Rowden Fullen (2010)

A number of Associations fast-track young ex-players into coaching and expect them to be immediately effective. We should however consider whether or not top athletes are the best people to be drafted into top coaching roles – many of the top coach educators are very doubtful.

Rowden Fullen (2010)

• The result of adapting the men’s style of play and their training methods to the women’s game can only be men’s table tennis at a lesser level, without the obvious advantages, such as the power, spin and speed of movement, which men bring to the game of table tennis.

Rowden Fullen 2010

Not many people can read and understand what is going on in your mind, the best person to make changes here is YOU! When you play really well you have to try and repeat that, by duplicating your mental approach and by doing exactly the same thing again. Equally when you play badly how did you approach the game and what were you thinking about? You have to try and isolate the things which make you play well or badly.

Rowden Fullen 2010

For coaching to really work at any level we need to have the right people, in the right positions, at the right time. And above all we need to have the players in focus and not the coach. What do we mean by this? If the coach considers himself to be in charge and of importance or a top player himself, then a certain amount of his energy is directed into maintaining his position and feeding his ego. Therefore not all of his energy is centred only on the player and in giving the player the best of all possible opportunities to reach his/her full potential.

Rowden Fullen 2010

Is table tennis the fastest ball sport there is? If we are talking about the actual speed of the ball then our sport is in fact nowhere near.

Rowden Fullen (2010)

Over the last few years it has been obvious to most coaches that, with the bigger ball and games to only eleven-up, the pure defender is not just a dying breed but no longer a force in the modern game. Good women defenders will still be in the lower world ranking positions but it will be harder and harder for them to reach the top 15 to 20 in the world. Many of the older choppers are still around, the Koreans and Russians for example, but as they age they will drop down through the rankings and they will find it difficult if not impossible to upgrade their game to cope with today’s play. Most younger defenders now attack more.

Rowden Fullen(2010)

Over the last few years it has been obvious to most coaches that, with the bigger ball and games to only eleven-up, the pure defender is not just a dying breed but no longer a force in the modern game. Good women defenders will still be in the lower world ranking positions but it will be harder and harder for them to reach the top 15 to 20 in the world. Many of the older choppers are still around, the Koreans and Russians for example, but as they age they will drop down through the rankings and they will find it difficult if not impossible to upgrade their game to cope with today’s play. Most younger defenders now attack more.

Rowden Fullen 2009

Csilla Batorfi (HUN) Italian national women’s team coach, former European Champion in singles

We have big problems as Asia and China are very strong. Our greatest problem is that there are a very few women in Europe who are playing table tennis seriously. There are simply not enough players that we can make a good selection from.

Rowden Fullen 2010

At one time Europe dominated our sport of table tennis. Over a period of 18 World Championships 1926 up till 1952 (H. Satoh, Japan) no Asian player featured in a World final and it was only eventually in 1956, on the women’s side, that an Asian woman won the singles (T. Okawa, Japan)(and bear in mind too that the Worlds was held yearly at this time, except for a gap of seven years during World War Two). However from 1954 to date only a handful of Europeans have won the men’s singles (1971 Bengtsson, 1975 Jonyer, 1989 and 1997 Waldner, 1991 Persson, 1993 Gatien, 2003 Schlager) and no women after 1955. A damning indictment of European table tennis and especially of the women’s game.

Rowden Fullen 2010

Internal Restrictions

How many of us really believe we can get somewhere and are prepared to put in the effort to do this? In our modern society the single-minded specialist is not often thought of very highly. People who don’t conform, don’t fit in and are different from the rest are not popular. Even for those who start off being committed to a project it is all too easy to gradually drift, to procrastinate and to accept lesser levels of achievement. It’s very human to take the easy road.