How to choose the side to attack with on third ball attack ?

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Hello everyone,

Lately I work a lot on my third ball attack and i'm a bit confused on which side to choose to attack with between BH and FH

How do you choose ?

I've heard that it is good to use the FH with pendulum serve as the ball go to the BH and we can pivot and keep attacking the whole table with the FH. And use BH with hook serve, backhand, tomahawk and reverse because the ball go to the middle and we can keep attacking with it

1/ If i do like that, i feel like i use a lot my BH while my FH is stronger
2/ But if i only choose the side depending of the position of the ball (1/3 BH, 2/3 FH), i feel like i'm too indecisive. I need to wait to see the return too much. But maybe that's the way to do ? But then what about doing pivot on pendulum to BH ?

What seems to me to be the best is :
- For pendulum : Do FH everywhere even pivot. Except for wide BH return where i do BH
- For backhand and tomahawk : I do them from the middle and i attack with BH except if the return is wide FH
- For hook and reverse : I do them from my BH side same as with pendulum so i'm ready to attack them with my FH on all the table. So no BH


Does it makes sense ? How do you plan it for yourself ? How much do you force a side and anticipate your third ball attack or do you just go with the flow ?

Also additional question : My BH and FH are really at a similar level. Should i try to force a bit more the FH as it is more powerful ? Right now i have the habit to use the BH to take the ball that are on my elbow. Should i change it and work on favoring more my FH ?


Thanks a lot for your ideas, not sure how to develop my game now :)
 
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For me the third ball attack is just an "if" tactics.
Usually I can't rely on it with players familiar with my serves and game. With the others I try to provoke a longer return to my FH, or if the return is shorter over the table, I prefer my BH. I'm righty and it works well with rightys, but with leftys, if I use the same scenario, I usually have to change paralel with diagonal and vise versa.
 
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That is a difficult question. It depends a lot on the opponent. If I can serve long and get passive returns, I will pivot against everything. Or even if I have to serve short but my opponent cannot read my serve well and gives me a lot slow, popped up (even slightly) returns, I will also pivot. But if the opponent reads everything well and gives me fast and spinny pushes all over the table, I will use BH on the 1/2 of the table.
 
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I think that on today's game it's not viable, but I try to attack every third ball with FH, I've been working to BH third ball attack to save some stamina in the games :p
 
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It's funny i would have imagined that more people prepare their returns depending of the type of serve. Also it seems that you stay very flexible on the type of third ball you do

What's a bit confusing for me is that my BH and FH are balanced, i can't decide which i'm more dominant with. Actually the BH is more natural to me and i spent way less time training it and it's almost at the same level than my FH, uhm

Does anybody else have different ways to choose the third ball ? Their main weapon ? I'm curious to know how people think about all this :)
 
The third ball is important and the serve gives you an advantage to get use of it.
If you kill the third ball often, it means you play with a weaker oponent.
But if you play with an equal or a better oponent, maybe you'll not be able to kill the third so often.
For me the best weapon is to define the best tactics for the particular oponent, how to trouble him and how to provoke him to give you what you need. You may have a best shot or technique as a best weapon, but if your oponent do not allow you to use it, this best weapon is useless. So for me the third ball is more a tactical element and the particular tactics depend on the particular players' style, superiors and weaknesses.
 
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Hello everyone,

Lately I work a lot on my third ball attack and i'm a bit confused on which side to choose to attack with between BH and FH

How do you choose ?

I've heard that it is good to use the FH with pendulum serve as the ball go to the BH and we can pivot and keep attacking the whole table with the FH. And use BH with hook serve, backhand, tomahawk and reverse because the ball go to the middle and we can keep attacking with it

1/ If i do like that, i feel like i use a lot my BH while my FH is stronger
2/ But if i only choose the side depending of the position of the ball (1/3 BH, 2/3 FH), i feel like i'm too indecisive. I need to wait to see the return too much. But maybe that's the way to do ? But then what about doing pivot on pendulum to BH ?

What seems to me to be the best is :
- For pendulum : Do FH everywhere even pivot. Except for wide BH return where i do BH
- For backhand and tomahawk : I do them from the middle and i attack with BH except if the return is wide FH
- For hook and reverse : I do them from my BH side same as with pendulum so i'm ready to attack them with my FH on all the table. So no BH


Does it makes sense ? How do you plan it for yourself ? How much do you force a side and anticipate your third ball attack or do you just go with the flow ?

Also additional question : My BH and FH are really at a similar level. Should i try to force a bit more the FH as it is more powerful ? Right now i have the habit to use the BH to take the ball that are on my elbow. Should i change it and work on favoring more my FH ?


Thanks a lot for your ideas, not sure how to develop my game now :)

I think mine is a lot easier,

if the 3rd ball yummy
... if inverted
....... ATTACK!
... else if pips
....... twiddle, then ATTACK!
else if the 3rd ball not so yummy
... randomly twiddle, then chop again

I don't mind doing backhand smashing, so I did not put it into algorithm.

Sent from my I7D using Tapatalk
 
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