What do you consider the fundamentals of table tennis?
I'm just a HOBBY player, but these are mine:
1) all the the "stroke" techniques, forehand and backhand: loop, block, counter and push
2) stroke technique transitions (IE, being able to receive a short underspin ball to your forehand followed by a long underspin ball to your backhand, but really these "combos" are endless. short underspin to backhand followed by long underspin to backhand, long underspin to forehand followed by long topspin to forehand)
3) footwork techniques (requires tactical thinking). For example, if i serve a long fast ball, i need to be prepared to recieve a long and fast 3rd ball, so my footwork requires a half hop backwards after my serve. if its a short serve, the return might come short so my footwork needs to prepare for his
4) forehand backhand transition on random balls. i consider this a fundamental because if you cannot effectively and efficiently transition forehand to backhand in a rally, you're not going to win a rally
5) serve techniques- master the variations of 3 serves. in my bag, i have a pendulum serve, a tomahawk serve, and a backhand serve. i practice being able to do all spin variations of each serve while trying to keep the stroke motion and similar as possible. this makes your serves deceptive. you must also be able to fundamentally place your serve in your desired location along with the desired spin.
6) service receive techniques + footwork. this might be one of the most overlooked aspects of training for hobby players. you need to be able to effectively read and return all types of spins and serve placement locations. it starts with the footwork. but you also have to practice returning each type of serve and spin tens of thousands of times before they morph into instinctual muscle memory.
Fundamentals 1-4 are the rally fundamental's and 5-6 are the serve/receive fundamentals. These are the base of your table tennis pyramid. On top of that, comes the strategic and tactical thinking, which i also think a lot of HOBBY players are lacking, but you cannot get tactical or strategic if you dont have the fundamentals.
