Loop contact sound

what mizutani plays when counter looping are actually rockets, they just seem slow when compared to ma long projectiles.

it's not so much a matter of swinging speed as it is a combination of technique, training and physical fitness. pretty much noone is able to produce such powerful loops with precision and consistency other than the top chinese. in his day wang liqin had the nickname "great power" among the chinese national team. it's not that the top speed of his forehand loop was higher than other players (ma lin was actually the one with the most impressive killing shot) it's just that he could maintain his power without losing precision and consistency at such a wide range of situations and was still able to recover for the next shot. while ma lin had his incredible serve and kill game, wang liqin had the ability to take control of almost any rally and eventually overpower his opponent.

how much spin a slow arc loop actually has compared to a loop kill is an interesting one. it is possible that it seems spinnier than it is because of the lack of pace. when talking about a high spin high speed loop kill, in theory the more spin there is the faster the ball can be and still land on the table. so while going for more spin is definitely a good thing, you probably don't want to be taking pace off of it.

one situation when you could benefit from doing such a thing is when playing a blocker or a chopper, in which case you want to add variation in both speed and spin to your loops.

where did you find this? i'm loving it! it's late already and now i won't be going to sleep for at least half an hour reading this. you ba***rd.

izra said:

how much spin a slow arc loop actually has compared to a loop kill is an interesting one. it is possible that it seems spinnier than it is because of the lack of pace. when talking about a high spin high speed loop kill, in theory the more spin there is the faster the ball can be and still land on the table. so while going for more spin is definitely a good thing, you probably don't want to be taking pace off of it.

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this is only true if the ball is lower than the height of the net. once it's above the net you dont NEED spin to get more speed. It can sure help with consistency though.

Shuki said:

this is only true if the ball is lower than the height of the net. once it's above the net you dont NEED spin to get more speed. It can sure help with consistency though.

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right you are!

+10 points to Archo for starting this thread and +5 to everyone that's replied, awesome discussion and got me thinking! Just two cents from a guy who passed a physics class or two and from some other TT discussions I've seen - the arc of a loop isn't so much determined by spin alone. If a ball is hit super fast then the spin doesn't have much time to bring it down (read: arc). But if a ball of equal spin is hit slowly then the spin has more time before the ball reaches the end of the table in order to bring the ball down. At least that's my understanding. As far as producing either variation at will, I'm a little under-skilled but it's a work in progress

Well, I took so long to type that I didn't see Archo's post...

Archosaurus said:

I'm inclined to think that a really strong loopkill might have more than a brush loop.

According to: http://www.ittf.com/ittf_science/SSCenter/docs/199208013- Wu - Table Tennis Spin.pdf what I assume is a high arc shot with not that much pace has a little bit less spin than an all out kill.

We must remember that the pace difference between a kill and a rallying shot is quite a lot and there's far less arc, yet the kill has even MORE spin.

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Wow, a very cool paper. TLDR: counterintuitively, loop-drive shots of the CNT players had more spin than brushing loops, maybe because they didn't practice fine brushing loops enough. Best pips-out players could generate spin comparable to pips-in players.

Archosaurus said:

I'd really want to see a fresh, modern study.

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Yeah, it is really temptating to know the rotation that top players from China and the rest of the World can produce with different kind of strokes and equipement.

The truth is, Izra said all the important stuff. If you want to know what is going on, just read his comments. Many excellent comments from him.

He explained the differences in sound, but I am going to explain something about the most important sound.

The quiet thud sound of good brushing, I will leave alone. I think you guys get that one.

The harsher high pitched sound that comes from the wood, that is not what Ma Long is actually getting. He is brushing, but he is brushing with a ton of impact. Softer rubbers, speed glue, boost, they allow you to get that sound easier. If Ma Long was using a soft Euro Rubber that was boosted he would be getting this outrageously loud CORKING sound. But he isn't. He is using H3 which is darn hard rubber, so his corking sound is pretty much the max that an H3 can make.

Where you get that sound is from brushing, but making deep contact so that, as the tangential speed of the racket brushes past the ball, he is actually getting the ball to sink pretty close to as far into the rubber as the ball can, WITHOUT HITTING THE WOOD.

Here is the interesting part, that corking sound, which, when you hear it live is cool as hell, is actually the rebound of the rubber. Let me say that again: THAT CORKING SOUND IS ACTUALLY THE REBOUND OF THE RUBBER. That is also why it sounds different than the harsh contact that happens when you hit the ball flat, like in Archo's video.

So, let me explain this a tiny bit more. If you take a towel and roll it up, and then you swing it really fast, and you have the right timing, you can get that towel to make a popping sound. Same thing with a whip. That sound is actually the tip of the whip, or the tip of the towel, going super fast and that is how it is making that sound. That is what the corking sound is also, and that is why, in person, it sounds nothing like the wood sound. It is the rebound of the rubber, while the ball is in contact with the rubber, for that fraction of a microsecond, going so fast that the rubber makes that corking sound like the pop of a cork coming out of a bottle.

And hell yeah, that creates A LOT OF SPIN. You just have to have good enough technique to get that sound. And you have to have amazing technique to get that sound with H3.

