Tactics for a FH-oriented 5th-ball attacker

[Ilia Minkin]

Hi all. My game plan used to be to serve all kinds of sidespin (rightie pendulum serve) to opponent's middle and wide BH, then follow-up with a controlled spinny FH (often pivoting) and then playing a stronger shot. It works well against people at my level or slightly above: usually they return the serve straight to my BH or to the middle. If they go for my wide FH, the ball is usually slow and/or popped up so I can cross-step and attack.

And here we have an old school penholder (he is literally old, but very very good) that I had a few close matches with (2-3 or 1-3 with close games) a while ago using this tactics. But then he figured out how to read my serve and now he relentlessly drives me wide to my FH so I either lose the point outright or play a low-quality opening that he punches for a winner.

So the question is, how would you adjust the tactics in my case? I'm working on my BH opening hard, but it is not yet consistent and powerful enough. I am also trying to improve my serve and footwork, but those things take forever to build up, especially footwork.

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Next time we play I will try to record a match if he agrees, but hopefully the situation is clear from the theoretical point of view This man is very smart, he blocks well, serves well and receives well.

 

[NextLevel]

Hi all. My game plan used to be to serve all kinds of sidespin (rightie pendulum serve) to opponent's middle and wide BH, then follow-up with a controlled spinny FH (often pivoting) and then playing a stronger shot. It works well against people at my level or slightly above: usually they return the serve straight to my BH or to the middle. If they go for my wide FH, the ball is usually slow and/or popped up so I can cross-step and attack.

And here we have an old school penholder (he is literally old, but very very good) that I had a few close matches with (2-3 or 1-3 with close games) a while ago using this tactics. But then he figured out how to read my serve and now he relentlessly drives me wide to my FH so I either lose the point outright or play a low-quality opening that he punches for a winner.

So the question is, how would you adjust the tactics in my case? I'm working on my BH opening hard, but it is not yet consistent and powerful enough. I am also trying to improve my serve and footwork, but those things take forever to build up, especially footwork.

Given that your backhand opener was your best shot in January 2016, I find this post mildly perplexing. IT would really help to see footage but giving you the benefit of the doubt...

You need to sometimes recover after the serve into a two winged looping/backhand opening position. You may also serve reverse or backhand serves from the middle of the table and pivot around that. Finally, the best serve for third ball attack is no spin and mixing up some low no spins will make it harder from him to mostly use the spin to move your around.

But in all honesty, improving your serve and footwork and backhand are the real solutions.

 

[ttmonster]

You could serve short forehand reverse / backhand serve to his forehand and then open .. anyways lets get the video out and we will have info. to talk more ....

 

[Archosaurus]

Have you tried serving into his short forehand? You make it sound like you haven't.

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Have you tried serving into his short forehand? You make it sound like you haven't.

I did, but I have to open with my BH then. The problem is that I have to make a powerful enough BH so that he can't punch. But if I try to make a more forceful BH opener, I often miss. I used to rely on my FH opener too much in the past. Another plan is to serve side-top very wide to his BH so that he will have to use his reverse side (LPs) so that the return will have lower quality. I have not tried that yet.

 

[NextLevel]

Next time we play I will try to record a match if he agrees, but hopefully the situation is clear from the theoretical point of view This man is very smart, he blocks well, serves well and receives well.

Assuming that you are 1500 with the ability to break 2000:

A lot of tactical stuff assumes equal ball quality. But I will tell you that some returns and serves and blocks that I thought were good at 1500 are the same things I totally destroy at my current level. Once you learn good ways of generating racket speed and find the effects of different contact points, the rest is experience reading and adapting to spin.

You may be right that he has good receives etc. But I am telling you to keep level in perspective when saying that.

 

[Archosaurus]

I think NL is 100% right on this.


It sounds like no tactics will help you until you have the ball quality to limit his options as much as he is limiting yours.

 

[NextLevel]

I did, but I have to open with my BH then. The problem is that I have to make a powerful enough BH so that he can't punch. But if I try to make a more forceful BH opener, I often miss. I used to rely on my FH opener too much in the past. Another plan is to serve side-top very wide to his BH so that he will have to use his reverse side (LPs) so that the return will have lower quality. I have not tried that yet.

Why is his punch so scary? Isn't it just another ball for you to loop? Why do you backhand loop into his punch? Can you place it short with heavy spin so he has to reach over the table to play it? Or can you back him up with depth? Or can you place it to his penholder elbow? Shot quality matters a lot in this sport.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I don't know, to me, if you are looking for a push, I am not so fond of sidespin serves for getting a push to attack on the third ball.

Mixing backspin and no-spin usually gives me much more of what I want from the 3rd ball.


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[Archosaurus]

Isn't sidespin generally pretty hard to push low and with quality, anyway, so he will just be more inclined to hit into it?

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Isn't sidespin generally pretty hard to push low and with quality, anyway, so he will just be more inclined to hit into it?

If you set the racket angle right you can get a high quality ball, but it is risky, yes.

Why is his punch so scary? Isn't it just another ball for you to loop?

It is just too fast for me.

Why do you backhand loop into his punch?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I do not. My placement is not good yet. But he uses traditional penhold most of the time, so he has no cross-over point.

It sounds like no tactics will help you until you have the ball quality to limit his options as much as he is limiting yours.

Well I did have close matches when my served worked well. One of my friends also told me that in China there are many old players, that use penhold and are like Chinese Great Wall. So the easiest way to beat them is to... lob. Because smashing is physically exhausting, you can outlast them because they are old and get tired quickly. I also saw this happening against this particular player. Unfortunately, I am a very bad lobber. Tactics matters.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Ilia, what you just said simply means you need to reset faster. And all he is doing is exactly why sidespin serves can be risky to set you up. Once a person knows how to return the sidespin well, you get fast returns.

