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Playing significantly better players is never a good say to gauge improvement. Some of them are working on improving too. You need better targeted goals. And to be honest, irregular drills are largely a waste of time too, you need to do things that improve your play within the structure of...

That is what it mesns to produce a dead ball. Don't generate spin of your own, mostly reflect the incoming spin and usually, pips you can hit with kill the spin on the ball. So it largely produces a dead ball. Sure you can chop with long pips but you aren't going to get much spin unlike doing...

Long pips create deadvalls, otherwise most players would not use inverted on the other side. They can produce other spins largely in response to incoming spin but their primary effect is to add or subtract slightly from the incoming spin. They don't generate spin like inverted does, they...

The thing is that players who say this never want to switch to pips. The main thing that makes pips hard to play against is their ability to produce a dead ball in rallies and that most people who enjoy playing high spin table tennis don't want to read and hit the dead ball. But hitting the...

The advantages long pips offer require a lot of practice to make work, especially for someone who is in tune with inverted timing. Consistently hitting heavy spin balls is a difficult skill. Looping is definitely a more physically taxing skill in terms of pure athleticism, but hitting balls...

Cybershape Carbon is based on the Stiga Inspira CCF. Unless you have used an Inspira (and I haven't), it is hard to tell what the CC brings that is special vs the Inspira CCF (some in my club have said that they prefer the Inspira in casual conversation but no one uses it regularly). I play...

On the topic of serve return: People underestimate how bad their return is when they know what is on the ball. I sometimes make a terrible hash of sidespin when I know it is sidespin, especially to the short forehand. And I have pushed heavy backspin into the net even when I know it is heavy...

Its clear that TB has what it takes to beat pips players, he just doesn't want the hassles.

Lots of things to work on but it will be interesting. I got to use the rental car to apply heat to my lower back after playing I might do that on a regular basis if I feel good over the next few days. Any tips are welcome. I struggled to return serve obviously but that will require me to go...

Got late to CCTTA. They were kind enough to waive the fee. I got to practice a bit and then played some matches with a guy I met on YouTube who posts a lot of TT videos. When he posts our matches I will share links. Got killed pretty much, he is around 2200 so it was hard to survive...

Damien Provost says that you need relaxed shoulders to return serves. Not the same as the tight grips that govern rallies.

Reading spin is something that gets better as you play more and learn to serve better, you even get better in matches but the problem is that you need the right strokes as well. And sometimes even a decent return still gets attacked powerfully so you are back to square one . But take comfort...

I think Federer's problems in the GOAT argument are significant - Djokovic and Nadal have serious head to head advantages and also more slams and also more broad to head victories at critical moments. I don't understand the robotic comment as much as I understand that Fed can have a pretty...

Yes, my point is that people who use statistics (and as someone whose jobs are primarily actuarial and analytic, I can discuss this intelligently) are limited in their ability to handle changes in environment. Does a statistician know that Seles got stabbed? Can a statistician adjust for the...

The depth argument is reasonable but the issue that had made it easier for Novak, Roger and Rafa and to a lesser degree Murray to coexist is the equipment changes that have brought in Luxillon strings, the standardization of bounces across many different surfaces, especially the changes to...

My other theory is that starting younger also allows hr brain to specialize some resources earlier for seeing and reading spin. But as you point out, there is some survivor bias to starting young. I just find it hard to believe I would struggle so much with reading spin had I started younger...

While I agree with this approach, I think when you have a stroke, a good coach should also give you a spin vs power and adjustment philosophy to help you with reading your misses. And that if you practice enough, a point comes when you just trust the new stroke/approach more than the old...

You make a great point about some topspin style serves inviting the rally immediately which is not quite like the third ball looping backspin style. But we aren't really arguing here that even if the guy let you attack his serve, he let you attack a good serve. Which might not make sense but...

You are being kind to Lazer. But he can defend himself. He was trying to denigrate the importance of good serving IMHO, arguing that it is not as much fun to win with good serves as it is to win with rallying. Some players also take the attitude that good servers are winning with tricks and...

Went to MyTabletennis club in Missasauga, Ontario, Canada this evening. Got there around 750pm so limited time to play since the club officially closed at 9pm. The club owner was probably surprised that I got there so late but still charged me for the 2 hours lol. I saw two players playing...