Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[blahness]

I think it's the trajectory. Have you also looked at the spin to speed ratio? Spinsight should add that to their app.

Imo it is not just the max spin to speed. Imo H3 and Dignics 09c can have similar max spin to speed ratio, but sometimes H3 spin is wildly unpredictable with a similar stroke.

For eg depending on the solidness of the contact, a very similar looking brush loop with H3 can end up with either very little topspin, or with overwhelming topspin.

Whereas with say 09c, if you spun it deliberately, it is going to produce a lot of spin and this is predictable and thus easy to block. It is very rare that you make a solid brushing stroke with 09c and it ends up with very little spin.

Playing against H3, the random low spin loops are extremely frustrating to defend against, you really have to watch the contact and trajectory like a hawk to block precisely.

 

[dingyibvs]

I think it's the trajectory. Have you also looked at the spin to speed ratio? Spinsight should add that to their app.

Spin/speed ratio is about the same. My theory is the trajectory as well, but it goes one step deeper. The friction of the table should allow a bit of skidding during contact with high energy balls, and that skidding should be increased with a lower angle of incidence (i.e. lower trajectory balls), which would affect the bounce of the ball significantly. At lower angles even a small change in the angle of incidence should result in greater effects. Spinsight only measures the ball as it crosses the net, not when it hits your paddle. I suspect the difference between H3 and say D09c is much more significant at the receiver's end.

 

[Dr Evil]

Spin/speed ratio is about the same. My theory is the trajectory as well, but it goes one step deeper. The friction of the table should allow a bit of skidding during contact with high energy balls, and that skidding should be increased with a lower angle of incidence (i.e. lower trajectory balls), which would affect the bounce of the ball significantly. At lower angles even a small change in the angle of incidence should result in greater effects. Spinsight only measures the ball as it crosses the net, not when it hits your paddle. I suspect the difference between H3 and say D09c is much more significant at the receiver's end.

I think that's the most likely explanation. The flatter trajectory, especially after the bounce, accentuates the Magnus effect dip and makes it more difficult to block or counter.

 

[NextLevel]

Busy with a lot of stuff so going to be invariably occupied over the next month or two. But will check in every once in a while and help on those days with moderation. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their TT.

Very likely to put my Zyre 03 experiments on the back burner and just stick to using 09c on a Viscaria SALC since I don't have the ability to use Zyre on the SALC but it is my preferred blade. Going to focus on a Boll style game with 09c and reduce weight and increase movement. Hopefully I will survive getting out on the other end. And if it doesn't work, there is always Zyre lol...

Have fun, guys!

 

[NetProphet]

Had another training session today with a new training partner. I spent a good amount of timing working on my BH, while he focused a bit more on footwork. I think I've gotten the BH loop/drive now! It took me a while to get the feeling, but it's definitely the best I've ever had. Interestingly, per Spinsight my BH loop on average is actually just as fast as my FH loop, but considerably less spinny. I was averaging mid-110's in spin, but close to 50 in speed. For FH loop I can comfortably loop at 130's in spin, but the same in speed.

Again confirmed is that equipment doesn't matter too much in the measurements. But also again confirmed is that for whatever reason, loops from the H3 are just harder to block. My training partner immediately noted that my loops became so much easier to block when I either used his blade on either side (G1 or D05) or my BH side (D09C). That's the same feeling I get whenever I block for someone using H3. It can't be the speed or spin, then it must be the trajectory?

H3 is a combination of the spin AND the speed, while the other rubbers only give one for the other?
What are the spin sight speed and spin numbers for each rubber individually?

 

[我❤️打乒乓球]

Im quite satisfied with the zyre 03 im using on my harimoto! its crisp and really powerful. its rlly fast, but the control is rly impressive despite the speed

 

[dingyibvs]

H3 is a combination of the spin AND the speed, while the other rubbers only give one for the other?
What are the spin sight speed and spin numbers for each rubber individually?

They're about the same. If anything D09c is slightly (but negligibly) faster/spinner on average as it's just easier to generate power with it.

