Table Tennis Tour-de-Force

This video of the best moments in international table tennis in 2024 is nine minutes long and, if you’re a bit of a fan, it goes by in no time flat. Most of the segments are narrated in English and German.

Table Tennis Best Points Of 2024 by ttrio2016 (YouTube)

I learned that a behind-the-back shot is sometimes called a “Strawberry Shot”. I have no idea why. There’s also a “Snake Shot”, which is putting so much backspin on the shot from below the table that it winds its way back to your side of the table after briefly touching down on the other side.

I used to play a ton of table tennis when I was younger. My then-girlfriend and still-wife still likes to tell people, when they ask, that I did not have a lot of time for her in high school because I was always playing ping pong at my house with my friends. We would organize for six to eight of us to hang out and play singles, doubles, … just for hours. We played right through the winter, with mini electric heaters to warm up our hands. We’d leave them blasting on high, to try to get it warm enough, despite the deep sub-zero temperatures of Central New York State (CNY).

I had friends who were much better than I was at smash rallies. They were just incredibly consistent with low, flat smashes[1]. Another guy was the most incredible defensive player, never smashing, but putting so much spin with long, looping shots that it was almost impossible to control.[2]

In my senior year of high school, I had advanced math courses at a local college, so my schedule had a lot of free time in it—time that I spent playing table tennis for hours each day. I got so good that I could beat almost everyone handily, so I started training my left hand, with which I also got quite good. I would use that against the worse players, so they would feel like they had a fighting chance, and it was more interesting for me. Sometimes I lost, but I wouldn’t switch back. Fair’s fair.

I’ve done the behind-the-back shot before. It’s not as hard as it looks, but in competition…that’s ballsy. No-look shots and no-look serves were very popular with my crowd as well.