The high spin looping balls is a good shot, particularly for exposing players. It has it's place and a good shot to have. Just wouldn't want it to be your go to shot. IMO you see it more in doubles with the positioning issues players have.and getting caught on their heels.
I agree in the future I would want more options here. But for now it gains me more points than loses it (if it lands on the table). I think I don't have to worry about upgrading here up until 1800TTR atleast. Right now my germany rating is around 1550TTR up from 1450 about a month ago.
I see why you are doing this forever rallies drill. Your training opponents make it more challenging for you to develop consistent techniques because your opponents are all over the place themselves. This one was doing BHs on the FH side.....this is real beginner stuff and they are so upright that they have no chance of controlling any quality shot. They are just praying it hits their bat ands on the table. But you have to work with what you have and the randomness off them is a drill in itself at the end of the day as the ball placement is like this in matches. Potentially worth focusing on seeing how much kick you can get off the table also.
I don't know did he really do that? He is a lefty. And again I am focusing on myself not on him. As long as he lands his balls somewhat there I am happy enough. He is actually one of the rare players I can do drills with. By kick you mean I should hit harder or what else?
We have talked about it in your past videos about just sending the ball back in your matches. Maybe just be aware of this with how you train? IMO you would benefit greatly by learn how to set up and execute finishers like 3rd and 5th ball attacks. And the best way to develop them is by doing them. I mean set up, not wait for your opponent to do a bouncy shot for you to attack. You need to create the opportunity...play with intent, not just hope your opponent does a weak shot.
How would you go about this? Right now my drills focus on long ball exchanges. And even if that is the focus the drill ends after 2-5 shots. We were training here with only 4 matchballs so we would be more busy collecting balls than actually hitting balls. But this way I am not training about setting up balls. Right now my "default" set up is when opening up a slow spinny loop wait for a weak block and attack that. I do play more to their weakside if time allows like I know they cant open up properly with bh or very error prone so I push to their bh until they give me a weaker push or a higher ball that I can start attacking. Does this count?
Now let's go back to your past question about strategy and the frustration you felt about not knowing what strategy you should be having as this all wraps back to training drills and I think we are on a good topic for it... Strategy is playing with intent. Playing with intent is what makes a player "they play like a pro" territory stuff. You don't really have a strategy for long rallies, this is more of a flow state time as the point gets more random the longer it goes for in general terms.
More than the rare long rallies I need a good strategy for short ball exchanges. The long rallys are in my favor. Also when I did that highlight video of 8min I was dominating the long rallys except a few easy misses. Yes it's a bit random but for now it's enough as long as I am attacking. Noone not even the 1800TTR are counterlooping my shots.
You have strategies around how to get the first attack in based from your server or receive etc.
maybe subconsiously. But if you would ask me what after 1st set what I should be doing more what receive/serve I would be clueless and go with my gut feeling. I am still very random here myself. Which can be good in terms of them not being able to adapt since I am doing too many random things myself. I do think especially at this rating I should be doing more of what is working and not just acing with the serves but also what receive am I getting and if I am happy with that forcing it more. One example would be me serving backspin to their backhand and they push into my bh. I try to open up and hit out or into the net lets say. Next serve I do reverse pendulum with topspin they push or flip and the ball goes to my fh. And this keeps repeating so I don't really give my chance to build confidence with my bh opening by forcing those balls more there. Maybe I might be wrong here but I also see the upsides to get the same receives and adjusting my stroke and being more confident throughout the game afterwards.
Your actual drills need to be match based drills as you need to execute in a game situation. You will be amazed at how many points you will win from automatic pattern (scenario) recognition. Your body just auto moves in anticipation, no thinking delays, just do. For me in your drills you are just putting the ball back on the table too much and this will transfer to you doing the same thing in a match as it is a scenario that you are comfortable with.
Yep I already wrote in my last comment I will be shortening the "regular" part of the drill and somewhere on 2nd round I will go for the finishing stroke. But I agree with weaker players I tend to give the balls to their sweetspot so they can block it easy and in matches I don't have to wonder if I can't place the ball to the wider angles with confidence since I wasn't practising that. Still figuring out how to find the right balance here. It won't be fun for either for us if the drill ends after my first or 2nd stroke either..
Do match drills with the intention of dictating the game to your opponent to get the first attack. This is a key step of becoming a better player and blasting past these very average and ugly style table tennis players. You don't even want to give them a chance to play these ugly shots.
To further understand this can you give me some examples so I know if I already to this or not? I do chose drills where I get to attack first. But it's a bit more forced usually starting off with a backspin serve of my own and then opening up immediately
Here is a question/scenario for you to think about. (This is the strategy part)
If your opponent is FH dominate, what serve do you do to get a 3rd ball attack and what serve do you do to keep the ball on their BH?
okey so this is interesting and my answer will be a bit long. FH dominate is a bit of a broader term. Is he also good with flips? I would assume he also likes pivoting?
