Advice to play against 2000+ player?

[Haito]

And when training your own serves, do train with a towel to ensure consistency.

 

[Dominikk85]

I think it’s better to drill other things like bh flick against under, Fh flick against under, hitting wide forehands with good footwork or bh to fh transitions. At our level, people who open up first are in control of the rally.

I think there’s more takeaways from a match like that instead of tactics. If he pushes your underspin short serve and then you pushed back short and then you gave him the opportunity to push you fast to the bh, this means he was trying to exploit bh weakness or footwork or both.

another thing to consider is could you have flipped the 3rd ball? And flip it to somewhere where he’s in a bad spot?

assuming that he read your service correctly- could you have done the opposite, make it so that it looks like under but it’s actually no spin?

Strategies or Sequences as I like to call them are points that have been drilled extensively that are meant to give you a point. My most used is bh flip/ open up depending on how long or short the serve is and then pivot fh.

I agree. For some time long pushes were a no no in high level table tennis and it was about always attacking first but with the 40 mm ball players got so good at counter looping that they are daring again to long push and let the opponent open up and go for a strong counter attack.

But at lower levels counter looping is still very tough and it makes a lot of sense to open up first unless you have an opponent who has lots of trouble with looping backspin.

But against a guy several hundred points better than you strategy doesn't really matter because his shot quality is higher on every stroke so he can beat you with every strategy.

Maybe that dude didn't even use his A game but purposely played him using his B game to work on something or just make it more fun rallies rather than just going third ball kill all the time which is pretty boring against a bad opponent

 

[Der_Echte]

MZ,

You would be well served to relax and WATCH what is going on and why and how.

The 2000 player is so many levels better level than your level such a player has 25 ways to win 11-4 without looking like dude is trying. That is how many levels there are in this sport.

Just accept what the situation with the difference in level is for what it is and LEARN... WHAT WHY HOW for what is quality. Then see what you can do to develop any of those things.

It is VERY unrealistic to expect to compete vs that kind of player given your level, so having a compete or bust attitude is worthless.

Another thing you can do is ENJOY such a match and loss. It is good to get whooped by players way better, it is a new and different thing than your comfort zone.

I know MANY players way better than your 1000+ dude who CRAVE to LOSE vs 2500-2700 level players in tourneys just to see up close what better levels are and see the beauty.

 

[Haito]

When it comes to loosing to high level players I have a ton of experience (one of the kids I play with, fights in WTT this week <3). If you want to improve I suggest iterative approach.

1. Play with the guy and make notes on where exactly you lost points.
2. Work on those areas one by one. (for example I could not handle the spin they produce so I set up robot with max top-spin and just blocked for a few hours, made all the difference, I could not receive the serves so I bought one of the players a kebab and he served balls to me for 30 minutes and explained how to receive them, I have issues post covid so talked to one of the players and he showed me exercises to strengthen my body).
3. Go to point 1.

Once you do that loop a bunch of times you will have a much better all round game.

The issue I faced is that we often train loops and other fancy staff already behind the table on the long-ish balls. But in an actual game you first have to make to that point in the game. I have also found that a lot of EJ's that fancy Chinese equipment (me included) OR people who started late have issues hitting through the ball properly. For the second group mostly I suspect the cause lies in the fact that we suffer from sourcerers syndrome. We want to learn to spin before learning to hit.

 

[KM1976]

Maybe, I really don't know what the lesson was from this match was.

If I was you, I will think that -
1. why is he able to push me all around?
2. how good is my push against his?
3. Can I force an unforced error if I push to him
4. Am I pushing always to one place? Why?
5. Am I moving my legs against the push?
6. Where am I getting trapped, is it just a push on all place or is it also varying in depth?
7. How much backspin is there on the push? Can I anticipate in advance based on his playing patterns? Like if I serve a hard backspin on backhand then what happens? Where is he pushing to - my backhand, my middle or my forehand?
8. Where is he parked after pushing? Can I push him to a corner and open the table for an attack or a fast push?

Remember, your push serves as a oxygen for your attack. This is especially true when you play against the high level players. If your push, block and counters are not good then there is not much point in practice big topspins.

 

[Brs]

Maybe, I really don't know what the lesson was from this match was.

The only lesson from this match is he's a lot better than you.

When you play with too big of a level gap you shouldn't really take away anything to work on. It's interesting just to see how good players are. But when you are effectively dead off the serve and receive every point it's not like a real match.

The ideal range to play is from 200 points above to 200 below your rating. And you need to play down as well as up. Being rock-solid against lower-rated players is the surest sign of your level rising.

 

[Wrighty67]

I had a similar experience a few months ago at an open tournament where I found myself in a group with 2 very good players who were competing for the overall.

