Against spin vs with spin.

NextLevel said:

This only applies if you are applying heavier and heavier amounts of topspin to the ball. You reach a backspin equilibrum of sorts if you know your loop. Sometimes, looping is not about generating heavy topspin, it's just about putting topspin on the ball. Opening your paddle makes it easier to counter the amount of backspin on the ball.

The point here is that the overpower backspin idea is not the whole story. There is a tangential speed needed to do so, but once that threshold is reached, you are continuing the spin.

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So we agree on the concept of a chopper and looper essentially reaching a point where they could keep hitting and it'd go on forever until the rubber would wear out if nothing changes?

UpSideDownCarl said:

Vs a loop--with smooth rubber--you only need to have a good racket angle for the rubber you are using which is why you can block or counterloop. Well, a good angle, good contact and good touch. But your racket does not need any pace. Pace added to racket can be used to add pace and/or spin to the ball but is not needed.

However, when looping backspin, you have to have your racket going pretty close to as fast, or faster than the speed of the spin on the ball. I think there are also issues of how you get the ball to sink into the topsheet and sponge to some extent and then what the rebound of the sponge and rubber adds to that in velocity as you hold the ball on the blade face. But you have to have your racket going decently fast to loop backspin. You cannot just put your racket out at an angle for a topspin shot and expect the ball to land on the table. But that is something you can do when you push heavy backspin. And with heavy topspin if you tried that method of pushing you would certainly pop the ball up.




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In my experience, all of these statements distort the truth a little. I speak as someone who used to hit backspin on my backhand because I didn't know how to loop it. And I remember when I was USATT 1700+ and talking to a guy from France (2200+ USATT) who said that I hit backspin that I didn't spin it when I was doing third ball drills. And I remember when I was 1800+ and a guy who was 2400 said that I hit backspin but I looped topspin when he fed me multiball. So trust me, I have a lot of experience hitting backspin with my backhand. Of course, now I pretty much loop it except when I am playing pips players or out of position. None of this means I am right, but I want to put my next few statements into context.

And in my experience hitting backspin, once you open the racket angle and hit it upwards, you produce a topspin ball. The ball dips over the net. It doesn't float long. PEople don't block the ball into the net unless the ball is really dead. They counter it reasonably well if they try. Of course, this is different from bumping it with a slice or forward stroke. I mean a bump/hit upwards.

Right now, people power loop backspin. Power looping backspin does require racket head speed or spin avoidance. But if you basically want to loop backspin, you can continue the spin with a light roll. It's similar to a dummy loop or what I described above as a bump. The bottom line is that racket angles matter. It's not all about the surface or racket head speed.

I agree with what NextLevel is saying.

My go-to response for a relatively spinny, fairly low backspin ball to my long backhand is to loop it and let it dip over the net, catching it on the way and dropping short on the table, punishing anyone who doesn't have the needed in-out footwork. It's not challenging, you don't need to swing too fast and there's not a hair's margin for error. I've never seen this shot float or slam into the net, it's only ever dropped off my paddle or went into the ceiling due to a mishit.

Oh, it's true, you can do lots of things to make a backspin ball go back dead or with some topspin without looping.

Mike Landers showed me how to backspin flip a short topspin ball. It is pretty cool. The stroke looks like a top/side stroke but you are flipping and your ball goes back with backspin.

I also have a way of making my pushes dead and and topspin. Higher rated players see it. Guys my level look at their rackets like their racket did something wrong. With good touch you can do a lot of things to any spin.

And hence the famous video where someone thought he was looping but was getting the ball back with mild rather than heavy topspin.


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@Subject of looping with mild spin

Don't underestimate the power of dead loops. They look like brush loops, but there's relatively little spin on them.

Bad players do this with a lot of pace and they don't know they do it, good players do this with very little pace and it's intentional.

For an incoming dead ball with a little pace... You basically open the bat a little more. If you want to be safe, loosen the wrist a bit, and use half power, half graze, half solid contact to make a spinny ball and make it go land deep. Against a slow incoming dead ball that is long, do the same but swing up some.

later, when you get the timing and position down, you can go for a more powerful forward stroke with a stronger solid impact.