I would try more short to the fh mixing up with serves into his backhand varying length. I would try a few half longs into his bh but mostly I would avoid that serve since if it drifts long he has too much time to pivot and get the first attack in. Depending on how successful I am I would do more serves from the middle like reverse pendulum to his wide fh short with a mix of long to his backhand. If his return is good I would simplify my serves further and default mostly to short backspin to his bh. I feel like it all depends on how his receive looks like.
If your opponent is BH dominate, what serve do you do to get a 3rd ball attack and what serve do you do to keep the ball on their FH?
serve more wide to the fh. Short or long even. If he has a weak fh idc if he starts looping first. I would use my reverse pendulum short wide to the fh more and then attack his bh. Even simple serves like short bs to fh then next ball deep into his bh. if he likes receiving with his bh on the fh side I would mix in some long pendulum sidetopspin to his fh
What serve do I do to get the ball onto my best 3rd ball attack?
I don't have one favourite ball. I am always in doubt when doing a sidespin serve. But what I would say I had the most success with so far was to first use a backspin serve and then a halflongish no spin serve that they pop up and then I just whip through.
If they have long pimples, what serve do I do to expose the weakness of the long pimples?
I do short to the fh hook serve 20% and 60% long serves to the bh and 20% fast long into the elbow. If I miss a certain spin I vary depending on against which spin I feel more confident looping on that day/against his pips. I avoid sidespin.
If they stand hard at the table, what serve and shots do I do to drive them back out of their comfort zone?
I guess you mean close to the table. Long serves or short backspin and push deep to the white line. If I loop I want it to be higher arc and longer to the white line but thats easier said than done. Elbow is another good point to hit if they are short it might not hurt them as much though.
If they like to play back from the table, what serve, shot, 3rd ball do I do to expose this?
I played against micheal who touches the table with his hips on the receive but plays and loops from very far back of the table. So your question is a bit lose here. Is he also standing back on the receive? If yes serve short and then deep or if they like to go back play another short ball as a variance. 3rd Ball attack is a bit harder against people who like to go back. In theory if I had the ability to change my fh loops I would loop with a shorter arc (just clearing the net) and it sinks right after the net. I would not try to loop to the white line. Also more to the sides since he would give me more angle if he goes back. But the solution to this are stuff I never really train so I am not sure if I could pull this off.
If they push everything, what serve do I do to get the game into my best game? Get that ball to pop up?
This is funny because I go for a topspin serve but for some reason they are so good at chopping that it doesn't matter and they chop this back still. What I wonder here is how it affects the backspin on the ball. If the chop against topspin serve is more than against a backspin serve for example. To me it looks like I get light backspin back.
My strategy against them is do a light flip to get out of pushing game. Change the spin of the backspin. And if I am in position loop anyway. So the goal is open up ASAP no matter how.
If they are a modern defender, how do I drive them back from the table?
never faced one. But they automatically go back anyway from what I have seen. Against me it would look like that I loop next one I push then I loop again and just hope they can't deal with my spin.
When do I do a fast serve?
I don't know when exactly but I mix it up especially in the first set and when I am ahead and can afford to lose an easy point if it turns out they are really good at returning those. But even if I am behind I like to collect that info in the first set. Maybe even as a first serve.
When do I serve from the other corner?
If I am 0-2 down and what I have tried so far doesn't work at all. Before losing the 3rd set very clearly I change my serve and go serve from other corner. Happened twice so far. I also did it once when it was 9-9 or something never again will I do that. I didn't know how to deal with the next ball.
When do I serve down the line?
I do it only against weaker players. Against better players my down the line serve is not good enough because I am too stressed.
These are all scenarios on how to dictate the game to play to your strength, how you want to play the game, not your opponents...and I would do drills based around this to win matches. When I player lower level players in matches, I pick a match scenario I want to work on and I just keep doing it as practise. If they are a low level player, I dial the power and spin down, but still present the picture to myself to play the right shots....the randomness of the lower level players is also good for my footwork.
Do you force them to do a special return then? If yes I have no trouble. If I don't force them it feels like matchplay with no consistency. Like I tell myself what is the difference doing this than just playing matches and people say if you just play matches you don't really get better. I do feel like in my matches I perform better on my serve than when I am on the receiving end. Like I do seem to attack a lot after my serve. But in training its over after 1st attack most of the time in matches I get a block back and then I start scooping but thats a different issue.
I have also just changed my rubbers in Mid January and I just won my first tournament for the year. I can assure you, the rubbers didn't win me the tournament, but my training based around strategy and the intention of how I want to play each match definitely did.
Yeah I will stick to this setup until they wear out.
