The best advice your coach has given you?

This is going to be a fun thread. Great idea. I will start posting a few a bit later. Have to run. But I can't wait to hear what other people write.


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These are things that were told to me by a few friends who are 2600+, so not "my" coach but guys who really know how to play and know my game.

"Spin Everything! It is safer, it is higher level shooting, and you will get much more accuracy and placement. It is too dangerous to flat hit against higher level players. Try and put as much spin on every shot as you can!"

"Reset and get ready for the next shot as fast as you can."

"The power comes from the legs and hips, not the arm. The spin comes from the acceleration of the racket, the fast bat speed and how you use the topsheet and sponge when you contact the ball."

"If an intermediate player wants to play and have fun and doesn't care about improving then he can use any of the composite rackets out there. They are fun to hit the ball with. But if an intermediate level player is more concerned with improving, he should use a 5 ply, all wood blade that is All+/Off- speed rated and has good dwell, touch and feeling."

"In table tennis, the real game happens over the table. You have to be good at playing from all distances. But mid-distance and further don't matter much if you can't control the first three balls. So work on serve and receive and random placement."


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You have more time than you think you do.

"you hit the ball to fast and too close to the table, step back and let the ball comes in to you" <- im still struggling with this problem

"Think, man!!! THINK!!!"

The next one would be: "Calm down. No one's winning when nervous. Just play your game."

Don't get nervous or intimidated to anyone. Your greatest opponent is your weakness, not them. Oh and stop buying paddles, you already have a lot you idiot, buy me dinner instead!

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"Put your body weight on your tiptoe" This improve the footwork by making you more dynamic by avoiding you to be "fix into the ground" on your heels. You need to be light and fast when you play.

"The simplest way to get better is to work hard on your backhand. At the levels you play, almost no one works on their backhand."

"If you keep taking your shots, you'll be making them."

"You guys, always trying to drive the ball past people. Do you know you can actually spin the ball slowly to someone and make them miss?"

"Keep it simple - spin the low ball, drive the high ball."

"Stop pushing *every* serve! You will never get better that way."

"You don't need a tricky serve. All you need is a serve that your opponent will not attack - let your third ball do the talking."

Best tip for my fh development: "Learn to slow loop".
Best tip for my bh development: "Your grip is too FH-oriented".

My Coach has always told me that it's not necessarily how fast you play the shot that will win the point but how you are able to vary the speed to deceive the opponent

Nice advice! My coach was the one who made me use a video recorder for my practices and matches, that has helped a lot.

Like I wrote in some other thread, never forget how important the placement is!

Great tips, everyone. Thanks for sharing. One tip I saw repeated in several posts is something I need to work on: Spin the ball more instead of trying to drive it so often. As Carl's high-level friends told him, "Spin everything. It's safer."

sspark80 said:

Great tips, everyone. Thanks for sharing. One tip I saw repeated in several posts is something I need to work on: Spin the ball more instead of trying to drive it so often. As Carl's high-level friends told him, "Spin everything. It's safer."

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That one was Michael Landers. [emoji2]


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UpSideDownCarl said:

That one was Michael Landers. [emoji2]


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To be fair, at that level, their spins are faster than my drives.

NextLevel said:

To be fair, at that level, their spins are faster than my drives.

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Yeah. Mikes loops are pretty fast and heavy.

But he said it based on my game. As a kid I played baseball. The two biggest challenges for me in learning table tennis as an adult were to stop hitting flat and to move my feet.

Hahaha.

Both of those things are way better. But this is such a technical game/sport that there is so much room for improvement since touch and precision are a huge part of improving.


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If one backs away from the monitor a step or two.. this thread should be a sticky? Some class A advice posted here..

UpSideDownCarl said:

Yeah. Mikes loops are pretty fast and heavy.

But he said it based on my game. As a kid I played baseball. The two biggest challenges for me in learning table tennis as an adult were to stop hitting flat and to move my feet.

Hahaha.

Both of those things are way better. But this is such a technical game/sport that there is so much room for improvement since touch and precision are a huge part of improving.


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Yeah. Things like this explains why PNut thinks he is looping when he isn't.