Against people who can play those shots you have to be good with those shots also.
Even if you don't use it much, you'll at least have a good understanding of when that shot is coming at you, and how you can avoid it or play against it etc.
First, do the shots very well that come naturally to you, add strong blocking which is easy to learn, then depending how your overall game transcends to a playing level, you may need to acquire certain additional skills to advance to your goal.
I think it depends who you play against and how you want to play. If you get short backspin balls it is difficult to flip the ball so that might not be necessary. Against these type of balls it is almost easier to push back short or push long. Also depend on playing style, Vladimir can push long alot since he have a very good blockning game. If you Do not have this Maybe you need to flip more.
But Before almost No one Did the banana flip and that worked out okay to. But it Will be harder for the opponent if you can Do it since they Will Will deal with more different kind of balls. But a playing style is important and if flip Do not suit your game Maybe it is not necessary.
Against topspinsidespin and Nospin balls i think you should Do flips since it is proably pretty easy at these kind of balls and also the best option.
What is other advance skills?
good point, some other skills like xuxin's forehand sidespin flicks? he doesnt use it anymore so i guess it is unnecessary.
It comes down to a match up of skills needed to stay in the game and not get blown away. For example, there is a woman who plays in the weekly league at my club. She plays a fast and aggressive hitting style. Way too fast for me, there's no question she can out rally me. The only way I can beat her is to serve short to force her to push so as to not allow her to start a hitting rally. When she serves, I have to BH flick her serves aggressively and away from her power zones. If I did not do those things, she has and will destroy me with her hard hitting.For non pros, do we have to use bh flicks and some other advanced skills to win the game? or we should just play allroundly like vladi?
It comes down to a match up of skills needed to stay in the game and not get blown away. For example, there is a woman who plays in the weekly league at my club. She plays a fast and aggressive hitting style. Way too fast for me, there's no question she can out rally me. The only way I can beat her is to serve short to force her to push so as to not allow her to start a hitting rally. When she serves, I have to BH flick her serves aggressively and away from her power zones. If I did not do those things, she has and will destroy me with her hard hitting.
In general, I find that serving short and using the BH flick allows me to have a chance to beat higher levels players than myself. I may not win but at least I won't get blown out.
More skills mean more weapons in the arsenal to be used on specific part of the game.
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By the way, in one match analysis done by a former Russian pro player he said that Vladi has a very deadly forehand flick. So most players avoid playing short to his forehand as it is too dangerous.
The issue with this is that a "weapon" is only useful if it is sharp. And it takes a lot of time to sharpen a shot. So if you practice 5 times per week 6 hours per day, you can afford to have both forehand and banana flicks plus even strawberry. But if you play twice a week you will probably will have time to develop one kind of flick at best which is fine, you can still go a long way with it. Otherwise, if you try to master everything with limited time, you will get nothing.
By the way, in one match analysis done by a former Russian pro player he said that Vladi has a very deadly forehand flick. So most players avoid playing short to his forehand as it is too dangerous.
The issue with this is that a "weapon" is only useful if it is sharp. And it takes a lot of time to sharpen a shot. So if you practice 5 times per week 6 hours per day, you can afford to have both forehand and banana flicks plus even strawberry. But if you play twice a week you will probably will have time to develop one kind of flick at best which is fine, you can still go a long way with it. Otherwise, if you try to master everything with limited time, you will get nothing.
By the way, in one match analysis done by a former Russian pro player he said that Vladi has a very deadly forehand flick. So most players avoid playing short to his forehand as it is too dangerous.
Do you have a link for this - sounds very interesting.