Alright
@Zezima I've watched a few of the videos and read some of the topics. Not all of them, but they seem to derail which puts me off, can't help that. Let me tell you how I see things:
1. You are highly focused on details. Hate to break it to you, but there's just no time for that in a match. Pro players put a lot of attention on details because their fundamentals are rock solid. They don't have to think about that. So you will see a lot of teaching videos from experienced/pro players that put a bunch of attention to details - just stop watching those. They will be useful in 3-5 years if and when you have cemented your fundamentals.
2. You play tentative, which tells me you simply have too many options in your shot selection, leading to just blocking the ball back onto the table while building up tension, frustration maybe, and releasing that into a poorly controlled topspin. Where I see opponents immediately switching to attack stance as soon as they notice the ball leaving your bat in their FH direction, which means they have a plan.
3. Your shoulders are tense. When you're tense, only the perfectly placed ball will allow you to land that loop. You can't make mid-air corrections, your hitbox is very small. Conscious relaxation is the obvious step here, but having a game plan will absolutely help with that, too.
4. Most of your strokes look good in a directional sense, and I can totally understand why you expect the results to be as good as the movements look, but there's not much of a cause and effect for this in TT. People can have the ugliest techniques and still produce high quality balls, and vice versa. The ball contact is where this quality is determined, not the second before, not the second after. Backswing and follow-through are essentially just constructs to promote the right angles and contact points, and hopefully allowing for corrections mid-air.
Whipping through the ball, dragging it across the rubber, creating friction / biting the ball, contacting a specific side of the ball, those are all things that are absolutely essential to producing consistent, quality balls.
5. You have said, and demonstrated, multiple times that you are well able to lift backspin. What you're missing is how to do it with a forward motion, adding (a little bit of) power to it. Lifting backspin upwards is just a matter of waiting for the ball to come down and brushing it up, looping backspin forwards adds a lot of timing to that, taking the ball a little earlier, pressing it into the rubber, creating friction by moving through the contact point fast enough to add your own spin while simultaneously creating a powerful contact. It's quite a learning curve move but a game changer once it feels easy enough to use in a match.
I won't leave you hanging, here's my suggestions to improve this situation.
First, make a very simple game plan. My hunch when I look at you:
- You like the open rally (even if it tenses you up right now)
- For FH, anything low and half-long or longer, you open up (50% power), anything higher you add a little power (70% or so). Short balls, push until you get a better option.
- For BH, essentially the same I guess? If you don't trust your BH opening loop enough, just push.
- Place to your opponent's elbow unless you see a clear gap elsewhere.
- If your opponent attacks first, dial down the power just a little and block/drive into the hard to reach spots. Keep making active ball contact but do it at 30-40%.
Do not make it more complicated than that.
Now, what you can train to help with this:
Irregular drills. Like, a crapton of them. Not just placement, but also where your opponent gets to choose between attacking or pushing. Start with two-step drills like one ball to the middle, one to a corner, but don't be afraid to go to more complicated ones! It's OK if you only finish one of them completely. In my humble opinion, and especially against lower rated people, irregular drills are the best way to improve your match play.
Matchplay, focusing on one aspect only. For instance, you want to train your BH opening, then that's what you'll be doing. Take the more risky balls and loop them too. It doesn't matter if you lose the match, this is training.
For your FH, don't go straight into looping backspin balls on training. Go from open driving FH-FH and slightly increase towards a looping ball from there. Not too fast, you want the easy balls that you can keep up for 100+ times. Keep that up for quite a bit so that movement is all warmed up and only then do you want to try and loop balls with backspin. Don't step back, don't let them drop almost below the table but hit it in the gliding phase of the ball, where it just starts descending. The ball will start slowing down there, too, so you *have* to hit forward to add speed.
As for your equipment, honestly it won't matter much and depends on your preferred approach. If you want to focus on single-ball-quality, you will have to give up on control and ultimately be able to land less quantity. If you want to focus on quantity, you will have to give up on single-ball-quality.
Getting better quality from a control focused setup requires consistent practice, and so does getting better quantity from a quality-focused setup. It takes a couple of years to not have to think about your blade at all anymore. Rubbers, at least 6 months until they're mostly in your subconscious. So if you want to put your focus on other things, remember that any change of gear will set you back for months, and because it takes up conscious space it will eat away your capacity to improve on other stuff.
