Advice needed! frustration near...

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Hello everybody,

I need your professional advice on a new setup that I want to try :) I know there are some really good advice givers here, so don't hide :D

As all of you can see, my current setup is:
Wood: Stiga Optimum SYNC
FH: Xiom Omega Europe
BH: Xiom Vega Pro

My game
I usually serve, place the balls so that the opponent has difficulties to attack and go myself for the points with my forehand topspin (spinny and fast ones).
With my backhand I push the balls and block, but most of the time I turn around and play forehand topspins to put pressure.

Why don't I do pressure with my backhand?
The problem is that my backhand is weak and doesn't seem to improve and I usually get problems during my matches. There are few (very few) moments where my backhand seems to work: Topspins, block and co.
I always do backhand exercises in practice.

Thoughts

I don't know if it's my technique, the rubber that is too hard, maybe try a different blade, ...
Maybe I need some training courses but they're not cheap and I haven't got much freetime because of the university..
Maybe a different rubber? Softer, slower, grippier, ... ?
I also thought about pimples: short, mid-long and long.

  • I don't know much about short pips.
  • I know nothing about mid-long pips.
  • I own an old blade with Feint Long III and Tackiness C and tried it. The only problem is that because of the age of the rubbers (Tackiness C) and the wood (cheap wood), I can only try to chop and I cannot attack with my forehand.


How I wanna play
I want to be able to "erase" my weakness (obviously my backhand) by trying something new. I also got some difficulties with service return.
I want to be a player where the opponents don't say: "He's weak in his BH-side, let's play 95% of the balls there". It happens often and because I know that, I am more prepared to turn around and play FH. Against some players it works but against good blockers or better players it's much more difficult.
The fact that my backhand is weak, the opponent has it easier to prepare his attacks because my returns are not strong enough..

I enjoy chopping and attacking and maybe a mix of both is the best for me? Something like Gionis, except in a much lower league ^^ (It has been a while since I'm flirting with this idea)
But for that, I will have to take a more allround blade? Practice different drills and such.

The End
Long story short, what can you guys suggest?
Have you got some more questions? Did I forget to mention something? Is something not clear?

I would be gratefull because I'm getting frustrated by the time...
Please help me :)

Cheers,
Rhydian
 
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Most people would use a softer rubber (compared to Vega Pro) on BH side.
But I think your problem is more technique than equipment.

So if you wish to erase it, maybe on thing you should look out for is not moving your elbow, but rather moving your arm. The only movement of your elbow is facing up, then facing down, and let the arm do the movement.

And since you have already identified your weakness, then good, practice 80% on BH strokes for the next month (of course once you made technical adjustments)

maybe you can record a video of yourself with bh strokes, so forum members can help comment more accurately?
 
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This happens to everyone at some stage, whilst changing equipment might improve you over the short term it can never be a substitute for improving your technique. I know its hard to go back to basics but that is where the solution will come from.

Start with your stance, is it stable? can you play strong shots? are you often off balance? do you stand up in between points or whilst making a stroke?
Then move on to your stroke, is your stroke correct, is your timing correct, look at you point of contact on the ball, check your racket angle on contact

Even if all of these points are fine by going back to basics you will reinforce them and start to isolate the problem.

And remember to not be too hard on yourself
 
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Fast answers, thanks guys!

How much do you practice looping underspin with your backhand?
I practice up to 3 times a week (Thursday, Friday and Sunday). Every practice I topspin on block with my backhand, I serve and loop the returns in my backhand and then I mix forehand and backhand.

Most people would use a softer rubber (compared to Vega Pro) on BH side.
But I think your problem is more technique than equipment.

So if you wish to erase it, maybe on thing you should look out for is not moving your elbow, but rather moving your arm. The only movement of your elbow is facing up, then facing down, and let the arm do the movement.

And since you have already identified your weakness, then good, practice 80% on BH strokes for the next month (of course once you made technical adjustments)

maybe you can record a video of yourself with bh strokes, so forum members can help comment more accurately?
At the beginning I had problems with my elbow and position. Afterwards I focused on steady elbow-position and on keeping my body over the ball while I perform the stroke.
Sometimes I just want to go too fast to the ball but now not so much as at the beginning.
I'll try the exercices on Friday with both of my rubbers and see if it the feeling and touch gets better or not.
If I find my camera, I'll look for a "camera" man ^^

This happens to everyone at some stage, whilst changing equipment might improve you over the short term it can never be a substitute for improving your technique. I know its hard to go back to basics but that is where the solution will come from.

Start with your stance, is it stable? can you play strong shots? are you often off balance? do you stand up in between points or whilst making a stroke?
Then move on to your stroke, is your stroke correct, is your timing correct, look at you point of contact on the ball, check your racket angle on contact

Even if all of these points are fine by going back to basics you will reinforce them and start to isolate the problem.

