How to play against good close to the table players?

[golden_son]

Attack their crossover point. This is almost always a winning proposition anyway, but it's especially effective against table-huggers because they have less time to decide which wing to block with and even if they do block the ball in time it's often a weak return that you can take advantage of.

 

[Lula]

vary tempo and find the pocket.

 

[NextLevel]

Placement and spin is more important than pure power if you know they can block your most powerful shots. Avoid playing shots that take you off balance and pick your kill shots carefully.

 

[Der_Echte]

Already said... but variation of everything... surprise placement and consistency. No crazy cowboy stuff, be a merchant of rope and sell that dude enough rope to hang himself.

 

[Lula]

I think in general younger or less experienced players just think play hard, hard and hard. I feel like good players just step one step back and then it they can just chill. I think it is the difference that matter. Can almost play soft and softer, as long as they have to adjust.
Truls can barely play backhand topspin compared to other pros but have really good variation there. I can also imagine the reason Zhendong loses some games in germany is the balls that comes at him are much more irregular and strange compared to the clean chinese play. Yet the chinese have great footwork so should be able to handle it. Just show how hard it is when you get to play different kind of balls. Would say that Waldner basically based his whole game on this, good variation.