Best way to practice 3rd ball attack?

[TensorBackhand]

I'm thinking to start focusing on my 3rd ball attack. I'm thinking to have a big box of balls and doing 3 shot drills. A couple questions about the details of the best way to practice.

1) Should I be telling my opponent what serve I am doing? (i want him to be able to return well, right?)
2) Should I tell opponent to return only long or medium? (if he returns short, then I can't loop, right?)
3) Should I be telling opponent where on the table to return to?

Any other tips about how to get most of the 3rd ball attack practice?

 

[AutomaticBackhand]

I would say there is levels to it, depending on what you want to achieve.
You can do it where:
- You only do 1 or 2 serve variations
- Your partner only does 1 or 2 return variations
- You mix serves
- Partner mixes returns
- A combination of both
- Partner tries to make 3rd Ball easy / difficult / impossible for you

- You both make up specific plans

You can do it where:
You try to finish the point right away with power/spin, go into a rally, win with placement etc.

You can go for consistency, where you try to hit all balls on the table with more or less variation in serve/return.
You can go for more risky shots, where you try to leave your partner no room to breathe.

I basically do 3rd Ball Attack training every training session and I always adjust, based on what I think I am lacking / wanting to improve at that time.

But you should not overthink, just get started and figure out what works best along the way.

Ideally record yourself and watch it back during/after the session.

 

[Caracas]

Do not overthinkng and just do it with a good sparring partner.

 

[Attitude]

Most answers to your questions would be "depends on your level".

I would advise to start giving underspin shotserves to a certain spot and get a long push to a certain spot. From there you attack until you hit almost like 90% of the shots.

Afterwards you can change the spots and start moving inbetween.

And later the moment you are more advanced in that drill you can start randomising things. This is usually the hardest because you can only move the moment you see where the ball comes. Anticipating doesnt work that well in these circumstances.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Also, after I serve, should I be in a neutral horizontal stance? Or should I be in a diagonal stance (preparing to loop fh?)

 

[vossi39]

You always start in neutral. In matchplay you don‘t know what to expect.

 

[edcognito]

You always start in neutral. In matchplay you don‘t know what to expect.

You can sometimes know what to expect based on what you served no?

 

[Lazer]

I'm thinking to start focusing on my 3rd ball attack. I'm thinking to have a big box of balls and doing 3 shot drills. A couple questions about the details of the best way to practice.

1) Should I be telling my opponent what serve I am doing? (i want him to be able to return well, right?)
2) Should I tell opponent to return only long or medium? (if he returns short, then I can't loop, right?)
3) Should I be telling opponent where on the table to return to?

Any other tips about how to get most of the 3rd ball attack practice?

The key is the unpredictability for you. Serve the same serve and ask your opponent to return as difficult as possible but different.

Cheers
L-zr

 

[TensorBackhand]

The key is the unpredictability for you. Serve the same serve and ask your opponent to return as difficult as possible but different.

Cheers
L-zr

Makes sense. I think the problem for me is not the technical ball striking, it is the speed of footwork, reaction, reading, judgement, etc

 

[Persistence TT]

I'm thinking to start focusing on my 3rd ball attack. I'm thinking to have a big box of balls and doing 3 shot drills. A couple questions about the details of the best way to practice.

1) Should I be telling my opponent what serve I am doing? (i want him to be able to return well, right?)
2) Should I tell opponent to return only long or medium? (if he returns short, then I can't loop, right?)
3) Should I be telling opponent where on the table to return to?

Any other tips about how to get most of the 3rd ball attack practice?

Agree to play matches but the rules are

1. you always serve
2. your partner will try to place the ball at awkward placements for you, just like in a real match

Play 5 sets like above for example

Serve receive is always unpredictable, so why train only specific aspects ??

Off course you can always try, 1 set of pure sidespin serves, so that you can built ur motor skills accordingly

2 sets only underspin etc etc

 

[blahness]

First is to train recovery after serve - you have to be in the neutral ready position by the 2nd bounce of the serve.

Second is then add in opponent's receive. Start with looping long pushes to say the BH. It has to feel easy and you have to get like 80% landing rate before you even move to the next stage. Then, add in variation to the FH corner. Then only you have earned the right to practice random placement.

Because the receive spin depends on your spin, you have to be very consistent with your serve. Also you have to train the 3rd ball of each serve separately because the push off a pure underspin serve has a different spin and rhythm from that coming from a sideunderspin or even a sidetopspin serve.

Otherwise you will only end up confusing yourself, starting out with random placement.

 

[blahness]

I would also add that serve quality is very important here, and 3rd ball attack doesnt necessarily come from short serves. Long serves can be even more limiting for your opponent.