 

[IB66]

Played a tournament yesterday, in a lower level band at Bristol. One of my team mates played as well. We were in the same group ( he is the better player!! ) We usually go to the Bristol events when possible, it’s really the only comp we go to, it’s well run, banding of standard of players is great, no one player is ‘levels’ better and usually no one wins all their matches, a good test overall.
The turn out was very good - max for the venue which was great!! The ‘Chairman’ was ‘clumping‘ it in the top band!!
Our group had 8 players in it, some of which we had played before and a couple of new (to us) players.
I went into this tournament with a lower back and groin issue!! Visited the physio last Monday and she wasn’t to happy about me playing the tourney!! Got another appointment today!!
Took a couple of paracetamol and had no issues!! No pain when playing. Moved really well (for me). Seized up somewhat during the 2 1/2 hr journey home!!
Played 7 matches, won 4 lost 3, 2 of the defeats were 2-3, so tight losses, My team mate - Seb, won the group, 6 wins 1 loss. He lost the 1st match 3-0, and I lost 3-0 to the same player, I think that the other ‘local’ players know this fellas game, and he lost 2 or 3 matches to players that we won against.
Our match, Seb and myself was pretty close, I was 2-1 up and playing well, but Seb knuckled down, I missed a few chances and a few too many unforced errors. During the 3rd end I managed to whack myself in the head, left eyebrow, which caused a small cut!! Out of position and swiped at a FH with power, ball landed and I think I won the point, when we changed ends at the end of the game a realised it wasn’t sweat on my brow!!! Very minor cut/graze though.
I am quite an aggressive attacking player, and yesterday I opened up well and put away a lot of FH winners, served well, setting up the 3rd ball attack. ( last time at this event, I lost to 2 players in the group, but beat them convincingly this time!)

During the drive home we were discussing the days play, even though Seb won the group he felt he didn’t play how he wanted to, too much pushing, hardly any attacking strokes, not enough open-ups. I felt I did the opposite, opened up well, attacked well, generally played better than I have been playing.

Overall a really enjoyable day out!!

 

[latej]

Overall a really enjoyable day out!!

I went through something similar on Saturday - the regional championship for this year. Cca 60 players from our region participated (there is 14 regions in our country). We were divided to 15 groups with 4 people each, you play all, means 3 matches, and best 2 of the group continue to the main draw - the spider. I went as 2nd from my group. In the spider draw I won 1st match very tightly 3:2, and get into last 16. Next match I lost to a young talented guy who ended up on 3-4 place. So I ended up at 9-16 place, and the price for that was 200,-, which means cca 8 EUR LOL... Great day... The winner got cca 100 EUR, I think he is actually the best player in our region...

Unrelated: The 2nd half of the season started, we played already 3 matches. We have a new player, strongest of us, so we won 1 match and got tie for the 2 other matches with teams which are 2nd and 3rd in the table. We are last, we lost all matches in the 1st half... It will be hard work still, and still low chance, to not fall down from our level "divize" at the end of the season... But the mood is different, it's uncomparable, you play and you know you have a chance... I mean I fight always, but it simply is much better now...

See you all in Germany ;-)

 

[dingyibvs]

So as I continue to work on my BH, I'm discovering some more tidbits. On relaxing my shoulder, I found that I was doing it wrong. It always felt wrong because whenever I did that I felt the racket starting from too low of a position. Turned out I was relaxing too much and letting the racket drop too low. I need to do what I do on the FH side, which is to relax as much as I can without letting the racket drop all the way down. You can actually afford to let the racket drop all the way down on the FH side, like ML and FZD do, but many players these days don't use that as the base FH form anymore and that's the way my coach teaches me as well.

It's overall progressing much quicker than on the FH side, though there's still quite a bit of 2 steps forward 1 step back. Recently I forgot to go forward more when looping balls with more sidespin on it, for example, which I had worked on a few weeks back. I'm feel like I'm almost there with my basics now, with the last part being figuring out exactly how much hitting and brushing is needed for each shot. This is reminiscent of my FH work, going from bottom up with figuring out the least brushy stroke I can get away with with each shot.

Next up I'm gonna focus more on footwork. I tried to incorporate it into my training earlier, but run into two major issues. First is that once I start focusing on movement I forget to do everything else, so my overall form falls apart. I think my form is good enough now that this isn't as much of a concern anymore. Second is that taking a ball from a different position drastically changes the timing, so that's something I really need to focus on while I work on my footwork. Between the focus on moving and timing, I wouldn't have any mental capacity to think about anything else, so I do need to make sure that all other aspects are good first.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

today he had a local team competition . we were in division 2 (bottom = 6). 67 teams in total, 5 in our division.
format is 1 doubles + 4 singles, first team to 3 wins. all 5 teams play each other.

normally i'm the weakest player of the team, and play only like 2 singles. But our top player was not here, and another strong player was missing. Fortunately a player from the B team could come so we avoided forfeiting, but he didn't have any remote chance to score a win. I didn't play doubles but played 4 singles.

i won only 1 match but my overall level was really good, maybe the best ever. I lost 1-3 1-3 2-3 and won 3-0.
I estimate my opponents would be all at least 300+ ranking points above me.

