Oct 16, 2024

To USATT HPC Committee,

Since the publication of the news article “USA Table Tennis Unveils 2025 National Team Selection Procedures” on Oct.11, 2024, we the parent community and supporters of the young future US Table Tennis athletes have expressed numerous concerns, which were not fully addressed by the Zoom meeting held on Oct 15, 2024.

We believe that the new dynamic system, while with good intention to “Elevate US Table Tennis International Performance ahead of 2028 LA Olympics”, will in reality discourage participations and limit opportunities for US Table Tennis in the long run.

Our grievances were explained in detail in the previous letters, but in summary includes the following:

  1. The new dynamic ranking system may be suitable for professional/adult players, but present serious issues and concerns for our junior players who struggle to balance school and sports.
  2. The new system will encourage points race or chasing the points and over-emphasize on tournament participations rather than focusing on improving training methods, elevating skills, and building a strong foundation for the future.
  3. The new system will escalate cost and increase financial burdens on the families, which will discourage participations and limit opportunities. This will create a non-inclusive, non-equitable environment for many participants and families who lack the financial means.

Specifically, we oppose the following changes presented by the new system:

  1. The new system will use at least 5 tournaments (US Open, US National, two ranking tournaments, best results from Regional Championships), plus world ranking (eg. 6 WTT US events in 2025) to determine the 2025 US Junior National Teams.
  2. The new system will dynamically update and change the National Team members as tournaments progress throughout the year. This makes the National Team fluid (eg. the top 6 players with the most points, not necessarily the best-skilled players become the National Team). This fluid nature introduces an ever-ending uncertainty and fatigue which will undermine focus and motivation. This will also make the National Team as a quorum less meaningful.
  3. The new system will reduce the National Team’s size from 8 to 6. This limits opportunities and discourages participations. USATT should instead increase opportunities and encourage participations rather than reducing them.

We support and seek the following:

  1. A hybrid approach where Adult and U19 players pilot adopt the new ranking system while keeping U17 and under Juniors same as before. Based on the results of the pilot, U17 and under Juniors could make gradual changes in the future.  
  2. For U17 and under Juniors, use two to three Trial events (one or two Team Trials in March or May plus US National with big round robin in July) to determine fixed, non-changing US National Junior Teams for the year. Remove WTT and world ranking considerations for the Junior Team selections.
  3. Keep the current 8-member National Team size or increase the size to 10. USATT should increase rewards for Juniors making to the National Teams (eg. elite national-level training camp before international competitions, etc)
  4. Host future US Opens during Christmas/Winter breaks at accessible locations rather than on the last week of school in locations where there’s little mass support. Juniors suffered difficult choices between school finals and sports while parents struggled with the cost of getting to these rare locations (eg. West Monroe, Huntsville, etc).
  5. USATT should help developing our juniors by investing in affordable training camps to elevate skills and competitiveness, setting up WTT travel grants and college scholarships to attract participations, and promote the sport in the mainstream society.
  6. Before announcing major decisions, USATT should solicit public feedback from all major stakeholders in the table tennis community. USATT should seek all available perspectives and viewpoints and seek partnership with vested groups rather than imposing closed-door, committee-led decisions on the entire US Table Tennis community.

Respectfully,

USATT Parents