Difference between better and worse players?

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IMO the biggest difference between a great player to a regular one is footwork.

Feeling you get by hours and hours practicing and playing. But footwork comes with a lot of conscious effort because you body is kind of "natural lazy".

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Hi guys, I think feeling the ball is the biggest difference between better and worse players. How can I increase ball feeling with my racket?

Generally "Feeling The Ball" is Everything.
But not in the sense you put in your question "feeling with my racket".

The difference between the better and the worse player is that the better player feels the ball all through its life in every point.
The worse player tries to "feel the ball with his racket".
A better feel with the racket is a good question, but limited just to what it means.
 
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Generally "Feeling The Ball" is Everything.
But not in the sense you put in your question "feeling with my racket".

The difference between the better and the worse player is that the better player feels the ball all through its life in every point.
The worse player tries to "feel the ball with his racket".
A better feel with the racket is a good question, but limited just to what it means.

I meant feeling the ball dude.
 

Dan

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Dan

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Great question and answers here. This really is a tough one to answer and I don't think there are no right or wrong answers.

What is feeling firstly? I would say its the ability to maintain relaxed and produce spin on the ball through a light contact. Its the subconscious knowledge to know what your bat angle needs to be to return the ball on the table in the situation you are in.

When I was junior my coach sat me down to watch a final of a senior championships. The final was between a pro and a sub pro. The pro was winning quite convincingly, my coach said to me what do you think is the difference right now that's allowing the pro to dominate. I answered a few different replies and my coach said it all comes down to the ball control and feeling. So just like you said Alpay. Although i do think ball control and feeling is really important, theres a lot more to it I think.

Firstly, the 'better' players have simply done more 'quality' practice and played against a huge amount of players to develop experience and shot selection in many different environments and conditions over a lot of years. This has allowed them to develop a huge amount of tactical knowledge in their decision making. The stronger players have simply been in the situation more than the lesser player so they have more of an idea on how to handle the situation. This has and will have developed their feeling over time, however there are some top players who you wouldn't always say they had huge amounts of feeling, yet win convincingly over other players who process the traits of feeling.

I did a thesis on deliberate practice at Uni which compared pros to sub pros and it found the pros had acquired many more hours of practice than the sub pro and did more practice on areas that are vital to improvements, such as serving. This doesn't mean practice alone automatically improves you. Its the types of practice you do.

One great way to develop ball feeling is to simply slow down. Slow your shots right down and focus on brushing the ball. I remember this helped me a lot when I was training. its quite easy to play fast and hard and not think to much about the contact. When you slow right down you contact the ball much better and you can tweak your angle often until you find it in the optimum position. A great exercise to improve feeling I find helps is to vary your pace and spin on the ball. A good exercise is to play 3 forehands in a row. 1 forehand topspin at 30% of your max speed, second at 60% max speed and then the third at 90% max speed, then repeat. I find this is great during warm ups and it gives you time to recover and position for the next shot. This helps develop timing and contracting the ball with different levels of spin and speed in different situations.

In terms of what type of racket to use, I think everyone is different. There are so many types of pros using different rubbers and blades it shows that its not the equipment but the performer. I did use to think that softer rubbers helped with feeling which they definitely do especially when away from the table. But over time I found when I used harder rubbers like Hurricane it really grooved my technique, body position and taught me how to play with spin. To contact the ball well with harder rubbers you need to be in good position, good weight transfer, timing and contact.

Practice, practice, practice...
 
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Great question and answers here. This really is a tough one to answer and I don't think there are no right or wrong answers.

What is feeling firstly? I would say its the ability to maintain relaxed and produce spin on the ball through a light contact. Its the subconscious knowledge to know what your bat angle needs to be to return the ball on the table in the situation you are in.

When I was junior my coach sat me down to watch a final of a senior championships. The final was between a pro and a sub pro. The pro was winning quite convincingly, my coach said to me what do you think is the difference right now that's allowing the pro to dominate. I answered a few different replies and my coach said it all comes down to the ball control and feeling. So just like you said Alpay. Although i do think ball control and feeling is really important, theres a lot more to it I think.