With each serve, you have to know various easiest/safest return option and prepare to punish this option with a lot of stability.

for eg one of my fav serves is a long heavy sideunderspin hook serve to opponents BH. If they push it, it is 80% landing on my BH corner and long, so I aim to punish it hard with a strong BH loop. If they loop it I aim to counter it back with BH either to their middle or switch them down the line to their FH. If they loop to my FH i am gonna hook it to their wide FH stably with sidespin. If they push it to my FH, i aim to loopkill it diagonally to their FH corner.

Since they only have 4 return options and I can have strong responses to all of them, it is very hard for them to escape my net.

Of course for eg if I serve sidetopspin hook long, it will pretty much force a topspin or a counter. So it is even easier to respond.

For eg if you serve heavy short sidetopspin, most likely receive is a flick so you can aim to attack this. Also if they push it will most likely pop up with sideunderspin so just take that into account and finish the ball accordingly.

If you serve lukewarm serves for eg a not well disguised medium spin short sideunderspin serve to the middle of the table, opponent can do whatever they want to it if they read it correctly and you cannot prepare for the return. So essentially it is a useless serve lol.

What you want to do is to train all the handcuffing serves and then train to punish each possible return so that they opponent is forced to raise their shot quality and hence feel more pressured and make more errors.

 

[kase]

Start with a regular drill, where you know where your training partner will return the ball (long) cross-court. Once you are comfortable with that drill, the next one is to get him to return it down the line. Once you are confortable with those two, you can add some irregular elements to the drill EG: Sometimes return long, sometimes short. Or maybe sometimes cross-court, sometimes down the line. After you can do that comfortably, you can graduate to a proper irregular, difficult drill where the training partner can return anywhere at any length.

If the ball is predictable, it's easy to be there early and initiate a big attack. But when it's not so predictable, you need to initiate a small attack. This is one of the big challenges you will face when transitioning from regular to irregular drills. Judgement of where the ball is going (and depth) and your movement to get there need to happen at a very precise time, not too early and not too late.

You will probably judge and move way too early at first when doing irregular drills, then get wrong-footed when the ball goes the other way. This is when you know you have judged / moved too early. It's a really tough mental skill to train, but just be aware of when you are getting caught out, so you can think to yourself to watch the opponent's bat more closely and delay your judgement if needed.

 

[NextLevel]

To get really good at this, it is usually better if your opponent/pracrice is at least a level.or two better than you. Because ultimately the challenge is dealing with an opponent who is able to vary their response to a predictable serve at the last second. If your practice partner can loop long serves consistently, flip short backspin serves and pushes short topspin serves, then you have the ultimate kind of training partner and will be ready for anything that comes at you in a match.

In terms of post serve recovery, while technically, you are supposed to be ready by the second bounce on the other side, in practice, against a good serve to an equal level opponent, you are always ready because you can predict what the opponent will do most of the time. And as you practice, you will be able to adapt your ready position to multiple possibilities from your opponent once you get into random. Most things come down to quality of the serve.if the aerve doesn't limit the opponents option's, you can be as ready for the third ball as you want, it won't matter.

 

[TensorBackhand]

So I went through 3 big boxes of balls practicing 3rd ball attack, against both inverted and pips receives, with random placement and targeting my bh. I was able to do it pretty well in practice.

Then I tried it out in game and I felt like I did it pretty well. I won 3-0 3-0 against 2 decent mates. But my friend said I played noticeably different, more aggressive and got the 3rd ball attack going.

 

[vossi39]

You can sometimes know what to expect based on what you served no?

Can you? Not in my experience. There is a higher probability for a specific return, but against better players (and there is always someone better, until you are No. 1), which can read your serve well, you will not get what you expect and if you are not in neutral position, this will be punished badly...

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

I'm thinking to start focusing on my 3rd ball attack. I'm thinking to have a big box of balls and doing 3 shot drills. A couple questions about the details of the best way to practice.

1) Should I be telling my opponent what serve I am doing? (i want him to be able to return well, right?)
2) Should I tell opponent to return only long or medium? (if he returns short, then I can't loop, right?)
3) Should I be telling opponent where on the table to return to?

Any other tips about how to get most of the 3rd ball attack practice?

One of my fav drill as follows:

I will serve all the time in a set of first to 11. I can only serve one type of serve, that is: long & fast with side-spin via pendulum serve to his BH corner. Only one type of serve. Meanwhile my opponent can return anyway he likes and I have to attack all the balls as long as it is outside the table, including half long. If it is a short ball, I am allowed to push back and wait for the next opportunity to attack.

This is the drill that I like very much. Since I am a FH dominant looper, I will stand perpendicular to the table, after serving, I will step back or away from the table and get ready for a FH attack. It is easier to lunge forward than to step back. Even if my opponent can place the ball at the far FH side, I will try to lunge to get it. I get to practice my cross-over step.

If he can return to my deep BH, I will try to attack using FH pivot ( another classical FH dominant attacking stroke ). This is a great drill as I can practice two of the most iconic FH dominant attacking stroke.

 

[Metaxa]

Start with a service from above the table surface and preferably from the side from the table. Guaranteed success to finish your third ball!