Hopefully this helps.

izra said:

it's not so much a matter of swinging speed as it is a combination of technique, training and physical fitness. pretty much noone is able to produce such powerful loops with precision and consistency other than the top chinese. in his day wang liqin had the nickname "great power" among the chinese national team. it's not that the top speed of his forehand loop was higher than other players (ma lin was actually the one with the most impressive killing shot) it's just that he could maintain his power without losing precision and consistency at such a wide range of situations and was still able to recover for the next shot. while ma lin had his incredible serve and kill game, wang liqin had the ability to take control of almost any rally and eventually overpower his opponent.

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You forgot equipment. EVerything is spot on. Just remember equipment.

EDIT: I see Carl pointed it out.

I had a whole response written out. I used to think that spin was all about the rubber, but as you get better, you realize that all spin is about the blade and the rubber - it is all a matter of degree. The ball can't move fast unless you get good impact. That said, for ANY spin shot, the sound you will hear will always be not as loud as the sound you would hear if the ball were hit flat. A cracking sound on contact is not a bad thing - it is from both wood and rubber distortion. And you can get a cracking sound on relatively slow loops as well. Listen to Brett's loops in this video.



The issues are really spin to speed ratio and consistency. THe paper that Archo cited is really old and from the 38mm ball era. Whether some of its conclusions still hold is open to debate. That said, I agree that harder loops have more spin than slower loops as an absolute measure. But that does not mean that the spin to speed ration is always higher on a harder loop - in fact, it often is not. When people like Ilya's club expert say spin the ball, what they really mean is to play with a higher spin to speed ratio. This is an extremely effective way of playing at the lower levels (i.e. below 2400) as the timing messes up many players as long as the spin is sufficiently heavy relative to the level at which one is playing. It is also much more consistent.

Anyone who doesn't have 20 hours a week to train would be highly reward by learning to generate massive amounts of topspin. It's the only way to improve your timing of the ball and to increase your consistency when you have major footwork limitations. Note that in all the videos where the looper is cracking the ball, he hardly has to move to it with any pressure whatsoever.

If you can hit the ball hard consistently, all the better. The problem is that you can only hit the ball hard all the time close to the table if you are early to the ball, and that places major demands on your anticipation and footwork. You need good line of sight or a good read of the ball to do it.

I will repeat a story I have told to often - in fact, I will just cut and paste it here with some edits. Some of you who know me know how hard I can hit the ball so trust me, part of this story involves me telling my coach that I Wanted to learn to hit the ball harder and he told me the only way to do it consistently was to learn to spin the ball (as it helps you evaluate better what balls you can rip into and you stop mixing up luck and reality), and I can look back on things and say he was right. I was stubborn about it for a long time, so I don't get too hard on those who are stubborn about it too. But eventually, everyone learns the hard way what izra is saying.

"As a rule, my elaborate theories are simply what I remember I experienced and what I did to solve the problem. I used to lose to all kinds of players who gave me timing issues when I was 1700 trying to break 1800. On the way home from a tournament when I lost to an older guy in straight sets, 0-11 in the third, I asked my coach and clubmates what was wrong. They told me that I didn't spin the ball, especially on my forehand and I protested. But later, I understood what they meant - my first instinct was and still is drive contact and I am still working on fixing that. But I developed enough spin and variation that I started to struggle less with timing issues, by making sure that I could loop balls with different trajectories with spin. A lot of it came from practice with long pips blockers. My backhand got the bigger reward because my backhand just had the better technique but it helped me a lot against certain types of players.

So I am just talking about what I used to feel and how I got better at it. Maybe it was just a matter of getting better and an inevitable result of more practice but I don't think so. I think that people who are always looking to first drive the ball, like**** is definitely stuck doing on his backhand, will always struggle with timing at the level they play unless they have great anticipation and footwork. And even that is a big unless.

But on the other hand, I used to try to play choppers with my backhand. So I am possibly a real outlier... but the conversation about my not spinning the ball is a club classic. Till today, you hear my coach and clubmates saying "but I do spin the ball..." and we all do the inside joke laugh because of that night. I don't think I ever fully fixed my instincts, but I worked harder on just making the ball spin as opposed to driving it. Just the improved variation gave me my first 2000+ rated victory two months later and I started beating the guy who beat me 11-0 so badly that he wondered how he ever beat me that badly.

Of course spin requires a relaxed swing. But IMO, you need to practice swinging at different kinds of balls to produce different ball speeds and trajectories on both your forehand and your backhand, once you have your technique down. If you are trying to be that footwork king who always gets to the ball on time and does it right, good. But I have played a lot of matches and I can say that there are players out there who if you drive the ball at one speed to them all the time, unless you set up the point perfectly, you will lose every time. And you would beat them 3-0 fairly easily if you just slowed down and gave them a heavy dose of medium paced, T05 level, heavy topspin.

In my view, the slow heavy topspin game fits into the broader looping game and is not capped in any meaningful way for club players. But you aren't going to get it unless you practice spinning the ball at times when your instinct is to smash or drive it. Or seeing whether you can make some shots where you need to bend the ball to places that you can't with a line of sight drive. When you realize your technique can do these things, then you will be truly relaxed. You will wonder why the heck you are rushing when you know that you will likely still make a good shot even if you don't get to the ball on time as long as you make the right contact."