I found myself unable to get "into" any decent rallies and play any of my stronger shots - in this case I don't think it was because they had identified my strengths and avoided them but simply that the quality of their shots and the positional play was so good that I just fell over.

Two things that stood out for me was the quality of their simple pushes - short and long and the way they used these shots to move me around and out of position. Secondly it was the timing of their shots - they played quicker and earlier and I had less time to react, which highlighted my poor movement to the extreme. Shots were short and compact and overcame my spin easily.

It was an eye opening experience for me.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Man I swear I ain't aiming to beat no 2000+ player. If I can even defeat those old uncles at my club playing pips out wearing only white singlet and shorts and sandals, I'll be darn happy!

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

To answer the title - get to 2001 and you will know how to play against the 2000 You need to know, the 2000 level player, could only play at 1500 against you. So having some good rallies here and there, doesn't mean much. I never have motivation playing against my students, who are much lower leveled than me. but from a coaching point of view, I do allow them to catch up with my score, or go into deuces - to train them better. So at times, I would likely play 50% lower than my skills. It serves no purpose a 2000 plays at 100% against a 1500 Example, a light push vs a very spinny push. light push you can top spin with ease. spinny push, you will net the ball From opponent, it is the same action, from your side, you have 2 different results. Some times need to look at how much effort the opponents puts in. And having said that, you need to train in that kind of level to be able to improve. ie, pointless topspining a light underspin push

 

[OldUser]

I've played many of those guys ranked in that area, the problem is always the same and quite simple:
1- work on your footwork
2- work on your short game (serve + receive + pushes)
3- do open games when only serve + receive + pushes are allowed and try to win with this strategy only

If you're disoriented by a double push or receive + push strategy, it's simply because you're not fast enough with your legs to recover after the first one, simple as that, and the problem is common with EVERY beginner or amateur/hobby player: they don't do pushes/short game drills ! 50% of the game is serve/receive man, and then you can add 25% more for pushes, this is how experienced and/or old players manage to control beginners and speedy youngsters.

You have it ? basically before you even start to loop you have to be able to control the short game and all those pushes, it's easy to loop on the same backspin ball on multiball or a robot over and over, it's easy to do the same drill over and over, if you don't actually work on your footwoork FIRST and the basic strategy of the short game with serve/receive/pushes.

This is what pros do all the time to be sure they have a good feeling and control sensations, Ma Long is even better than FZD at that drill, he barely misses once ! Waldner already says he first did serve/receive/pushes drills before a match in training with his coach and Sweden National team partners to get that information on "how do I feel and control the ball today ?"

https://youtu.be/uSnGwO8Ng54?t=315

If you look closely at that match between Alexis Lebrun and An Jaehyun, the first set is only about ball control: Lebrun only attacks 3 balls straight while receiving An serves, most of the time he forces An to attack in wrong positions to block his shots and then to counter attack by first working with his short game and pushes ! the teenager is clever there, he knows the asian players are mostly all out attackers, so instead of trying to open the lopp/counter loop game straight on the receive, he closes it with the short game first. What happens ? 11 - 0 in the first game

 

[songdavid98]

Aside from the fact that you were outclassed, there are a couple of things you can do or learn how to do.

Michael Zhuang;368898
When I serve: He will just push to all 4 corners of the table with short or long pushes. It completely puts me on the defensive. It feels like the table is very long when playing against him.

When he serves: If I push long to him, then he just hits a powerful loop. If I push short to him, then he just uses his 4 corners strategy again.

Basically I feel like there is no place for me to return to him and no place to serve to him.

On your serve, the "easiest" thing to do is to serve short topspin, preferably to the forehand. I would say 90% of players at 2000 are just terrible at this. Also, it will eliminate the pushing and short balls entirely (unless they make 2500 level pushes). They will have to flick the ball, and you will only have to worry about backhand, forehand, and middle. Even better if you serve it with the lefty's sidespin. If they decide not to flick the ball, you will a decently high ball to attack.

If you don't know how to serve short topspin with sidespin, you should definitely add this to your skillset. You will need lots of "tools" like this as you try to improve at table tennis.

On his serve, you need to drill some short forehand push, long backhand push combinations. This is a very common combination and is something you should definitely get used to because other high level players will do this too. Then, you need to drill the other 2 as well, short backhand and long forehand, although this is less common. Once you are confident in this, you now are able to short push against his serve.

