deeper. Yes, we get your overall point. Table Tennis isn't very big in America comparatively speaking. We all know this and accept this. Now lets move on and simply say congrats to Jim.
Edited by suds79 - 12/23/2014 at 3:10pm |
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NextLevel
Forum Moderator Joined: 12/15/2011 Location: Somewhere Good Status: Offline Points: 14845 |
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Kreanga is over 40 and still on your national team - the sport is pathetic in Greece.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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NextLevel
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It's clear he thinks the match standard is low - and yes, it is a match between players in the ITT top 400-500 or so. But rather than just say that, he wants to rationalize it with all kinds of nonsense (the population etc.). There are countries with far smaller populations with talent in excess of their population and larger countries with hardly any TT at all. There aren't that many Greek 15 year olds who can play like Kunal, Kanak or Jack. The real question is whether they decide to stay in the sport or not. We don't have the infrastructure to support them, but there is so much provincial level talent in the US that if we had a league structure and players who loved TT enough to forgo the money from college etc., we could build world class players without much effort.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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malin87
Super Member Joined: 05/21/2013 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 175 |
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I don't understand your mean.If he can plays in top level while he is over 40 this is nothing to do with the sport or the country.As regarding what is pathetic just check the ITTF countries ranking and you will get ur answer. p.s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnfDCcARzuI Just one week ago!!
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NextLevel
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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malin87
Super Member Joined: 05/21/2013 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 175 |
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All i said is that US could and should improve the sport!
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lineup32
Gold Member Joined: 12/06/2012 Location: Calif Status: Offline Points: 1195 |
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outside of TT organizations and suppliers there was no coverage of the U.S. TT national's tournament in the U.S. media print or TV including the mens final at least that I could find on a Google search, I even checked to see if Jim's hometown news paper said anything and nothing.
I checked You tube for viewer number on the men's final and it said 7500 viewers with around 30K for quarterly through finals men and women. So no interest in the U.S. nationals beyond the USATT membership base of 8K. Am I missing something? I did expect to find something but maybe it is in a local print media that is not internet connected and so no link.
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NextLevel
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If you had said that, and not what you originally said, who would argue with you. Again, the top juniors under 15 in the US compete reasonably well with the top juniors under 15 world over. It is when they go to college and stop trainingvthat the issue emerges. And even a career at a top club in Europe will not pay these guys what they can get as medical doctors in the USA. |
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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Red24601
Member Joined: 07/21/2014 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 60 |
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Can we just agree that population size is not the main factor for competitiveness in a sport, especially when there is no incentive ($ or fame) and infrastructure to achieve excellence in that sport in that particular country? You can apply this logic to table tennis in the U.S. and you can also apply it to basketball in China. With the world's largest population, China is not #1 in basketball, and it would be foolish to argue that they could become #1 (or even close) without widespread changes in how they develop and incentivize players. It would be equally foolish to trivialize the amount of effort it would take by simply stating... "china should improve in basketball." And it would be senseless to go to a Chinese basketball forum and begin to troll it by saying that the team that was #1 in China couldn't beat the Kentucky college team.
If the point is that US TT is not on par with the international community, bravo for stating the obvious. |
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Baal
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It would be nice for those of us who like it. But why TT? Why not gymnastics? Or cycling? Or running? There are not professional leagues here, so no viable professional careers for players here on the entire continent. |
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malin87
Super Member Joined: 05/21/2013 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 175 |
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Here in Greece also leagues are not professional.The most people stop the everyday training when they are in high school(for studying and go to college after that).The payment for the best players right now is 4000 Euro per season.Papageorgiou last year won against Matsudaira but he earned 4000 from the Greek league.Kreanga and Gionis play abroad.I am saying that you don't need to be a super professional country to have better players. I don't know Butler, of course bravo to him for the championship.But i was surprised from how low the level of the final match in the video was.
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jrscatman
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There are higher level player in the US, but they are mostly foreign nationals. The US Nationals, I believe is only open to US Citizens. Also, because it is being held so close to Chirstmas and New Years - some high level university player do not play. Also, in this final - Jim Butler and Chodry appeared to be quite nervous and little tentative. So perhaps the quality of the match was not the highest. Not sure how other national championships work - but I believe in the US Nationals - these players play in multiple events - so I am not sure if physical fatigue was a factor or not. |
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macpoddy
Super Member Joined: 01/01/2010 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 134 |
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Baal why would you think the bigger ball helps him. On the contrary I think it should hurt the punch hitting backhand that he has as he can't put balls away as it is slower. From the videos of him I have seen with the new ball I think his opponents have an easier time keeping the ball in play even when he counter hits with his backhand.
