Practice with lower level players.

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The table tennis club nearest to me is 22 miles away so i can only practice with low level players at my university, who cant block top spin or dont want to practice. I tried multiball with them but they suck at giving quality balls so i can only practice movement drills. Is this good enough? Igo to the club once a week to play in a league with plenty of 1700-2000 players

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One more thing. I rarely get to play against strong top spin and get smashed whenever i play in league. How can i improve my returns?

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If you don't have coach , don't have practice partner .. the only solution I can think of is ....

1. Learn and Practice a lot of serves
2. Practice a lot of forehand smashes
3. Put long pips on your backhand , and use it to receive serve and block down / push most balls using backhand and when you get a pop up use your forehand smash ...

Using long pips to confound opponents work till 1600 level in general ... it becomes sporadic after that ... and should help you improve your service receive

Can't think of any other way to approach this . anybody ?
 
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Another option is to get a table and robot at home. I kn ow it’s not the same as playing a person and won’t help with anticipation and reading spin etc but it’s a better alternative than not playing anybody. It will always give you the return you want to drill certain shots .
If you can afford it get a robot that offers random shots and different spins in the same sequence to make it as game like as possible.
Another benefit of getting a table at home is that you can invite club mates who live nearby.
 
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If your main access on most days of the week is playing people lower level than you that are not interested in learning the skills of the game, just play games and matches with them. While doing that, work on different ways of responding to what they give you. If they are really lower level than you you should not have to worry about winning. Work on stuff while you are playing against them.

I can remember playing some low level players and because I just put the ball back over and over they would try and give me wide angles and I got to work on going around the net. :)

If you are not trying to win the points and just keep putting the ball in play in a way that allows the lower level players to return the ball well, you will have stuff to practice.

And lower level players send you a lot of junk balls, weird balls and dead balls. You need to be good at handling them to get better. So view it as training and try to keep the ball in play and let them get good returns rather than trying to win the point and spin them off the table.

But there is no real point to practicing block drills with players who cannot do them. Truthfully, practicing too many block drills with players who are good at them does not make your skills improve either.

 
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Great point from Carl, you'll be kicking butts and will get a chance to find somebody interested in (more) "proper" training. Win-win.
 
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Though it's difficult to improve your technique with players worse than you, so I see a couple of things you can focus on:
1. One specific thing, say footwork, or something else that you may need to improve.
2. Hit with the better players as often as you can.
3. As it was said before by yogi_bear, find an interested gifted newbie and put efforts into his or her education. I guess it's a win-win and the best strategy anyway.
 
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Everyone want to play against better players but i think it is possible to become better when playing worse players aswell. I find that many just do not take responsible for they own development. You do, since you ask the question.

Of course if the level gap is to big it is very hard.

Play softer so they can take the ball, and it become good play. As long as you do the correct stroke/motion you will benefit from this. Almost better to play with worse players and have the time to really do the correct stroke than with better and do not have the time. But of couse it can be hard to play to soft and do the correct stroke. So it is excellent working on the technique with worse players.

Do some multiball. If you play soft in exercise you can do multiball and there you can play harder and much tougher. I have a hard time seeing that they can not do multiball if they practice it a little more.

Change the drill. make it as hard as possible for you and as easy as possible for them. Like you put eveything against there best ball and they pu the ball free. The same if you block. Worse players also spread the ball all over the place so it is good practice that you need to move sidway and back and forth. And do exercises where you get play. Avoid serve and return if you are much better.

Do shadow training, physical exercise at the table or serve training. Alot of stuff you can work at alone. A good serve will win you alot more games.

Like someone else said,maybe you can help them. Blocking topspin is not difficult, just teach them how.

If you think about it i think you can come up with different ways to get something out of the practice.

Regarding the serve returns, it is difficult if you do not practice against people with spin in their serve. I think if you really understand how to read spin and how to return these, maybe you still can return the good. If your training partners can get some spin maybe you can color the ball to learn to read spin then trying different ways to return it, push, flip, go with and against the spin. Again, maybe you can teach them some serves.

I almost never practice against better players, but the level gap is not huge. As long as they have a somewhat good block i can do the above to get something out of it. As a coach i see to many players waste their time because they do not try against worse players. I think the biggest problem is not playing soft enough and not changing the drill. I have also seen as a coach that players that always play with better players become better, but they have harder to learn the correct strokes because the tempo is to high.

Maybe you can film a practice. It is hard to give advice when we do not know how big the level gap really is. Good luck!
 
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To echo what many others have said:

1) If good players are within 22 miles, that might be worth travelling to. My nearest club with decent players is 130 miles away, and a great club is 254 miles away. In my current situation, I would literally be willing to bicycle 3 days a week to a club that's 22 miles away.

2) Find local players who are willing to get better and want to improve. I have about 8 local players (in their 70s) who just show up to do something, but aren't interested in improving their control or game in any way. A few are, so I prioritize playing with them and will help give them consistent balls so they can work on their weaknesses. It also helps me work on control and accuracy returning their sloppy and inconsistent shots.

3) Try to find some value in your play with them. Whether that's throwing in the occasional high level serve, or working to put more power into dead/weak junk balls you get, it can help you improve in little ways. Sometimes I work on footwork and put myself out of position on purpose to bait them into placing a ball where I'm not so that I can practice footwork to get to those balls. Don't emphasize practicing putting yourself out of position though...
 
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Can they push? If so, you can do a fantastic half-multiball drill to practice opening loops against backspin:

1) Get a bag of balls
2) Bounce a ball on your half of the table
3) Push to imitate a short backspin ball
4) Ask them to push either to a single point or anywhere
5) Loop the push
6) Repeat
7) PROFIT

This way you get a ton of repetitions within a short period of time, and the only thing your partner need is to push. Also your friends get a chance to practice their blocking a lot.
 
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Become a useful practice partner for better players and they'll come to you. The big two skills in this context are blocking and serving. It's not hard for a 1400 player to learn to block well enough for an 1800 player, and I know an 1800 player who blocks well enough to get table time with 2500+ coaches. And most competitive players want more practice returning good serves. If you build it they'll come.
 
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Become a useful practice partner for better players and they'll come to you. The big two skills in this context are blocking and serving. It's not hard for a 1400 player to learn to block well enough for an 1800 player, and I know an 1800 player who blocks well enough to get table time with 2500+ coaches. And most competitive players want more practice returning good serves. If you build it they'll come.

I agree on the blocking part. I can play with much worse players if they have a good block. The same for me against much better players. I am nowhere close to being a pro But my block is stanle and good so i proably could play easy drills with a pro. The big gap is serve and return. I have almost never lost a set against alot of them i train with and i would get destroyed against a pro in serve and return. But with a good block you can play with players from different level.
 
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