Der_Echte said:

For an incoming dead ball with a little pace... You basically open the bat a little more. If you want to be safe, loosen the wrist a bit, and use half power, half graze, half solid contact to make a spinny ball and make it go land deep. Against a slow incoming dead ball that is long, do the same but swing up some.

later, when you get the timing and position down, you can go for a more powerful forward stroke with a stronger solid impact.

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I believe he is asking how you yourself loop a ball in a way to produce low spin.

Personally, I focus on impacting the ball low on the rubber near the side closest to the floor where it will get the least spin. It's really a touch shot and I think you'd need to spend a few weeks with it to get a hang of it.

I think this shot is best played very low over the net, trying to get it to bounce awkwardly, but I'm no expert because it's quite a difficult shot to pull off exactly how you want.

To produce a deceptive looking DEAD loop you need to impact the ball with a looser grip at impact and allow to ball to begin to leave the bat and then produce your acceleration and follow through. Bat angle is slightly more open for close to table.

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Like all shots I try to hit the ball in the center of the blade. There at that impact point is most stable and consistent. Why risk the increased chance for error? Even Schlager says on serves he goes for center of bat... He says even he is not consistent enough to hit at tip of bat for more serves. He focuses on acceleration before and during impact.

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Also, a dead loop is not really a loop. I guess that does not really matter. But a "dead loop" is a shot that looks like a loop but does not have very much spin. What defines a loop is the amount of spin: a loop is a shot that has so much topspin that you can see the Magnus effect (the arc of the ball caused by the spin) in spite of the speed.

A topspin drive is different from a loop in the kind of contact and the amount of spin. A loop drive is a drive that gives very deep contact with more tangential force (more brush angle) while contacting deep. A loop has anywhere from thin to deep contact without the ball bottoming out to the blade: this kind of contact creates a lot more spin than the other options, but not as much pace as a loop drive. A loop drive would contact all the way to the blade despite the tangential element being pronounced.

So a "dead loop" is a faux loop, a shot that is made to look like a loop without generating the spin. Der_Echte's description of how you create that makes a lot of sense to me.

Now when Der_Echte said it, I think his advice is more accurate. If you would brush the ball with a good contact and accelerate as normal, no matter where on the bat you contact, you would produce more spin than you want. I guess I understood that subconsciously, but not consciously, because this is not exactly a shot I do all the time. I'll try consciously working on what he said and see if I can improve the shot further.


By the way, I didn't mean contacting the ball outside the sweetspot. The slightly lower contact probably happens due to not accelerating at the same timing as a loop. Please don't contact outside the sweet spot, especially with a worn rubber. I can't think of a single benefit to it, because it won't catch better players off guard either, when your ball goes flying off in a completely wrong direction. It is entertaining to watch, though.

Same thing with serves. I've attempted it, and I DID produce results with it, but you will produce better results just having a better contact more near the middle. That's how pros appear to serve, and the higher level you go I imagine that the lower tolerance for bad quality you have in serves and consistency is more important. So Schlager has a point, and I don't think I will doubt him on that.

There are several speeds at which to DEAD loop or loop with WAY less spin than it appears.

A pretty fast ball with little spin is much easier to cope with. The pace of the ball will get it into the topsheet and sponge. So all you do is guide an accelerate it through.

Now a very slow ball with little spin that looks heavy is real tricky. Not only are you gunna position yourself too deep for the kick that won't kick... but you gotta make your own impact to get it into topsheet and sponge. That is a tough task when out of position out of zone off time off balance.

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In general, dummy looping is one of those things that just falls under spin variation. I would be hard pressed to find a top player who uses it more than once a match a tournament. It's much easier to just put spin on the ball in varying quantities to annoying places on the table and let the opponent deal with it.

NextLevel said:

In general, dummy looping is one of those things that just falls under spin variation. I would be hard pressed to find a top player who uses it more than once a match a tournament. It's much easier to just put spin on the ball in varying quantities to annoying places on the table and let the opponent deal with it.

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It depends on the opponent. It is used a lot against defenders.

Tinykin said:

It depends on the opponent. It is used a lot against defenders.

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I play a lot of defenders and I don't dummy loop. And William Henzell does describe the no-spin loop on TTEdge and it's mostly a regular loop with a locked wrist. Hence my point that just vary the amount of spin on your loop and you end up in the same place.

I loop with less spin to opponents who are feeding off my spin with their blocks all the time. But I don't say or think I am dummy looping, I just think I am looping with less topspin.