As for pushing long, you need to get better at blocking. You didn't say anything at all about how you miss your blocks against his loops. You just say it's powerful, which tells me you didn't even think about it, and probably didn't understand it either. There are many things you can do to make their loop less powerful and increase your success at blocking. You can push very wide and you will almost always expect a loop in the same direction. Pushing as low as possible is a great way to prevent the opponent from looping fast, and a great way to earn "passive income" in points throughout a match (this requires you to read his serve perfectly though). Don't feel pressured to push spinny or fast(unless it is consistently winning), just do so when it is convenient (I find trying to push spinny or fast when it is inconvenient to do so just loses you the point). I find spending effort into reading the opponent's serve and pushing low is way more important than trying to pushing any kind of length or spin.

Reading his loop as best you can will tell you how to block and increase your chances as well. Whether he brushed the ball or impacted it, if he did brush, how fast did he brush, how high is his loop's trajectory, how deep will the shot go, where will the ball be when it reaches my hitting zone, is the ball curving: these are some mental questions you can ask when you practice blocking. You want to look for this information in the game so you know what loop is coming. Keeping your hand up, and looking at the ball, and even rotating my head down when the ball lands on the table really helped me. Personally, the things I look for in my opponent's loop is how fast their arm moved, the max height of the loop as it crosses the net, and where the ball will be when it enters my blocking area.
Maybe some of the better blockers here can explain other tips, since I am not a blocker.

 

[OldUser]

Aside from the fact that you were outclassed, there are a couple of things you can do or learn how to do.

On your serve, the "easiest" thing to do is to serve short topspin, preferably to the forehand. I would say 90% of players at 2000 are just terrible at this. Also, it will eliminate the pushing and short balls entirely (unless they make 2500 level pushes). They will have to flick the ball, and you will only have to worry about backhand, forehand, and middle. Even better if you serve it with the lefty's sidespin. If they decide not to flick the ball, you will a decently high ball to attack.

If you don't know how to serve short topspin with sidespin, you should definitely add this to your skillset. You will need lots of "tools" like this as you try to improve at table tennis.

On his serve, you need to drill some short forehand push, long backhand push combinations. This is a very common combination and is something you should definitely get used to because other high level players will do this too. Then, you need to drill the other 2 as well, short backhand and long forehand, although this is less common. Once you are confident in this, you now are able to short push against his serve.

As for pushing long, you need to get better at blocking. You didn't say anything at all about how you miss your blocks against his loops. You just say it's powerful, which tells me you didn't even think about it, and probably didn't understand it either. There are many things you can do to make their loop less powerful and increase your success at blocking. You can push very wide and you will almost always expect a loop in the same direction. Pushing as low as possible is a great way to prevent the opponent from looping fast, and a great way to earn "passive income" in points throughout a match (this requires you to read his serve perfectly though). Don't feel pressured to push spinny or fast(unless it is consistently winning), just do so when it is convenient (I find trying to push spinny or fast when it is inconvenient to do so just loses you the point). I find spending effort into reading the opponent's serve and pushing low is way more important than trying to pushing any kind of length or spin.

Reading his loop as best you can will tell you how to block and increase your chances as well. Whether he brushed the ball or impacted it, if he did brush, how fast did he brush, how high is his loop's trajectory, how deep will the shot go, where will the ball be when it reaches my hitting zone, is the ball curving: these are some mental questions you can ask when you practice blocking. You want to look for this information in the game so you know what loop is coming. Keeping your hand up, and looking at the ball, and even rotating my head down when the ball lands on the table really helped me. Personally, the things I look for in my opponent's loop is how fast their arm moved, the max height of the loop as it crosses the net, and where the ball will be when it enters my blocking area.
Maybe some of the better blockers here can explain other tips, since I am not a blocker.

I have been a blocker/counter attacker most of my TT journey (I'm near 50 now) and indeed you're confirming my thoughts here, mostly because I was influenced by Waldner and Samsonov in the 90's. We french and belgian people wanted to be Saive/Gatien clones, but then we found out that Waldner's and Samsonov strategies were way more rewarding because of our lower rankings. And that's why I gave up speed glue after a year, I was more effcient in the spin variation/block - ball placement variation and control/counter loop game than being the first attacking closed to the table. I called this "TTPG" Table Tennis Percentage Game, call it statistics if you want...

I first learned how to serve receive and push, then worked on my footwork to be able to attack, then only after that I increased my racket's speed... to finally decreasing it to be able to win over 1600 to even 1900 guys (a 1900 only once) in regular matches, I've beaten my Uni coach (2400) only once but in a 50 pts game with 3 pts lead per rank as a handicap, and those were not official match set-up at that time. And I had a 27 pts lead...

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/333/734/d88.jpg

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

1600 to even 1900 guys (a 1900 only once) in regular matches, I've beaten my Uni coach (2400) only once but in a 50 pts game with 3 pts lead per rank as a handicap, and those were not official match set-up at that time. And I had a 27 pts lead...