Firstly, the 'better' players have simply done more 'quality' practice and played against a huge amount of players to develop experience and shot selection in many different environments and conditions over a lot of years. This has allowed them to develop a huge amount of tactical knowledge in their decision making. The stronger players have simply been in the situation more than the lesser player so they have more of an idea on how to handle the situation. This has and will have developed their feeling over time, however there are some top players who you wouldn't always say they had huge amounts of feeling, yet win convincingly over other players who process the traits of feeling.

I did a thesis on deliberate practice at Uni which compared pros to sub pros and it found the pros had acquired many more hours of practice than the sub pro and did more practice on areas that are vital to improvements, such as serving. This doesn't mean practice alone automatically improves you. Its the types of practice you do.

One great way to develop ball feeling is to simply slow down. Slow your shots right down and focus on brushing the ball. I remember this helped me a lot when I was training. its quite easy to play fast and hard and not think to much about the contact. When you slow right down you contact the ball much better and you can tweak your angle often until you find it in the optimum position. A great exercise to improve feeling I find helps is to vary your pace and spin on the ball. A good exercise is to play 3 forehands in a row. 1 forehand topspin at 30% of your max speed, second at 60% max speed and then the third at 90% max speed, then repeat. I find this is great during warm ups and it gives you time to recover and position for the next shot. This helps develop timing and contracting the ball with different levels of spin and speed in different situations.

In terms of what type of racket to use, I think everyone is different. There are so many types of pros using different rubbers and blades it shows that its not the equipment but the performer. I did use to think that softer rubbers helped with feeling which they definitely do especially when away from the table. But over time I found when I used harder rubbers like Hurricane it really grooved my technique, body position and taught me how to play with spin. To contact the ball well with harder rubbers you need to be in good position, good weight transfer, timing and contact.

Practice, practice, practice...

Yes SIR!
 
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Great question and answers here. This really is a tough one to answer and I don't think there are no right or wrong answers.

What is feeling firstly? I would say its the ability to maintain relaxed and produce spin on the ball through a light contact. Its the subconscious knowledge to know what your bat angle needs to be to return the ball on the table in the situation you are in.

When I was junior my coach sat me down to watch a final of a senior championships. The final was between a pro and a sub pro. The pro was winning quite convincingly, my coach said to me what do you think is the difference right now that's allowing the pro to dominate. I answered a few different replies and my coach said it all comes down to the ball control and feeling. So just like you said Alpay. Although i do think ball control and feeling is really important, theres a lot more to it I think.

Firstly, the 'better' players have simply done more 'quality' practice and played against a huge amount of players to develop experience and shot selection in many different environments and conditions over a lot of years. This has allowed them to develop a huge amount of tactical knowledge in their decision making. The stronger players have simply been in the situation more than the lesser player so they have more of an idea on how to handle the situation. This has and will have developed their feeling over time, however there are some top players who you wouldn't always say they had huge amounts of feeling, yet win convincingly over other players who process the traits of feeling.

I did a thesis on deliberate practice at Uni which compared pros to sub pros and it found the pros had acquired many more hours of practice than the sub pro and did more practice on areas that are vital to improvements, such as serving. This doesn't mean practice alone automatically improves you. Its the types of practice you do.

One great way to develop ball feeling is to simply slow down. Slow your shots right down and focus on brushing the ball. I remember this helped me a lot when I was training. its quite easy to play fast and hard and not think to much about the contact. When you slow right down you contact the ball much better and you can tweak your angle often until you find it in the optimum position. A great exercise to improve feeling I find helps is to vary your pace and spin on the ball. A good exercise is to play 3 forehands in a row. 1 forehand topspin at 30% of your max speed, second at 60% max speed and then the third at 90% max speed, then repeat. I find this is great during warm ups and it gives you time to recover and position for the next shot. This helps develop timing and contracting the ball with different levels of spin and speed in different situations.

In terms of what type of racket to use, I think everyone is different. There are so many types of pros using different rubbers and blades it shows that its not the equipment but the performer. I did use to think that softer rubbers helped with feeling which they definitely do especially when away from the table. But over time I found when I used harder rubbers like Hurricane it really grooved my technique, body position and taught me how to play with spin. To contact the ball well with harder rubbers you need to be in good position, good weight transfer, timing and contact.

