#12 – Sam Walker: Entering the Bundesliga

The Expert Table Tennis Podcast

Sam Walker first played table tennis at the age of two. Since then, he’s put in a huge amount of work. He first represented England at the age of 11 and finished the cadets (U15) ranked #2 in the country.

At 16 he took the decision to move to Germany and play table tennis full-time. It paid off! In the past four years, he has transformed himself into the third best player in England (behind Paul and Liam) and achieved a world ranking of around 200th. He is currently living in Ochsenhausen and training at the Liebherr Master’s College.

Sam’s Germany club (ASV Grunwettersbach) were promoted to the Bundesliga last season and are currently training hard in preparation for their first match, against Saarbrucken, on 23rd August. I caught up with Sam for half an hour in between his morning and afternoon training session to ask him how his training was going and find out his goals and ambitions for this season and beyond.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What a typical day is like for Sam Walker.
• The thought process behind moving to Germany at 16.
• What Sam enjoys about living and training in Ochsenhausen.
• How much physical training Sam completes.
• Why he believes fitness training is really important for table tennis.
• The input Sam has in his training programme.
• Which specific drills and exercises Sam is doing.
• What Sam is trying to improve this season.
• Sam’s future goals and ambitions.
• About Sam’s brand new website (that he built himself)

Links from this episode:

• Sam’s U21 World Ranking Archive
• Sam’s Senior World Ranking Archive
• Tischtennis Bundesliga (TTBL)
• ASV Grunwttersbach
• Liebherr Master’s College (Ochsenhausen)
• SamWalkerTT.com
• Sam Walker’s Facebook Page
• Sam Walker on Twitter

Thanks for listening!

Thank you so much for joining us. I really hope you enjoyed the show.

As I said at the end of the episode, if you could go and subscribe and leave us an honest review on iTunes that would really help us out. It’s very simple to do and will help us to get noticed in the crowded world of podcasting.

A big thank you to Sam for joining me on this episode. I am sure he will be breaking into the world’s top 100 players before we know it! I’ll have another interview for you next Friday.

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