Interview with Adam Bobrow - The Voice of Table Tennis ! (1st Part)

We met Adam Bobrow for an interview after the World Team Championships in Tokyo and the recent China Open. Adam commentated the competitions after winning the ITTF's contest: "The Voice of Table Tennis 2.0". His interesting answers will get you behind the scenes of the international tournaments, as if you were in them ! This is the first part of the interview, we hope you will like it.

Hello Adam, thank you for this interview. How are you ?

Hello, Thomas! Thank YOU for this interview. Right now,
I am great, thanks! Just got about 5 mostly uninterrupted hours of sleep on my flight to China…

possibly thanks to my neck pillow… or being extremely tired. Either way… feelin’ great!

You commentated the WTTTC one month ago, how was this experience to you ?

Commentating the WTTTC was amazing!!! What an outstanding opportunity. It’s sort of crazy that a person can go from volunteering to commentate tournaments in his home country to suddenly commentating the biggest tournament on the planet.

Post by Adam Bobrow.

Fortunately, the 6 other commentators were extremely kind, accommodating and not only made me feel very welcomed but also made it easy for me. They showed me the ropes and were great to work with. Also, when the stadium is filled with 9,000 fans, and the players are playing incredible matches… It makes my job easy because there’s so much to talk about and I am already naturally very excited. It’s as if I just have to be present and be myself.

Could you explain to us how did you become the new official ITTF commentator ?

Sure! The short story is: I won the international competition “The Voice of Table Tennis 2.0.”
The longer story is… About 3 years ago, I had just commentated my first official match at the NCTTA Collegiate National Championships in the US and saw that there was a competition called “The Voice of Table Tennis.” Some friends sent me a link and said “DUDE! You should DO this.” Having done lots of voice over work and MCing, announcing and stand up comedy… and since I really love table tennis, I thought it could be a fun and exciting opportunity so I submitted an audition.

I was chosen to be one of the final 5, but was not chosen as one of the two winners. So, in 2014 around March when I saw “The Voice of Table Tennis 2.0” I thought… “I’ve had a bit more experience now and I could not only win a trip to Japan which would be awesome… but I could get to see my first World Championships LIVE!” I always found the World TEAMS to be the most exciting Championships since everyone fights that much harder (also… there won’t be a China vs. China final) so the crowd should be very into it.



So, I stayed up all night recording commentary for the game that ITTF had selected as the game to audition with. After 5 hours of recording to really give it my best shot, I sent it to my friend, David Del Vecchio who runs LAPingPong.com with me, works for NCTTA with me and also has great insight for commentary and media. He offered me some extremely useful constructive criticism and I felt like… “how could I NOT re-record my audition now.” So I stayed up AGAIN the next night until 8:30AM recording and sent in my audition.
When I found out that I was chosen as one of the three finalists, I knew that it came down to a public vote, so even though I was on a family vacation in Costa Rica… I stopped what I was doing and made sure to hop on my computer and spread the word so people would vote and fortunately for me… the vote went in my favor ;)

How did you feel before going to the event ? Anxious ? Happy ? Both ?

Well, I was very excited and thrilled but at the same time… after learning how many hours professional commentators put into doing research for a single game of basketball I was afraid that I would be under-prepared. Generally I try to be prepared for whatever I do but I am also a procrastinator, a bit spontaneous and have been especially busy lately.



This was the first part of the Adam Bobrow's interview, the photos are from Adam Bobrow's Facebook account, and the video belongs to International Table Tennis Federation.