Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

Motivation!

@NextLevel

True, but to me, good form is pretty much the same as good feeling, safe form.

I'm not a professional athlete, so it's not like I necessarily need to push myself to the point where I'll start breaking. I'm mostly concerned about causing injury and excessive wear due to my form.



Some kids from an American town's ice hockey team visited my school today. They were playing on our table. Total basement players, but they did somewhat understand spin.

I gave them a good lesson in what returning real serves is and what topspin is, if you know what I mean. It was a massacre.

However it was in good nature and everyone had fun: I was just trying to open their eyes to real table tennis.

Here is some random video from today's session. Second video is attempting to improve on the first. Don't mind the autistic screeching in the background. I gave my setup to my friend and I used a crappy premade, but it doesn't really matter as I'm trying to minimize spin and speed here. His setup will arrive soon!



Here is some matchplay, without a real intent. Just hitting around to see how I move to a really live ball. Shitty racket, low spin etc.


Sadly I had to cut out extremely cinematographic shots of us tying our shoes, and the epic ending with the walk to the camera and everything.

A USA Nationwide League was introduced back in 2012. Have any of you guy played in it. What happened to it ?

Loopadoop said:

A USA Nationwide League was introduced back in 2012. Have any of you guy played in it. What happened to it ?

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Are you the same guy as Luckyloop on mytt?

NextLevel said:

Are you the same guy as Luckyloop on mytt?

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And 'LOOPOVER' at OOAK - signature kind of gives it away.

pgpg said:

And 'LOOPOVER' at OOAK - signature kind of gives it away.

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Yeah, but I just wanted to point it out before people started responding to puzzling questions that hardly made sense in threads that we all love for other reasons.

Tuesday was shit but i had a good session today.
Started playing a match with little warmup with a Chinese Veteran. very tricky because he was putting heavy spin in all his balls (topspin or backspin) and had some really good serves. But he was not good at receiving and his attacks were easy to counter and block; I won the 1st set easily, but then I undersestimated him, he won 3 the next one, and then 3rd one with momentum. I then played more calmly and increased my focus to win the 4th easily. But then, the hour slot was finished and he went home.

I continued with a friend, he's a decent player but doesn't train much. I won 3-1, then said I wanted to do only BO3. He won 2-0 and i told him we'd better stop here, but he insisted to play again, I finally found the right pace and started to move much better, and i won the next 8 sets, playing better and better...

I was finally ready to play a classic LP chopper. He got me 3-2 last time, but i knew i blew it and i could win him. Today i felt in good form and this time, i was very focused, made little mistakes, won 3-0 (9, 7, 4). I was really good at stopping the ball short (one topspin, then a dropshot, but really short and with backspin, he suffered a lot against that...) my serve + 3rd ball attack was working also well. He wanted to play more, so i said ok for BO3 and won 2-1 again, he felt powerless against the same tactics even if he tried a few times to attack a bit more which earned him one set.

More than the results, i liked how I managed to play against players 1 or 2 levels below, not just winning but playing good TT, trying to attack from the start (return or 3rd ball attack) but when not possible, just control well the ball, and how i recovered after each shot and try to always move.

I went to the uni club today. There were so many people there (even though it is only Thursday afternoon and not saturday), that there were 7 tables occupied, with several of them playing doubles.
My friend and I decided to practice some doubles, so we decided to play 7 games. We did surprisingly well, and won 5-2.
Then I played a best of 3 with another friend whom I have not played against for the last 4 months. I took the first set, he took the second set, then I took the third set 13-11. Very close game. I found that I have a weakness in receiving his long fast serves to my backhand. I think I need to anticipate the spin a little bit better, even though I feel his variation in the spin in his long serves are not that big, I still need to look more carefully at his contact point to have a better judgement of the spin and make my returns more safer. Today too many of my returns went off the table or just clip the net and flew out.

Hey guys. I did not play today, but I have a question:

When receiving a heavy chop from an inverted chopper, or just a heavy chop in general, that floats a bit short and low over the table, I know how to angle my racket very open to get the ball over the net to the other side.

However it will fly off with pretty great acceleration, like someone just played a counterhit on it. So normally, it will go quite long.