And remember to not be too hard on yourself
  • stance: stable
  • strong shots: FH yes and BH when it works
  • off balance: only when I have to do a cross-step to get a long and far forehand ball
  • standing up: during points no. between sometimes but not long and I do little jumps
  • stroke: I try to keep my elbow steady (doesn't work all time) and brush the ball (with forearm movement) in front of me. Sometimes I'm too fast on the ball (working on that, not so easy). I got to pay more attention to the contact on the ball and the blade angle.


I'll got to focus more on my stroke.
What I also thought, after discussing this topic with friends, is that maybe during practice I'm closer to the table to loop with BH while during my matches I'm a bit behind. I'm not sure, I'll take a closer look on Friday. The fact is that during practice my BH works better than during a match.
 
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RHyd... I can BH loop with about any rubber on BH and can tell you for sure you got technical or position or balance or timing issues. You seem to practice enough and still have a "Weak" BH. Post a couple vids and some will show you straight up what is ailing you.
 
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I practice up to 3 times a week (Thursday, Friday and Sunday). Every practice I topspin on block with my backhand, I serve and loop the returns in my backhand and then I mix forehand and backhand.

Try having someone feed you multiball underspin, one ball after the next after the next, all underspin, all to your backhand. Loop all of them. Do a few bucke perhaps 3 or 4 even, each time you train. Try doing that somewhere in your practice for a few weeks. See what happens. At the beginning, heavy underspin in more important than light. Once you get really solid at looping a whole bucket of balls off heavy underspin with your backhand then the balls should be mixed, heavy, light, dead.

If the balls are fed at a decent speed, a bucket of 200 balls of underspin my take about 5 min. You tell whoever you get to feed it to you that you owe them 20 min of what ever they want to work on. :)
 
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RHyd... I can BH loop with about any rubber on BH and can tell you for sure you got technical or position or balance or timing issues. You seem to practice enough and still have a "Weak" BH. Post a couple vids and some will show you straight up what is ailing you.
I think so too, the problem is I've been working on it for a long time. I must say it works better now than before!

Try having someone feed you multiball underspin, one ball after the next after the next, all underspin, all to your backhand. Loop all of them. Do a few bucke perhaps 3 or 4 even, each time you train. Try doing that somewhere in your practice for a few weeks. See what happens. At the beginning, heavy underspin in more important than light. Once you get really solid at looping a whole bucket of balls off heavy underspin with your backhand then the balls should be mixed, heavy, light, dead.

If the balls are fed at a decent speed, a bucket of 200 balls of underspin my take about 5 min. You tell whoever you get to feed it to you that you owe them 20 min of what ever they want to work on. :)
I'll continue with that! I'll see if my club has enough balls, if not I'll buy some for me and my partner ^^ Do you know what standard prices are? I've found something like 120 balls from Donic-Schildkröt for 40€?

But besides that, I also want a second blade which is like I said: BH defensive and FH aggressive. I want to use it for training the players and myself, letting them play if they want to and play some fun tournaments.
Can you tell me which wood would be good, allround maybe? Which LP would you recommend?
 
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I would definitely go for trying to get your backhand on video if at all possible. I have been doing this myself and I find it really useful to watch back and see how your stroke compares to the ideal. Keys for me continue to be keeping a light grip on the bat, staying relaxed, and concentrating on flexing my wrist back on the backswing so it can be flexed back and through on the forward stroke. Difficult for people to give detailed advice without seeing some video I guess.
 
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I'll see if I can get my BH on video!

Having your own gross of balls is a good idea. You should be able to find something like this:

http://www.opentip.com/product_info.php?products_id=1298483&osCsid=0svld2dvstjg8ehicbnnfjnoo6

They are not the best balls for playing but they are good for multiball training drills. $34.50 USD = 25.41 Euro.

Thanks Carl!
Do you also know something about the material I'm looking for? A good allround/offensive wood for an offensive FH and defensive (LP) BH? And also the rubbers?
 
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Nothing much out of order with your current setup, maybe softer version of your rubber on BH, but whatever, one can still make great loops on BH with a very firm rubber there, you just need more explosion, so learning to loop on BH wing with a firm rubber can facilitate learning that kind of explosive stroke. You just need to learn the motions and timing of it all and improve over time. The more we improve in TT, the more we discover we have more deficiencies and the more we correct those and improve in level, we discover many more wrong things with our games. We improve and crush opponents who used to give us the business, then get defeated by someone out of nowhere. That is the life of a TT Pimp we choose so willingly.
 
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Thanks Carl!
Do you also know something about the material I'm looking for? A good allround/offensive wood for an offensive FH and defensive (LP) BH? And also the rubbers?

