I've played countless of long pips guys since decades, someone used the now banned Curl P1 in the early 2000's. The guy was just old FFTT rank 50/ now 1300 FFTT (somewhere like 1700-1800 USATT), I was just behind with my old 55/1200 FFTT (1600-1700 USATT). He was playing like a blocker a la Manika, 1.5mm sponge, with of course a heavy FH topspin. He was in the 1st team in R2 (tier 7 league in France, somewhere in the middle, things are becoming more serious at that point), but I was only playing D1, 3 leagues under. Because at that time this bloody Curl P1 was a nightmare to play against, so he was killing way better ranked guys than him.
I've beaten him more than he's beaten me. I'm like playing jazz walking basslines at that point: "don't overthink the process, play simple, root of the chord on the 1st beat, after all it's only 1 note per beat with 4 beats per bar.", so I'd just serve fast and flat with no spin/faux spin straight into his LP side on his BH, and then finishing him with flat hitters. NEVER PUSH with those guys, NEVER, or you'll be lost in a kind of quantum physics theory equations impossible to resolve. And I've always hated maths (until I played jazz and djent music hahaha)
The defenders far from the table, that another problem, I've lost more than I've won, but I've found that using my stronger side, the BH topspin, and choosing the play only in the middle of the table right to their hips was way more successfull. They want you to pivot using your FH and to exhaust you, the more you put topspin on their BH, the more backspin you receive, they need to get a wide motion to put extra backspin, so playing right to their elbow/hips was the most obvious thing for me to do cos' it was reducing a lot their wide motion, my BH helped a lot. But still, they're my nithgmare.
Anti-spin close to the table, same as long pips: don't overthink, play simple and flat if like me you're not the best at 2 wings looping. Anti-spin defenders far from the table were way more frequently seen than nowadays in the 80's-90's. And again, it was like LP defenders, the more you put topspins, the more backspins you received.
There was a special old guy, ex-Poland U17 national team in the 50's. Old barna 5 ply blade, with an LP OX on the FH Tibhar Grass and a SP ... Dunlop Barna again with 1.5 mm sponge on the BH. The best player of our club, never been able to beat him, I don't even remember If I've taken a game from him. He played closed to table and used the FH LP OX as many use them on their BH for blocks and chops if he was forced to go far away. His BH was a work of art, pure, perfect flat hits, he could kill you with a kind of faux banana flick when you were trying to play a really short game. Insane. His name was Stanislaw "Stachek" Styrna, if some elders in Poland can have informations about him... He came to France like many polish people to work in the north of France in coalmines or steel factories. Hard workers, tough to evil, Stachek had that special polish fighting spirit even at nearly 60. He was still ranked old 30, even 25 at some point, makes now 1700/1800 FFTT --> 2200 USATT.
