New ITTF Eligibility Rule FOR NON US-CITIZENS UNDER 21

Recently, the US Women's Olympic coach, Teodor Gheorghe, emailed me with these news:

"If any[one] was born in another country and never represented USA at the World Junior Championships and want[s] to represent USA in the future, please read the attached document, fill out and sign the form... and send it back to me ASAP"

And since I can't figure out how to put the actual document up, here's the copy and pasted version:

New ITTF Eligibility rule registration form

According to the new ITTF eligibility rule, players under 21 years old and were born in another country, but wish to represent the United States have to be registered with ITTF through USATT.

The new eligibility rule applies only for the World Title events - World Championships, World Junior Championships, and World Cup and is as follows:

In addition to the provisions of 3.8 (the general rule of eligibility) players being eligible to represent an association other than the one they intend to represent, shall register with the ITTF, through this new association.

Such players shall not represent the new association before:
* 3 years after the date of registration, if the player is under the age of 15 when registered;
* 5 years after the date of registration, if the player is under the age of 18 but at least 15 years of age when registered;
* 7 years after the date of registration, if the player is under the age of 21 but at least 18 years of age when registered.

Players being 21 years of age or older will not be registered with the ITTF and will not be eligible to represent a new association at World Title events.

Players who have already represented USA at a previous World Title event will keep that eligibility and do not need to register with ITTF.

Players who are under 21 years of age, born in another country, and have never represented USA at a World Title event must fill out and sign the below application for registration with the ITTF and send it to USATT HQ, attention Doru Gheorghe or by email to: Doru@usatt.org

So, if this applies to you, and you want to represent the US in future international tournaments, EMAIL DORU for the form!!! I also have a copy of the form as well, so you can email me at so90crazy@gmail.com too, but it would probably be better for you to just contact Doru directly.

Cheers!

Tibhar's SINUS

Despite its ridiculous-sounding name, Sinus is a really great rubber. It's the sort of off-spring/next generation of Nimbus, and was designed specifically with the forehand and those who are used to hard, spinny rubbers in mind. Actually, the Nimbus was really intended to be mostly a backhand rubber, but it's definitely versatile and all-around enough for a forehand rubber (I used it for around four months until last night, when I tried Sinus). For anyone who's looking for that powerful, explosive, spinny shot that you used to have with harder sponges, definitely try this one out. I like it more than Butterfly's Tenergy, because I feel like you get a better grip on the ball with Sinus, and more control overall.

And to answer Alex's question from the last post, I was talking specifically about Butterfly's glue... Sorry for any confusion or issues that ambiguity may have caused!

Sorry it's been a while, but college life tends to catch up to you...

Speaking of which, college table tennis has definitely been an experience. I would venture to say that the Columbia table tennis team practices quite a lot for a college team, and that we're a relatively cohesive one at that. No politics or animosity or anything like that, and that's always a good thing. For anyone who doesn't know how collegiate table tennis works, there is an organization (NCTTA): http://nctta.org/index.html. There are different regions all across the country (Columbia is in the New York City region with NYU, Rutgers, Cooper Union, Yale, Stevens Institute of Technology, Polytechnic University, FIT, Stonybrook, NJIT, and a few other teams that are inactive this year), and teams within each region play each other at regional tournaments (ours is coming up in November!) and the top two teams from each region go to Nationals at the end of the school year. Anyone applying to college or looking at colleges that still wants to play or start playing table tennis, look to see if your schools have a club or a team. If yes, then join, if not, then look to start your own club!