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Tinykin
Platinum Member Joined: 10/30/2003 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 2337 |
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To understand this match, you have to understand the US sport system. To understand the US sport system, you have to understand their culture and psyche as compared to Europe. 1 The player standard of US table tennis as a whole is of a high standard compared to the rest of the world. Take out Kreanga and Gionis and on average they are as good as or better than Greece. It’s just that the players are scattered over a vast country and the top guys don’t qualify to play for the US. The US TT rating system is vastly superior to any other country. With the USATT their TT representative authority is more professional and democratically run than most other countries. It’s just that they have ‘factors’ to contend with not present in Europe. 2 Americans on average work very long hours, get little time off and their welfare system is largely non-existent. Compare that with Europe where most workers have >3 weeks holidays per year, free healthcare, schooling and so on. So less time-off for hobbies etc. 3 The country is vast, and their public transport system is limited, thus getting around for matches can be very difficult and time consuming even within a city. 4 Americans don’t have a sense of community as in Europe thus the TT community is very insular. How else can you explain that California has these great clubs but doesn’t have a meaningful inter-club competition? 5 US TT tournaments are as good as or better than any in the world. But again, they are scattered all over this big country. 6 Amateur sport, especially TT, in Europe is mostly run by retired persons who basically take on the work as non-paying jobs. They can do this as their welfare system allows people to retire when they are still healthy and capable of working for several hours in a week. In USA, retirees tend to do just that, retire or if they are poor, work until they drop dead. So they don’t have the extensive volunteer system to run amateur sport as in Europe. 7 Americans don’t understand team-based league systems for sports as Europeans do. Their top sports operate a vague league system but there’s no promotion or relegation, so new clubs cannot get a look-in. There are big clubs, but they operate as businesses within a Franchise which protects them. It’s basically a monopoly. So for TT to have a competition worthy of wide viewing it would have to be within a professional franchise system. They then would be competing for investment with profitable business schemes. Amateur sport in the US just not compare very well with European amateur sport because American culture, politics, finance and welfare system does not allow it. This is a long way to explain that this match does not represent the best of US TT but is a couple of levels below their top ‘division’. Counter arguments are welcome for this totally non-scientific and un-researched viewpoint. |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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Tinykin has identified a few issues with a kind spirit, but overstates several others. Actually many adult Americans participate in organized sports, even in leagues, for example in bowling, cycling, running, skating, golf, softball, and others to numerous to list. Most Americans are able to retire (at the moment, that may change soon as the disaster of the 401K method of self-funding retirements strikes home hard). Table tennis here has never had many leagues, but we do have a lot of tournaments, some areas more than others. I think leagues are a good thing but they are not the only way to organize your sport. They take a lot of ongoing work. The nice thing about tournaments is the time commitment is just that weekend, whereas with leagues you have to commit to an entire season. Travel here is a big issue and the vast size of the country makes it hard to bring all the top players together for training. Not many places have a density of players that could support a league. The distance from Houston to Dallas is the same as London to Paris. From one side of LA to another can take a long time in a car. (And yet, somehow they solve this in Australia, my hat's off to them).
Of course, the fact that we have no professional leagues means there is no way for top players here to actually make a living with this particular sport. In a very real sense, nearly all of the players here are amateur players. Jim Butler does not make his living playing table tennis. This is not Germany (or even Brazil). In fact, in spite of the fact that our top players are no longer threats at big ITTF tournaments, the level of amateur table tennis in the US is pretty high, I can say this fairly confidently having traveled and played in many countries in Europe and Asia. This is because, as I said, nearly everybody here is an amateur. But there is no future in it for a young kid here, pretty much no matter how talented they are. If you know what's good for you here, once you graduate from high school, you go to a university and study hard and maybe play for fun just to stay active. If you are supremely talented, you find a way to live and play professionally abroad, and be aware that you probably should not plan to spend much time back in the US------and after your playing career is over....... what then? Better maybe to be a doctor or engineer. And I say that knowing that a lot of the kids here who comprise our best cadets and juniors are the children of highly educated people. There are a few girls at my club trying there hardest to make the US cadet and junior teams. They are really good (but not quite as good as their counterparts in California). Best of all, they are really nice people. In a couple of years, they will be off to university, and the club will miss something when they are gone. |
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LOOPMEISTER
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Tinykin is overthinking this. (But a valiant effort.) Table tennis simply doesn't have enough exposure and popularity with KIDS in the US to produce world class players proportionate with the population/talent pool.
Take swimming for example. There's no professional system, and other than the Olympics it's not a mainstream spectator sport, and it's not even huge in schools (swim lessons and youth competitions are private funded mostly and kids develop talent outside of school setting, although it's a high school sport), yet competitive swimming is still very popular with kids and the U.S. has been turning out more world class swimmers than any country for years. (The only realistic upside to swimming is you can get a university scholarship doing it.) It's really that simple. |
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LOOPMEISTER
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Well I was making the point about swimming not having many reasons to be so popular, and hence produce talented athletes. (But alas it does have one big upside to motivate kids to do it other than because it's fun.)
