How are Pro Players Able to Cover the Table with their Banana Flick?

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From watching world events, it seems like pro players are able to move to the location of their opponent's short serve and prepare their backhand flick before the service actually hits their table. It sometimes appears ridiculous especially when they're able to cover the short forehand side as well.

My question is - how are pro players able to 'predict' where the opponent is able to serve and cover the entire table with their backhand? Or are they just moving to the ball after seeing it land? And how are they able to avoid getting fooled by a long serve?
 
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It seems like they usually just cheat over a little without committing until they see a flickable serve and then go for it. There's plenty of time. The hard part is getting back into position because they've just started a topspin rally while leaning over the table. As far as I can tell there's no trick to this. They're just exceptionally quick and efficient with their footwork and they know exactly where to move based on how their opponent is likely to react to the shot they just hit.
 
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I Do not think they cheat so much and think to much beforehand. Proably want to Do the return But need to see What comes first.

I Do not think it is hard for them to cover the wholetable. If they have a high quality flip so they win the point or really get the advantage i think they think it is worth it.

The impressive part is that they can flip in the forehand corner and be able to take the ball if it comes deep to the backhand. Difficult. Think they practice this with multiball.

Pretty boring with the new ball that everyone just Do flips all the time.
 
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This is just one of the details in Ma Longs game that I like, he rarely lets himself get out of position. Look att Calderano for example, he gets caught cheating by moving towards the fh corner ready to do a bh flick and then the serve goes to the bh corner and he doesn't really get back in good position on time. There are several of those sequences when he plays against Ma Long in WTTC 2019 for instance.

Not all pros do this. Ma Long for example rarely flicks with backhand from forehand side.
 
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I Do not think they cheat so much and think to much beforehand.
I think it's pretty common for bh receives from the fh side. FZD does it often as in the receive at 1:35 where you can see him start to move while the toss is still in the air:
 
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I think he Maybe does this because he have notice a pattern that the Guy serves there alot. But i still think that is very Risky at any level to move to much before Seeing where the ball comes. You can prepare But not cheat too much.

Cheat here means that he moves before Seeing where the ball is coming. Like when you step around in the bh corner to play fh before knowing the ball is coming there. Then you have cheated. Maybe there is a better Word for this, in swedish We would say tjuva. .
 
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From watching world events, it seems like pro players are able to move to the location of their opponent's short serve and prepare their backhand flick before the service actually hits their table. It sometimes appears ridiculous especially when they're able to cover the short forehand side as well.

My question is - how are pro players able to 'predict' where the opponent is able to serve and cover the entire table with their backhand? Or are they just moving to the ball after seeing it land? And how are they able to avoid getting fooled by a long serve?

These're very good questions. They're just half predicting and half guessing. They guess by watching the opponent's pattern. If they're wrong, they'll be in a dangerous position, because there's a big opening of backhand. Sometimes you can see it in matches. They can't move after seeing it because it'll be late.

Nowadays, the long fast serves of even the top players aren't good. Only few of them will do so occasionally, like Mattias Falck in the WTTC this time. Also their good footwork help cover it.

In fact, backhand filck at forehand side is a weird side effect of the new balls of ITTF. Tennis and badminton won't have something similar.
 
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I think he Maybe does this because he have notice a pattern that the Guy serves there alot. But i still think that is very Risky at any level to move to much before Seeing where the ball comes. You can prepare But not cheat too much.

Cheat here means that he moves before Seeing where the ball is coming. Like when you step around in the bh corner to play fh before knowing the ball is coming there. Then you have cheated. Maybe there is a better Word for this, in swedish We would say tjuva. .
What is the deal with capital letters at random places in your sentences? Makes the replies hard to read.
 
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What is the deal with capital letters at random places in your sentences? Makes the replies hard to read.

I think it is so because i write on the phone and Maybe because my language is set for swedish and not english.
 
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The chiquita is one of the reasons why many pros have deadly long serves. ML, FZD and even Fang Bo have very good long serve which hit the baseline most of the times that too with some bounce on it. In my opinion, many pros combine gut feeling and agile footwork to get to the ball in FH side. I remember watching an old video where LGL was not too happy with ZJK trying to chiquita all short FH serves. Instead LGL was suggesting to do deception FH flicks quite like what ML uses many a times ( looks like push but at the very end flick ).
 
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