Case in point: table tennis tactics.

When analyzing tactics, we often look at a point on video, watch the result, then go back and work out what happened, treating it as if a player planned it along the lines of - I'll serve here, so he'll probably do that, then I'll do this, and he'll probably do that, and then I can hit a winner.

But is that the way things actually happen?

Also on the ITTF website is an intriguing article about a new and different type of table tennis competition to be held in China - the Spectacular Pairs Tournament. I'll leave it to you to read the details, but with a line up including Guo Yuehua & Chen Xinhua, Koji Matsushita & Hiroshi Shibutani, Ulf Carlsson & Jörgen Persson, the Saive brothers, and even a female pairing of Krisztina Toth & Renata Strbikova, and with the winners being the ones to produce the most exciting table tennis, it sounds like it has the potential to be a real crowd pleaser.

Naturally enough, the decision has also sparked off a round of discussion in our own About.com Table Tennis forum, with members commenting on the decision and making a few points of their own, such as:

• What exactly were the various demands for hospitality?
• If Michael Landers was a signatory on the original demand document, but later changed his mind and agreed to play, should he be punished for being part of the original threat/extortion attempt against the USATT?
• If the demand document was an extortion attempt, should the USATT have negotiated with the players? (The USATT did agree to consider a proposal to double the prize money for the Men's and Women's Singles in 2010)
• Why didn't any of the other players involved bother to give testimony or a written response, other than Han Xiao?
• What exactly does the phrase "USATT activities or events" cover?

And a couple of thoughts of my own come to mind:

• Is the USATT still going to consider doubling the prize money for the Men's and Women's Singles in 2010? And if they do actually double it, would that be a tacit admission that the defaulters were correct, and that the prize money should have been higher?
• Who started the original rumor that prize money could be higher in the first place?
• How do the top USATT Women feel about being left out of the original demand document? I think there might be some strained friendships between the top men and women at the moment.
• Will we see an appeal from any of the six players involved?