I do think this is accurate:

Nothing much out of order with your current setup, maybe softer version of your rubber on BH...

However, since it seems like you want a second setup that is defensive. You could use the same blade and the same forehand rubber and get some form of Long Pips. I really have buried my head in the sand about Long Pips and Anti Spin except in terms of knowing how to play against them. So perhaps some of the Dark Siders out there can help on good Long Pips rubbers to choose from.

But, if you wanted a slightly different piece of wood in your hands, you could try Stiga Allround Evolution. It is a little bit slower with a little bit more control but it has plenty of speed for attack and really has a lot of dwell time and control. That is a great blade and not very expensive. And that should work with your forehand rubber.

Another idea to try for your backhand would be a slower rubber with more control. Like, what if you were using Xiom Sigma II Europe for your backhand. Omega IV is pretty fast and sort of jumpy so not the greatest control. Sigma II is a little more cash, a little slower and soooo much more control and feeling. You could try Vega Europe as well. That is a pretty good backhand rubber. Sometimes a slower rubber makes you work a little more but helps you to be more offensive.
 
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But, if you wanted a slightly different piece of wood in your hands, you could try Stiga Allround Evolution. It is a little bit slower with a little bit more control but it has plenty of speed for attack and really has a lot of dwell time and control. That is a great blade and not very expensive. And that should work with your forehand rubber.

Another idea to try for your backhand would be a slower rubber with more control. Like, what if you were using Xiom Sigma II Europe for your backhand. Omega IV is pretty fast and sort of jumpy so not the greatest control. Sigma II is a little more cash, a little slower and soooo much more control and feeling. You could try Vega Europe as well. That is a pretty good backhand rubber. Sometimes a slower rubber makes you work a little more but helps you to be more offensive.
Yes, I also want a second defensive setup but more for practice and fun games :)
I'll take a look about that wood, so an allround wood would be good for that purpose?

I hope some pips players or people who know something about them will share their thoughts about them :)

Today in practice I focused more on my backhand and arm position + movement and it went better than expected. It makes me happy that it went good and hopefully that it continues upwards!
It's just tiring because I have to think everytime about my movement but it has to go like this I presume.

Again, thanks for your tipps and if you guys know something about pips or know someone who knows something, share it please :)
And to the other people here in the forum, share your tips :)
 
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Yeah, that should be good for a defensive setup. But there may be some defensive players out there who have other ideas.

Glad what you worked on with your backhand started feeling useful. The normal pattern for learning something new and changing old habits that are holding you back in your form, is that, at first you have to think of it and it feels like you are going backwards. But then you get better at it, it starts feeling natural and you stop having to think about it and your body does it.

Looping multiball underspin really could make your backhand improve because it is almost like lifting weights. If you can spin the ball heavy off of underspin, when you are hitting against topspin, it will be easy, you will have much more power and you will spin the ball better so you will have more control.
 
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Yeah, that should be good for a defensive setup. But there may be some defensive players out there who have other ideas.

Glad what you worked on with your backhand started feeling useful. The normal pattern for learning something new and changing old habits that are holding you back in your form, is that, at first you have to think of it and it feels like you are going backwards. But then you get better at it, it starts feeling natural and you stop having to think about it and your body does it.

Looping multiball underspin really could make your backhand improve because it is almost like lifting weights. If you can spin the ball heavy off of underspin, when you are hitting against topspin, it will be easy, you will have much more power and you will spin the ball better so you will have more control.

Yeah, tiring but worth it hopefully! I'll keep working on it!
Well, I tried LP from a player in my club, worked not bad for one of the first times! Next Friday he'll bring me some more blades he got at home from trying and trying!
Nevertheless, any information from defenders or people who know a lot about LP would be great!


So if you have try to improve your BH or another way is try to use the pips-out rubber maybe it's your style. Just another way to choose
I don't know, but if so, I will still not stop improving my backhand! The more a player can do, the better! :)
 
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I don't know, but if so, I will still not stop improving my backhand! The more a player can do, the better! :)

And if you did use long or short pips, you can still twiddle and use both rubbers for either wing the way so many good pips players do. Then you have to have a good stroke for the pips and a good stroke for the smooth rubber. But that could end up being a lot of fun.
 
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Your last sentence shows a good attitude.

Thanks!

And if you did use long or short pips, you can still twiddle and use both rubbers for either wing the way so many good pips players do. Then you have to have a good stroke for the pips and a good stroke for the smooth rubber. But that could end up being a lot of fun.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. If I have fun and successful playing with it, then it's the way I'll go :)
Today, at the final stage of the European Championships, I gathered some catalogs and I'm gona take a look at what is on the market.

Any ideas? Does anyone knows what is the difference between pips with and without sponge? More control with sponge?
 
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