Dear Paddle Palace & Nittaku, 

I hope all is well with you and your family during this difficult time. I just wanted to give you a quick update about my game during the last six months. 

We went on lockdown in mid-April and haven’t been able to play with other people until June 1st. Even though we were forced to stay at home, I still had the opportunity to practice daily with the robot and take online private lessons from Coach Samson Dubina every other day. I also improved my physical fitness by conducting at-home workouts and strengthened my mental game through National Team meetings with the psychologist Dr. Bob Swoap. 

My first-day training at the Samson Dubina Table Tennis Academy was June 1st for a private lesson. I’m currently taking private lessons from Coach Samson Dubina and Coach Chance Friend five days a week. I will continue to work hard, and I look forward to making more improvements in my game. 

During these next couple of months, I will be primarily focussed on training as there likely won’t be many tournaments. I will be taking private lessons and possibly participating in group lessons and league. My main goals for this year is to continue to make improvements in my game, train hard, and stay healthy!

2020 US Olympic Trials – Santa Monica, CA – Image Courtesy of Bruce Liu

Before lockdown, I competed in the USA Olympic Trials which took place in Santa Monica, California from February 27th to March 1st. I came in 10th place for the event.

On February 7th and February 8th, I played in the Presper Financial Architects Open and won the U2300. And in the Open event, I had a great win against the legendary Danny Seemiller which was awesome!

#1 60-year-old …VS… #1 13-year-oldDan Seemiller vs Sarah JalliPresper Financial Architects Open

Posted by Samson Dubina on Saturday, February 8, 2020

Also, Coach Samson Dubina, Jacob Boyd (another student of Coach Samson), and I wrote a book called “Why Table Tennis?” The publishing has been delayed due to COVID 19 but it will come out soon as a paper copy and an online book on Amazon. 

On June 2nd, I was selected as the female Junior MVP of the week because I won the one-minute Burpee Challenge. The idea of this challenge was to see how many burpees I can get in one minute and then the following week I won for the one-minute Mountain Climber Challenge! 

I just wanted to say, thank you for your continued support and I will continue to promote Paddle Palace/Nittaku in any way that I can. 

Stay safe and healthy,
Sarah Jalli