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/333/734/d88.jpg

Just info that may be worthwhile: 1600 rated player in European rating systems is probably a higher level than a USATT 2000 level player's level. 1600 may be more like 2200-2300 in USATT.

So, for what MZ is asking about, it is really not such a high level as what you are likely talking about. Still, level differentials are level differentials.

Michael, is there any way you can post video footage of a match vs someone you are fairly evenly matched against? You could put it in the Video safe thread so people don't randomly say dumb things like the last time you posted footage.

It just might help give people some context for your game skills. My memory is you have previously posted footage of you looping vs block.

 

[PingBirdPong]

I say if you are skilled enough, you win, if you’re not, don’t cry about it, get as many points as you can!

 

[OldUser]

Just info that may be worthwhile: 1600 rated player in European rating systems is probably a higher level than a USATT 2000 level player's level. 1600 may be more like 2200-2300 in USATT.

So, for what MZ is asking about, it is really not such a high level as what you are likely talking about. Still, level differentials are level differentials.

Michael, is there any way you can post video footage of a match vs someone you are fairly evenly matched against? You could put it in the Video safe thread so people don't randomly say dumb things like the last time you posted footage.

It just might help give people some context for your game skills. My memory is you have previously posted footage of you looping vs block.

For your information some of the ETTU federations uses the RC system, for example the DTTB (german one), but some does not like the FFTT (french one). That's why I know speak in RC system only so that everyone in the world can understand, for french players it's just adding 500 to be ranked as in RC system, our ranking starts at 500 pts FFTT and even with 100% match loss in a season you can't be ranked lower than this number, means 1000 RC so.

As Michael has already spoke in $ currency in other topics (your memory should have reminded you that too ), we can fairly think he's from the USA or any other country that adopted that currency, and as far as I know most of them uses the RC TT ranking system. Let's say for example he could be living in Micronesia ? well as ITTF Oceania ecently joined the RC system, even they "speak" RC and $

 

[Michael Zhuang]

I guess I never gave too much thought to push quality and push placement. Obviously lower and spinnier is better, but I didn't feel like there's a clear path to improve your push(unlike a loop which has a more direct path to improvement).

When I think about it, I think 90% of my pushes are directly back in the same direction that it came, and 90% of pushes basically are towards the center of the opponent's table. I think I do this just to be safe and keep the ball in play. Against partner, it isn't a problem. But I noticed that against the 2000 guy, he just punished every single push that I did into the center.

 

[Wrighty67]

I guess I never gave too much thought to push quality and push placement. Obviously lower and spinnier is better, but I didn't feel like there's a clear path to improve your push(unlike a loop which has a more direct path to improvement).

When I think about it, I think 90% of my pushes are directly back in the same direction that it came, and 90% of pushes basically are towards the center of the opponent's table. I think I do this just to be safe and keep the ball in play. Against partner, it isn't a problem. But I noticed that against the 2000 guy, he just punished every single push that I did into the center.

I found that recently I made the most points by ensuring I never pushed twice in the same place or length and also by focusing on deeper pushes to either side.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I guess I never gave too much thought to push quality and push placement. Obviously lower and spinnier is better, but I didn't feel like there's a clear path to improve your push(unlike a loop which has a more direct path to improvement).

When I think about it, I think 90% of my pushes are directly back in the same direction that it came, and 90% of pushes basically are towards the center of the opponent's table. I think I do this just to be safe and keep the ball in play. Against partner, it isn't a problem. But I noticed that against the 2000 guy, he just punished every single push that I did into the center.

You can always master pushing on the bounce (very early).
You can also master the above by pushing or, or dropping short.

early = less time for the opponent.
but means more footwork for you and need to have quicker recovery

 

[OldUser]

And for your information RC 2000 is actually a high level for most of us Carl... if it's FFTT 1500 (RC 2000 then), there are actually 200 000 club players registered under the FFTT, and the first 1500 pts players are ranked already around the 4200 th position ! means that at least around 195 800 registered club players there will have difficulties to beat that guy... me included. Being 1500 FFTT actually allows you to play decent matches in Régionale 3 to Régionale 2 leagues (kind of Provincial in China geographically speaking, the actual TT level of chinese provincial players being of course WAY HIGHER than that !)

 

[Michael Zhuang]

You can always master pushing on the bounce (very early).
You can also master the above by pushing or, or dropping short.

early = less time for the opponent.
but means more footwork for you and need to have quicker recovery

If somebody pushes underspin long to you, how can you drop shot it? That seems like a very low-percentage and risky shot. I would normally think to either push long in return or to do opening loop.