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Toprank
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Interesting discussion. Realize, I'm only completing my fourth year of table tennis, and although my experience is low compared to many on the board, I've become very addicted to the sport.
I take no offense to what Malin from Greece is saying. I think he's only saying, very directly, that match for a national championship doesn't measure to many other countries national championships. I think most of us agree. To many Americans we know the story of Jim Butler and really he might be the best homegrown U.S. player in the last 30 years. I really think Table Tennis missed a whole generation or two in the United States. One of the old guys I play with said there didn't used to be "so many kids at the nationals". I told him it was a good thing that there seems to be so many more kids than 20 years ago, he didn't agree. I do think U.S. table tennis dipped to new lows in the last 10 years, from what I can tell. I do think you'll see improvement because of clubs like ICC, SVTTC, WCTTA and LYTTC. They seem to be getting a lot more kids than my generation. Regarding Tinykin's comments. I agree 100%. I do think people, from Eurupe, underestimate the interest United States has in our 3 favorite sports of U.S. football, baseball and basketball. That's what Americans care about and nothing will change that. Now Americans like ping pong, but don't know table tennis, let alone seen a real match start to finish. That's a major obstacle. If the sports ever expects to grow I think getting in the high school sports system would make the biggest progress...unfortunately that's not happening. I do agree the tournaments we have and the rating system (although flawed in some respects) we have sounds better than most. A Chinese individual I play with sometimes says it's a better system for amateurs than what they have in China, I was surprised by this. Edited by Toprank - 12/24/2014 at 12:48am |
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huri
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Jim could have been better than #70, much more better haven't he been injured. He had the right players to train with, world class coach and right mentality .... and that sick bachhand shot. It's really such a shame.
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Baal
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Well, the practical challenge to this is that people think that colleges bring in tons of money with their athletics programs, but the fact is that all but about 60 are actually losing money on those programs and are cutting them back. (The athletics program at the large state university where I teach currently is running about an $8 million deficit). Only football and basketball bring in money, and only then at schools that can get >40,000 people to attend their football games and whose games are regularly televised. Many schools no longer have scholarship programs in swimming, track, tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, etc. that used to be more or less universal (that includes athletic powerhouses in so-called major conferences) and they are not going to add more sports, and if they do, it won't likely be table tennis. It is unfortunate. It would solve the problem if universities did offer scholarships for TT. It might not take a lot of them to do it to make a difference. |
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Red24601
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Baal - do you know how gymnastics and figure skating do it, where the US rates highly in these international sports? Is there a govt sponsored system in place to identify people at an early age and train them (at govts expense or subsidized) to compete at the international level? i know for example that Bela Karolyi trained the US gymnastics team for the longest time. But who paid for the gymnasts' training (Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Gabby Douglas, etc) BEFORE they were on the Olympic team --- was it a US subsidized program? or did the parents need to pay up to a certain point? I use gymnastics and figure skating as the example because (like swimming) they are sports that do not get national attention in the US very much except when the Olympics arrive. |
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lineup32
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Offering free education is a plus but it doesn't translate that a minor sport suddenly gains national attention and grows a pro league or gets local and national media attention. TT is not a popular sport in the U.S. and the USATT and ITTF need to stop dumbing down the game in an attempt to widen its appeal.
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amateur
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http://blogs.marketwatch.com/paydirt/2012/08/07/the-true-cost-of-making-the-olympics/
"Think about U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, whose divorced parents are facing the foreclosure of their Florida home. Or U.S. gymnast Gabby Douglas, whose mother filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. One of four children, Douglas all but acknowledged earlier this week how her budding Olympic career took an economic toll. “It was definitely hard on my mom, taking care of me and my siblings,” she told the New York Post. Indeed, experts say raising an Olympian — or seeking Olympic glory on one’s own — is an extremely pricey proposition, especially when measured over the period of years it takes to get to and then compete at the games. At best, say athletes and others connected to the Olympics, it’s easily a six-figure “investment” – with no guarantee of a “return” (meaning a medal or an endorsement deal) – when factoring in the costs of equipment, coaching and travel. Making the situation all the more difficult for U.S. athletes: there’s no direct federal support, as is the case in most other nations. Instead, top-tier competitors can only hope to receive small stipends – often as little as $400 a month — to cover expenses, with the money generally coming from the privately funded governing boards of their sports or through sponsorships. "etc.etc. |
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vivan4tt
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This match had benn put into a french table tennis forum, they are according to tell that the level of this final is about ~1800 points (French Rating, for indication the player number 1000 in France has 2056 points).
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