1st match was up 12-10 and 10-8, against anti player which normally i despise, but i was in the zone.
i had also studied his serve watching him, but from the end of G2 he started putting more variation on his serve and I couldn't receive well anymore and couldn't win this extra point on his serve to get the 2-0 lead. G3 and G4 i collapsed.

2nd match was against a leftie. i had problems because he could serve either pendulum wide to the FH or fast in line to my BH. i had an early lead 5-1 in G1 and 7-3 in G2 but lost 5-11 (!!) and 7-11 !!
G3 suddenly i received well and my serve game was very good , and I won 11-5. G4 got a bad start. 4-6 my serve, there was no reason to panic yet but i made 2 serve miss. Then 5-9 i missed a serve again !! 3 in a row... then 6-11. real shitty ending

3rd match is funny. recently i went on Mondays to the same hall where this team practices. But somehow these guys wouldn't play a lot with me even when i was alone and obviously looking for a partner. Perhaps because i'm not "good enough" ? and indeed in the few practice matches against this teammates i think i lost everything except one 3-2 real tight but that one he didn't seem 100%. But i don't remember having played this specific guy yet, and indeed i couldn't imagine me winning. He looked much stronger than me.

But i was very motivated, positive and got confidence from the 2 previous matches, so I was in the zone from the start ! he was leftie served YG the whole match (why ??? stupid ! thank you !). i just used my FH to receive everything short with racket head at noon to his BH and attacked everything long. my return placement was predictable but i was ready to block or counter everything and he didn't like the ball i gave back to him he got all his spin back ! i won 3-0 (6 2 !! 12). He had a big 4 point lead in G3 but i managed to come back at the end.
maybe he'll want to practice next time ??? 🥳

Last match we played against the top team of the group. My opponent was perhaps the least strong of his team, but still normally way above me. But i lost only 2-3 (-7 11 -8 10 -6). Actually i was rather the one dominating, and taking initiative from serve/receive more than 50% of the time, but he had good defense and retrieved a lot of balls. I missed a lot of "penaltys", couldn't finish the point after 3 or 4 attacks. Usually im rather good against lobbing, but i missed too many, at least 3 points wasted in G5 as well as a serve miss in that G5. Cost me the match.

Team wise we finished 4th out of 5. which should mean we keep our spot in that division which was our objective. We had one win 3-2 against the "weakest" team but our ranking depended on the result of a match between that team and another one. (namely we hoped the weakest team to lose all their matches because in a 3-way tie we would lose on game count). The weakest team won doubles surprisingly. Then the favorites equalized. Then because it was late and div1 over, they launched the last 3 singles simultaneously. The favorites won on a table 3-0 easily (as expected) but it was 0-2 on the 2 other tables while we needed them to win at least 1 singles.
One of those singles became 0-3 but on the other table the match totally changed and went 3-2. Thank you so much !!!! Better than any Hollywood movie.

 

[Der_Echte]

Yes @Takkyu_wa_inochi sometimes it is good to measure your match quality in how you perform vs the lower players and upper players.

If you defeat ALL lower players 3-0 giving them ZERO chance, and compete strongly, but lose vs upper players, that would be a very strong notable tourney performance.

In big tourneys, everyone below you is better and playing a few levels above their level... you gotta play 4 levels above your own to stay even let alone occasionally win.

Nature of that beast as Americans often say.

 

[Der_Echte]

I assessed my last US Open performance just like that and called it by far my best tourney performance ever.

I think I went 4 wins 8 losses and gained very few ratings points, so it looks weak by the W/L measure, but that does not tell the story at all.

In such a comp, you play vs 10 players rated below you, at least half are actually better level than you and most of those are playing way above their level.

To be able to control the points, game and match to stop and prevent any chance for them to get set and damage you is a very difficult task to achieve in such a tourney...

... then if you win vs someone rated a level above you... and they are a well trained rising young teen... that is another new world, such a player is really 3 levels above you (their ratings never catch up) (and they get on a roll in these tourneys) I went 1 win in my only match vs this class.

Gave a lot of trouble to those 5-8 levels above me where I had no business giving any of those trouble.

Ultimately, when we are not the upper level dominant players, it is more realistic to holistically assess how one did vs low and upper giving the tourney situation.

Takkyu, you did well by these measures. The TTD crowd will have to do a tourney or three there to really appreciate this.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Yes @Takkyu_wa_inochi sometimes it is good to measure your match quality in how you perform vs the lower players and upper players.

If you defeat ALL lower players 3-0 giving them ZERO chance, and compete strongly, but lose vs upper players, that would be a very strong notable tourney performance.

In big tourneys, everyone below you is better and playing a few levels above their level... you gotta play 4 levels above your own to stay even let alone occasionally win.

Nature of that beast as Americans often say.

