When to take the initiative during a push rally?

whocarez said:

Thanks. Some really good information about those push variations Just to explain a bit more, the lefty example was about a push rally, albeit a tad different one. It is the lefty that "attacks" with those long, well placed and very deep pushes. And if you do not manage to get out out of it sooner or later, by attacking yourself, the risk just becomes higher for a backhand flathit attack to end the rally. Many good tactics in this thread, though.

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OK... now I see better.

Hmmm, sounds like a tough motor scooter that lefty... if he/she is around your level, you should still have enough to cope.

You will need to probe this opponent to see which variation will give you results. You will sacrifice some points now for valuable tactical inportance.

I faced a lefty in Korea who handled spin like a champ. He dusted me 2 to 0 easy.

I didn't have enough time to probe. When I umpires him next match, I saw he really sucks against no spin. Man I slapped my head when I saw that.

Point is... if lefty is near your level, there WILL be a way. You just gotta use what you have to find and exploit it.

Keep trying to use the possible variations until you discover.

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One of my favorite drills is a push drill where the players roughly take turns serving short underspin balls that must be pushed and pushes continue until someone makes a bad push were it can be attacked. We do this drill almost every session. It is amazing how quickly you will improve your pushes and ability to attack poor pushes.

About make the first loop. It must be good because weak slow loops can be attacked too.

My first coach taught me how to push with lots of wrist for lots of underspin. They are a difficult to loop. It can be done but the percentages are not good.

For me a push rally is a lot of fun, and I am always attacking while in the rally as well, or trying to set up my opponent. Yes at times I will push straight back (into the body) of the opponent when I am unsure about the directional spin. Otherwise even if the return pushes are short, they are lots of options to attack. I don't see attack as just looping or driving, but even placement, and there are lots of opportunities to gain the advantage by using placement and by varying the length of your pushes. You can send in a couple of short pushes and then a long one right into the body. Or you can push a couple of times (or more) to one corner and then push wide to the other corner. I find the penhold grip is amazing for this, where I can simply use my wrist to vary the placement. I think what I am saying is that the push rally can be an attack, not just the build up to an attack.
So for me, attacking is not just about the conventional attacks. Placement is a great weapon and should never be under-estimated in a push rally.

As BB mentioned, and also RM, pushing can be fun and a fun drill when goofing off spare time. Playing a game with only pushing forces you to be consistent, while using variation to get your point.

A variation is to alternate 2 points each where first player serves, then second player pushes, first player pushes, then second player has option to push or attack... first player always pushing. Switch every two points.

These are good drills to get one to use variation... and also look for an attack.

The second drill practices both mentalities.

Have tried looping the ball with a late contact or looping the ball after the ball goes down? It may be slow but at least it is safer and it is spinny so it is more forgiving on errors rather than taking it at peak bounce.

Until very recently, against a short push, i liked to push/play it short again because i feel confident doing this, but against the better players, i feel overconfident, but at this little game, it happens too often that my short push pops up giving a penalty to the opponent.

I'm not good at flicking, especially my placement is often quite predictable, so I think its better to be the first to push long in this situation AND get ready for the block / counter, as I'm rather good at blocking

i also noticed that against a short push , if you want to play a stop-push its better to do it cross, trying to play it straight increases a lot the risk of the ball popping up

as soon as possible , but you should be good enough not to make a high and slow ball to the middle of the table which could be easily attacked or even smashed. Seen this a lot of times, when a player tries to take initiative and ends up by giving it on a plate for the opponent.