last training at my club before winter holidays. I practiced with a veteran penholder for 1H30 half before playing 1 game. We did a lot of drills. I've clearly improved my BH block, i feel like a wall. The harder a guy hits at me, the harder he gets it back
. It's also always fun to see the other attacking 4-5 times in a row, until he's exhausted and i have an easy ball to finish.
I practised 3rd ball attack with the BH, and when my opening attack is on the table its quite spinny, and difficult for the opponent, alas my success rate is around 40-50% not good enough at all. I try also the shovel serve. Thats a new serve for me. I see a lot of high level pros (especially girls) do it. i get the same kind of spin than with the BH serve which is my base serve. so it should be the same game pattern. However it might be more deceptive to mix it with the BH serve.
To do the shovel serve, at the start the head of the bat is horizontal, my wrist is bent inside. The arm/elbow/hand are locked during the serve. Speed depends only on contact and on the speed of the body rotation. To do backspin, hit below the ball with the head of the racket. to do topspin/sidespin, hit the ball near the handle.
Also i think I FINALLY found how to serve short/half long and low with decent spin on the FH side. contrary to widespread common advice, my first bounce is in the first half of the table, but i contact aggressively the ball below with the head of the bat. Its always bouncing twice on the table, and the second bounce is rather near the edge. sometimes its hard spin, but most of the time low/medium, but because its not that long, and not that high, i know the ball should not come back short, and i feel its more predictable, even if the guy manages to flick/attack with his BH.
As for the game, the guy always tell me, "you should beat me you are better than me", but actually i had played him three different times already lost 1-3, 2-3, 2-3 (after a 2-0 lead)... this time i lost 1-3... during drilling i looked better than him, but i was always the one serving, during the match, i felt a bit at a loss on my receiving game (more than usual), and i was clearly more nervous than during the drills.
I'm not too upset, i know i played even better today than the other days, even though i lost again. This guy won with his serves, and i made too many mistakes on the 3rd attack. I think i was also a bit tired towards the end. 3rd ball is where i have to improve in priority, because in the rest of the game, i think my level is already above his and many of my opponents.
