Table tennis can be fun: How Adam Bobrow, popular commentator, is making waves

Table tennis commentator Adam Bobrow interview

Meet Adam Bobrow, popular US table tennis commentator, on a mission to make his sport fun
| Video Credit:
The Hindu

The snake is Adam Bobrow’s weapon of mass destruction. Against his opponents, some of them amateurs and some professional, he uses it to devastating effect, leaving them dumbfounded.

Adam is not a soldier and he is not fighting a war.

He is a table tennis commentator who also plays the game for fun. Among his many innovative shots is the snake, a shot that is played from way below the table, which makes the ball spin in the direction opposite of where you thought it was heading. For Adam – a passionate promoter of the game – it has almost become his sobriquet.

Adam Bobrow
| Photo Credit:
Johan Sathyadas

In Chennai for the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) championship recently, Adam is besieged by aspiring players who want him to teach them this unique ‘snake shot’. “It feels like magic when the ball jumps. I make it as theatrical as possible with silly body moments,” he smiles.

Adam is not the first to play it – professional TT players like Patrick Chila and Jan-Ove Waldner have used it in games and Swedish champ Truls Moregardh tried it during the recent Paris Olympics. But ever since Adam coined the word ‘snake’ to describe this particular shot during a commentary stint, it has become synonymous with him. So much so that people from various countries invite him to their table tennis clubs just for him to showcase the snake. “I spend a lot of time developing and practising this particular shot. A lot of people don’t realise that table tennis involves a lot of spin too, which makes it exciting.”

His association with the snake goes back to a time when he was much younger. “The father of an ex-girlfriend of mine from Japan used to play this shot and it drove me crazy. I didn’t like it one bit. I kept telling myself, ‘This thing that was hurting me needs to help me win points’.”

Adam’s thriving YouTube channel, which has more than a million subscribers, has him playing with local TT players across the world. He even once embarked on a journey in a bid to find the ‘What happened’ guy, a player whose shocking reaction to a point became a popular meme across the world. “I try to create an experience that people can relate to and in the process, have some fun,” explains Adam. He has also played with some of the best professionals in the world, including French champ Alexis Lebrun, Indian champion Sharath Kamal and popular TT coach Antasiia Rybka, among others. “These professionals…they are incredibly generous and take it easy with me. They probably look at me like this kid who is excited to shows up at their parents’ workplace.”

When Adam is not creating such content, he is on the sidelines of every important tournament across the world, adding value to the sport with his words. Adam’s goal is, in his own words, to spread joy and bring more eyeballs to the game he dearly loves. “I keep thinking of new ways to make table tennis more digestable. A lot of subtle things that happen so quickly that it even gets lost on professionals… so, how are newcomers going to get interested? I want more people to watch and play the sport, so it needs to be visually easy to digest. When the ball jumps – like it does with the snake – it helps to grab attention.”