Practice, practice, practice...

One of the best posts i read in a while.
[Emoji106]
Thanks Dan.
[Emoji2]
But the other comments are quite good as well.
My coach says what separates the good from the others is the ball quality.
[Emoji2]
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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So, some nice posts. Also, it is very nice to see Dan actually come out and make a comment on this kind of subject. Fun to read.

I think there are two subjects here. I am not sure the OP intended to make two subjects. But it still ended up working out that way:

1) What qualities help make a higher level player.
2) How do you develop the ability to touch and feel the ball better.

In the OP, feel was equated with higher level play. And the OP may have only been asking how to develop an increased sense of feel. However, the subject most people seem to have jumped on has been: what makes a higher level player.

To me, it seems that subject has been answered quite well. In entertaining fashion the long post of Dan and the very short (2 sentences, 6 words total), post of Baal, both do a fairly good job of explaining what makes a higher level player. It is nice to have all the responses.

But I want to add one detail to the higher level subject before I move on to the subject of presenting some tools for developing touch and feeling.

One detail that seems valuable, that a higher level player generally has that lower level players often overlook:

Lower level players often are focused on what they are doing and not what their opponent is doing. A decently high level player will be seeing and responding to what their opponent is doing. You cannot really talk about things like footwork or positioning without the player seeing what the opponent is doing as soon as possible. Without seeing, ASAP where the ball is going and what your opponent did to the ball, your footwork will land you in the wrong place. And when a higher level player sees a lower level player wanting to set up for a FH, they will often give a ball that makes that harder because they read the opponent and the lower level player will not have.

I have seen many mid level players have great and dangerous loops only to find that, in a match against a more skilled player--even if that player's shots do not look as flashy--that the mid level player can't get his shots off because the more skilled player keeps seeing what the less skilled player is trying to do and giving him balls that make it hard for him to do what he wants.

So, watching, seeing, and reading the opponent would be a very important skill to develop if you were trying to improve your skills and overall level. What your opponent does and seeing what your opponent does is very important in any racket sport. And in any racket sport, there is always what you do, and what your opponent does. A good opponent can always limit what you are able to do.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had lower level players say that, for some reason, when they play me, they are not playing well without fully realizing that it is because I am limiting what they are able to do. You can see this at the top levels also. You can see a player who against most top players looks pretty good. And then he plays Ma Long and looks like he should not be in the top 300.

Now, on to touch and feeling. The skills of touch and feeling can be practiced.

Here:

These are preliminary exercises that help you develop touch and feel:


These are more advanced versions of similar kinds of exercises.


The first exercise in the Marcos Freitas video, it helps to practice it with a wall until you have enough control to move to the edge of a table.

That one exercise alone will really help you develop better touch and feel. But all the exercises in both videos will help. To do all the touch exercises, you need soft, relaxed hands: soft, relaxed, and yet controlled and firm. Almost paradoxical. :)
 
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BTW: I should make the note that, following the advice from Dan, or, as more concisely stated by Baal, would result in the skill of watching and reading the opponent. So, their posts did contain what I presented on the subject of watching the opponent. I was just emphasizing that, that aspect of training is often not focused on well enough unless you have a decent coach. :)

You have to watch your opponent.
 
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Whenever I watch the top pros play, I feel the real differentiator is reflexes and recovery on the defensive end. I think of the countless times some player would loop/drive, only to get powerfully countered... and then within the blink of an eye, there is that wrist curl to open up the bat midway through the backswing/reset. The world's top players all have strong offenses, but given similarly high levels of talent/execution/etc... the intangibles are what makes the difference. Lately, I've become a huge fan of Xu Xin. He's my TT McGuyver!
 
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For actual techniques, I think what holds lower rated players back is not being able to loop back spin in games. Most are too unsure of their own skill to try it, and so they get stuck in push wars. From what I've seen, once a player can consistently loop backspin, then they are able to decide where the game takes place. Does it get stuck in the short game, or do you they loop it and begin the top spin battles?

And then the next level up, it goes back to the push... and who can control the short game better to setup their attack.
 
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