I agree with you but didn’t have chance this time to play any lower level player 😂

Last Sunday played only 3 matches .
1st guy much higher ranked player 0-3. I was doing well in rally and even receive but I didn’t understand how to serve on that table which was soooo slow. My underspin serve was like stopping and the guy had all the time to attack it. After the match I was told to use more sidespin or serve topspin on those tables.

Then killed a long pips guy 3-0. Don’t like long pips but the guy didn’t know how to use it well. He had no chance at all.

Then Ko tournament played well against higher ranked but a bit unlucky . Lost g1 easy g2 tight won g3 strongly but a bit unlucky in g4

Anyway yeh ranking is not higher for me because I still don’t win enough % against some type of games even lower ranking. Struggling against LP pushblockers and flat hitters for example. As long as I don’t solve this hole in my game I can’t go up.

 

[dingyibvs]

Over the past week I've started mixing in some service/receive changes. I'm doing a bit more service training than before, mostly spurred by a grip change with my regular pendulum service. I used to grip it like I would with a reverse pendulum service, with my hand only gripping the rubber and not really touching the handle, but I've realized 2 major downsides to it. First is that it just doesn't have as much control, especially since I get sweaty easily and my hand loses grip. Second is that it's much slower to transition to a normal grip. With the reverse pendulum service the momentum of the racket takes it toward your palm, but with the regular pendulum it takes the racket away from your palm. I often found that if the opponent receives quickly off the bounce or if I serve a fast long ball that my grip isn't set yet when thr ball comes back.

With service receives I'm now having my racket up above the table during the ready stance. You might not think it makes a difference but it really helps me get to short balls much quicker. With my new smaller, more body driven loop motion it also suits long ball receives better too. In fact, with my previous ready stance I found it difficult to NOT use a big motion to receive long balls.

I'm still gonna wait for more intensive service/receive training, but I figured I can get started on these 2 things without impacting my current BH focused training.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

With service receives I'm now having my racket up above the table during the ready stance. You might not think it makes a difference but it really helps me get to short balls much quicker. With my new smaller, more body driven loop motion it also suits long ball receives better too. In fact, with my previous ready stance I found it difficult to NOT use a big motion to receive long balls.

If you have the racket over the table IMO its dangerous as you can get surprised easily by a really long fast serve. In doubles many people do that because it’s easier to know where the ball is going but in singles ? If you have fast footwork and reaction to adjust why not but else …

 

[dingyibvs]

If you have the racket over the table IMO its dangerous as you can get surprised easily by a really long fast serve. In doubles many people do that because it’s easier to know where the ball is going but in singles ? If you have fast footwork and reaction to adjust why not but else …

Sorry I think I was being misleading. I meant height-wise above the table only, the racket is still behind the table. I only tried it for like a set yesterday in real game situations, but tonight I did that the whole night and it worked pretty well! It felt really awkward at first, but it was just so adaptable!

My opponents today didn't really serve short very often, they stuck to serving long to my BH so I mostly got to try that part out. Most people just want to win when they play even practice matches, but I usually want to practice specific things. I've been trying to improve my BH, so I try to attack as strongly as is reasonably possible (i.e. not to try to kill every shot, but always with good speed, spin, and placement). That results usually in a good number of errors, so most people serve that very often to me. But not today! I think that's finally one weakness that's going away, and I finally don't have to pivot all the time when I really want to win!

 

[banbekas]

hen why does everybody else feel the same way? The feeling is immediate to everyone, even my new training partner who's not big on equipment and changes his rubber maybe once every 6 months to a year. The timing just feels more difficult to get right when blocking.

Because it's slightly slower, hence you misjudged and misstimed the ball. It has nothing to do with angle, really. It's not like you will hit the same angle all the time even when you do warm up.

Even if you boost your H3, it doesn't change the fact that it's slightly slower than your typical esn ans jap rubbers. You get slower low end and at the top end, it will be just as fast as your esn's top end but obviously us amateurs won't be reaching that top end.

 

[dingyibvs]

Because it's slightly slower, hence you misjudged and misstimed the ball. It has nothing to do with angle, really. It's not like you will hit the same angle all the time even when you do warm up.

Even if you boost your H3, it doesn't change the fact that it's slightly slower than your typical esn ans jap rubbers. You get slower low end and at the top end, it will be just as fast as your esn's top end but obviously us amateurs won't be reaching that top end.

Spinsight measures speed too, and there is no difference in speed or spin.

 

[andymagata]

I changed glue from VOC free to Falco Normal Glue. And that makes my rubbers curl when I apply, the thinner sponge rubber curles very much, like a sushi roll.

Is that a booster effect?