William Henzell's Journey

I really enjoy these vids
I hope you make it to the Olympics and win many matches there !!

The little kung fu thing at the end of the second video was funny as! Good on ya Will keep it going, not long now till the Olympic trials!

March 5th - 8th is the set date for the Oceania Olympic Qualification.

lol falling of the ball at the end just made that video for me XD

Yes, take pleasure in my fall from grace Matt. The first qualification is the Australian one which is Feb 16 - 19. I've got to get through that before I get a crack at the Oceania qualifying, which is March 5 - 8. Yes I'm just over a month away. Hungarian Open next week, then Slovenian Open then 3 league matches (Fri, Sat, Sun) and I'm back off home.

The training session with the Russian team was nice. I played the session with Alexey Smirnov. Managed to film the end of the session and I'll put bits and pieces of it up in my next journey entry (maybe this weekend).

To answer some questions about the WSA centre. Players pay to come and train here. I heard the other day that there are no fewer than 70 players coming over the next couple of months. The level varies between hobby players to top 10 players in the world. Obviously not training with each other, but the academy caters for all standards. They also have a four bedroom apartment which players pay to stay in while they're here. That's where Danni and I have been living for the past 4 months.

By the way, thanks for the post about how to subscribe to threads Dan. I'll be watching this thread like a hawk.

I'm loving the posts. Keep up the good work and good luck in the qualifiers.

Hi William, loved all the updates. You have been at WSA for a long time now was wondering if you have to pay as much as lower ranked players or because you are a top level player you get some sort of funding from WSA or elsewhere to attend for such a length of time

Convict said:

Hi William, loved all the updates. You have been at WSA for a long time now was wondering if you have to pay as much as lower ranked players or because you are a top level player you get some sort of funding from WSA or elsewhere to attend for such a length of time

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Hi Convict. Generally everyone has to pay something to practice there but it's on a sliding scale where the better players pay less. My girlfriend and I are staying in a room of a large apartment that Schlager or the Academy owns. My training fees are included in the rent.

Thanks for the response William

ttEDGE - William said:

Thanks Dan. I'm making this up as I go - so if you guys have any requests for topics you'd like me to speak about in the Journey entries, just let me know.

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Hey Will, do you think you could talk about the importance of serve and receiving in varying places and why it is important in your matches and how you receive in training so that your opponents do not have easy third ball attacks please? Thanks

Not sure William will want to share that on the Forum just yet - I am positive his potential opponents will just be reading this too

RIPPER said:

Hey Will, do you think you could talk about the importance of serve and receiving in varying places and why it is important in your matches and how you receive in training so that your opponents do not have easy third ball attacks please? Thanks

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I'm kinda keen to know as well. And as for your opponents Will, I think you guys are about on par with each other.

That's an awesome series to watch. Good for you William and best of luck in February and March. I have two questions one about when you played in 2008 against Wang Liqin and the other about tactics. Obviously you had a great start and the games were really close in the first 3 sets with you up both times I believe. Are you working on any Mental exercises to help with situations like that? I now know your services are ridiculously deceptive with seeing your videos and also that match against WLQ. It's fairly obvious that that's one of your biggest strengths and I can tell that's probably why you're working on your forehand as the service is more designed for forehand attacks, but is there anything you're working on in particular about how you want to play your matches with your strengths?

RIPPER said:

Hey Will, do you think you could talk about the importance of serve and receiving in varying places and why it is important in your matches and how you receive in training so that your opponents do not have easy third ball attacks please? Thanks

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Good players test each other out with service and return of service at the start of matches, trying to work out potential weaknesses. It may only be moving the serve 5cms on the table to get it coming at a slightly more awkward angle that the opponent does not like. It's also why good players almost always have backspin/nospin, pendulum sidespin and reverse/tomahawk/backhand variations. Probe until you find a weakness. The same goes for returns as well; it's likely there will be weaknesses and once you've found the weakness you've got to be able to vary just so that the player doesn't adjust.

Mr. RicharD said:

That's an awesome series to watch. Good for you William and best of luck in February and March. I have two questions one about when you played in 2008 against Wang Liqin and the other about tactics. Obviously you had a great start and the games were really close in the first 3 sets with you up both times I believe. Are you working on any Mental exercises to help with situations like that? I now know your services are ridiculously deceptive with seeing your videos and also that match against WLQ. It's fairly obvious that that's one of your biggest strengths and I can tell that's probably why you're working on your forehand as the service is more designed for forehand attacks, but is there anything you're working on in particular about how you want to play your matches with your strengths?

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Very good chances. 1-0 and 7-1 and 10-8. 9-5 in 3rd set and 9-6 in 4th set. I've gone over the match once or twice... He struggled against the serve throughout and was very passive on his returns after making early mistakes. It can be very important to serve well from the start and really go for your serves so that the opponent loses confidence. The tomahawk is mainly designed for backhand players as it shields from getting returns into the pocket, which is of course the backhand dominated player's worst spot.

Unfortunately I haven't given mental training the room or focus I should have during my career and I've suffered as a result. I wish I had but I didn't realise the importance early enough. It's not always easy to find the expertise, especially not when trying to live on a meager table tennis salary.

Much of my time here in Austria has been on trying to improve my weaknesses. My backhand topspin is my big strength and of course it has improved from increasing my table time 400% per week. When I play I try to steer the play towards my strengths which is done with placement, shot height adjustment and playing shots that are uncomfortable for the opponent to receive. My coaches here attribute the success I've had to my ability to make life difficult for my opponent. I don't have big shots or amazing power so I've had to try to play smarter.