Is there any possible way to return these balls short? Perhaps chopping with sidespin?

its really a question of touch. you have to be very relaxed grip, that will absorb some speed and spin. if the ball goes long then it helps not going for the short side... but diagonal... also take the ball really at the bounce. if it has a lot of backspin, you NEED to put your own backspin in the ball at contact. It helps for control. else a lot of chance of the ball going net or popping up.

you have to go low on your legs, that will help you take the ball nearer to the table, at the bounce with the right angle (bat parallel to the table). Not being low enough on my legs is the #1 cause of miss for me.

if the incoming ball has not too much backspin. you can try to take it a little on the side to aim for the short FH side. to make it easier, of course take the ball at the bounce, but on the right side. its difficult for the pimples player because usually he will not play this ball with the LP, he needs to come to the table and usually he's not good at flicking and its a difficult flick anyway, and he's opening his BH side.

I'm rather good at that, because thats my main game plan against choppers. I'm not able to play more than 3 topspin attacks consistently against backspin in matches...

So a very relaxed grip, taking it off the bounce and killing some of the spin by putting my own spin on it should help?

To now I have only touched them back with a nearly non-moving racket. If I chop into it a bit, with enough touch, it should be possible to go shorter?

no the racket should move. you have to go to the ball.
anyway i'm talking about a LP chop against decent topspin coming back with backspin thanks to inversion.

Given your level, I'm not sure you always put that much spin, and that the ball coming back has really backspin.

just do a test: if the ball has really backspin, if you just put your racket and do nothing the ball should die in the net. if it pops up probably it was a no (or little)-spin chop.

No, the ball never pops up. I would have to angle my racket completely horizontal. As it is I have to angle it nearly completely open. If it's angled wrong it'll go into the net with speed.

We're talking about inverted chops here, against my topspin. They don't rely as much on incoming spin and can generate heavy spin with grip, right?

ok sorry i misread you. inverted rubber = usual backside, not long pimples.

the technique is the same, than above, but there is no extra backspin coming from inversion. Of course a good chopper can add extra spin with a good technique (slight wrist move at impact time etc...). its important not just to put the racket but make a slight wrist action into the ball. Very light else the ball will fly away.

if the ball is really with heavy backspin you have to take the ball low and also slightly move your racket upwards at contact to help the ball go over the net.

the most difficult balls is when the chop is long; then its difficult to push it back , even more difficult to push it back short !
good players loop (nearly) all those long balls back even if they have backspin. I admit i try to push more than 50% of these balls, which is too much.

I will see if I can film this. I'm not 100% sure where my racket is moving on contact. I think what I am doing is I am coming into the ball very slowly with my racket while keeping the angle the same. But it might be something else, too.

I'll also try to see what happens if I angle it completely open, or don't move even a millimeter on contact.

Arch,

My recommendation for you would be to loop every single one of those low, heavy chops. Nothing will put the quality of your stroke to the test more than heavy backspin. You should take advantage of every single one of those balls you can to practice your stroke.

Unless you are saying the balls are consistently double bouncing and are unloopable, which is very unlikely.

Sometimes when you all discuss your training, I feel you are all playing at levels that I have no clue about and will never experience.

After my weekly lesson and league session, my rotator cuff started to hurt a bit. It's fine today, but I don't know if I should start playing just yet. Also too lazy to see a doctor (probably from my Asian upbringing lol).

Glued on a new DHS TG Skyline 3 Neo to replace an old DHS Hurricane 3 Neo. Hopefully it'll suit my playstyle better.

@SchemeSC

On the balls that fall closer to the net, I've never tried. I think it's too much of an advanced shot for me, looping that kind of ball very close to the table. It doesn't look like I can get my bat on it without hitting the table.

I will try, though. Who knows...

If it's clearly long, sometimes I can loop it. But I have to swing very, very hard and push off with my legs. I don't know how to safely return those with a slower ball. It always drops off.

Archosaurus said:

@SchemeSC

On the balls that fall closer to the net, I've never tried. I think it's too much of an advanced shot for me, looping that kind of ball very close to the table. It doesn't look like I can get my bat on it without hitting the table.

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I'd like to see a video of this low, heavy chopper that's giving you these nasty, unloopable, half-long balls.