If that is not your game plan, you need to use different serves.

But the actual tactic, the real tactic for the serves you are using is: serve and get set fast for a fast third ball for you to rip. If you use that serve, you are letting the opponent get the first attack. If you are ready for it, your attack will be lethal.


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[UpSideDownCarl]

By the way, is this a long sidespin serve? Is this basically that long sidespin serve you used to my BH when we played? When we played there was this one side-top serve that you kept coming back to. All I did was push it back because I did not feel I needed to do anything special with it.

By just putting it back, we had more rallies. But if I was threatened I would have been smacking those and using your sidespin to put that ball down the FH line. Hopefully it is a different serve than that. Because, with that serve you definitely should be getting ready for the ball to be ripped. And a penhold punch can make that serve hurt you.


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[Ilia Minkin]

By the way, is this a long sidespin serve? Is this basically that long sidespin serve you used to my BH when we played? When we played I you kept using this one serve. All I did was push it back because I did not feel I needed to do anything special with it. By just putting it back, we had more rallies. But if I was threatened I would have been smacking those and using your sidespin to put that ball down the FH line. Hopefully it is a different serve than that. Because, with that serve you definitely should be getting ready for the ball to be ripped. And a penhold punch can make that serve hurt you.


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I don't remember, but probably yes. The serve should be better now, though He only attacks topspin with punches, all other kinds of spin he attacks only if the ball is high. When he tries to punch low sidespin he usually puts it into the net.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

One more thing in terms of tactics. At low levels people think that the TPBH is weak so they try to go at the BH. But a traditional penholder who can play is usually strong on the BH corner of the table because they can control the table from there.

Often, going at a Traditional Penholder's FH corner gets them out of position and then the weakness of the BH can be exploited.


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[OldschoolPenholder]

One more thing in terms of tactics. At low levels people think that the TPBH is weak so they try to go at the BH. But a traditional penholder who can play is usually strong on the BH corner of the table because they can control the table from there.

Often, going at a Traditional Penholder's FH corner gets them out of position and then the weakness of the BH can be exploited.

To tack onto Carl's excellent tip, if they are old and slow (like me), make them move, mix it up, go to their FH, go to their BH, but make them move... if your partner shows you he will rambo loop anything to his FH, then depending on his success rate, it may be better off going to his BH, but until he shows you he can 4th ball attack anything to his FH, keep going there... he has shown you your 3rd ball to his FH doesn't benefit you.

From my experience, if i can punch the ball, that means generally it's slow and/or no downspin ... i will 99% punch that ball down the line (back to Carl's point of PH's BH side control) ... i won't punch if partner pushes it back and i think it's downspin, forcing me depending on partner's placement to 3rd ball loop, pick, or push back. If the 3rd ball is fast to me and no downspin, i may not be fast enough to punch with vigor, but i will angle block (angle my racket) it down the line.

With all that said, what NL said is true: "But in all honesty, improving your serve and footwork and backhand are the real solutions."

Good luck!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

And anytime a player catches up to your tactics, it means you did not mix tactics and change things up soon enough.

This guy I played last Thursday. He was a long pips player. The pips were on the FH and his BH had a weird but very effective RPB. In the first 3 games the tactics I used were very simple. I was shamelessly giving him short dead ball serves to his pips side and for the first three games this tactic just worked. He just barely won the second game. But in the first and third games, I really won quite easily. So I went to sleep a bit and he actually won the first match because, when those simple and ridiculous tactics of exploiting his pips started to backfire, I did not change.

In the second match I started off serving from the FH side and I was shamelessly serving dead balls to his BH which he totally didn't expect. As soon as he realized they were dead balls, I started giving heavy and he scratched his head at why he dumped the ball into the net. Once I got him used to keying on the ball coming short to his BH, I threw in a dead hook to his FH. Totally off guard even though that is the most logical serve from there. Then I switched back to serving from the BH side before he figured out the shift and he was keying on the idea that I would do what I did in the first match. But I didn't. I served short to the BH then long with no spin. Then long with a ton of spin. And when I got him to start trying to use TPB with the pips to return instead of the RPB, I knew I had got into his head and went back to the short serves to the FH, and then back to serving from the FH side.

Even though I was winning the second match easily, I just kept switching the tactics to use his pips against him and keep him off balance.

He had showed me he was better than I had given him credit for being and had adjusted to the junkball tactics I used in the first match. So I was not going to let him key in on what was coming next.

If your penhold opponent has figured out things to do to your serve to take control of the point, either you have to use what he is giving you, in your tactics by getting set after your serve much faster to punish those punches, or you have to change the serves and figure out new tactics to get him out of his comfort zone.


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[NextLevel]

Why do you think traditional penhold has no crossover point? Because you haven't found it yet? Every grip has a transition point. You just have to find it and it isn't the same for every player.

 

[NextLevel]

If you set the racket angle right you can get a high quality ball, but it is risky, yes.



It is just too fast for me.



Sometimes I do, sometimes I do not. My placement is not good yet. But he uses traditional penhold most of the time, so he has no cross-over point.



Well I did have close matches when my served worked well. One of my friends also told me that in China there are many old players, that use penhold and are like Chinese Great Wall. So the easiest way to beat them is to... lob. Because smashing is physically exhausting, you can outlast them because they are old and get tired quickly. I also saw this happening against this particular player. Unfortunately, I am a very bad lobber. Tactics matters.

It's interesting that people can beat him by lobbing and your conclusion is that tactics matter, even though you can't lob.