Tips on how to get out of push battes.

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When I find myself receiving or serving off , I always seem to get into push battles with the opponent and end up too scared to play aggressively. My push plays go on until I find myself comfortable looping with my backhand. I try 3rd ball attacking but always seem get the angle wrong for the drive or loop. Any tips?
 
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Serve topspin, sidetopspin or nospin serve and they an not push well. Always loop at a long push. Every time. If you do that you will learn. In my book as a coach it is not okay to push back long because you hesitate or do not feel safe. Just loop.
 
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Serve topspin, sidetopspin or nospin serve and they an not push well. Always loop at a long push. Every time. If you do that you will learn. In my book as a coach it is not okay to push back long because you hesitate or do not feel safe. Just loop.

Works better with better footwork. I only recently learned the correct footwork for pushing, which in turn allows for looping on long pushes. Before, my hand was always too close to my body and the pushes were mostly wrist action. But now, I put my right foot under the table and push with a combination of arm and wrist, and because of this, it’s just one movement away (putting the foot back) from getting into loop position.
 
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When I find myself receiving or serving off , I always seem to get into push battles with the opponent and end up too scared to play aggressively. My push plays go on until I find myself comfortable looping with my backhand. I try 3rd ball attacking but always seem get the angle wrong for the drive or loop. Any tips?

In addition to what lula said, it might be good to push to the elbow of the other player, because then it’s difficult for them to keep the response short. Sometimes, pushing wide to opposite corner also helps in getting a lower spin ball you can attack easier.
 
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Yeah, serving some kind of topspin or no-spin sounds like a good idea, they'll pop the ball up for a smash or flick in a perfect scenario.
Continuing with the serving idea, maybe the placement of your serves enables your opponent to start pushing too easily, try a long serve every now and then, get's the rally moving real quick.
You could also be more efficient or strategic with your short pushes/touches, look at where your opponent doesn't like to receive a backspin ball and force a weak/passive response that you'd be more comfortable attacking. Maybe your opponent likes to push from his BH side, so you send it to the wide FH, make them reach uncomfortably, don't just pass the ball.
You could vary the amount of backspin, force a mistake.
Maybe push long and force your opponent to lift and then counter attack.
Ultimately yeah, you have to get comfortable with lifting backspin when it comes, both safely and aggressively if you can. It takes a bit of getting in the right mindset, so just practice practice practice until it's just your instinctive response, at least that worked for my style.
 
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Practice lots of multiball vs underspin. Tell your partner to receive to your backhand heavy under and mixed light/no spin and you loop everything to a fixed position. You need many repetitions to make it work in a real match consistently.
 
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Looping backspin consistently is a process. It can take a long time but you have to stick with it. Looping backspin is a test of your ability to spin the ball. Very often, people who can't loop backspin consistently are trying to hit the ball, as opposed to spinning or turning the ball. You have to follow the shape of the ball with your stroke when looping backspin if you want to be consistent.
 
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Looping backspin consistently is a process. It can take a long time but you have to stick with it. Looping backspin is a test of your ability to spin the ball. Very often, people who can't loop backspin consistently are trying to hit the ball, as opposed to spinning or turning the ball. You have to follow the shape of the ball with your stroke when looping backspin if you want to be consistent.

Yep. The advice about how to avoid getting backspin are short term fixes. They are fine. But they are short term.

In the long term, what NextLevel and Hi_I_Guess are saying is very important. You keep practicing looping backspin till you are solid at it. I hear people use the term lifting. I don't use that term. They may mean the right thing or not. When you loop backspin, you are doing what NextLevel describes. And you create massive spin. When you practice it enough, your automatic response to someone giving you backspin is to loop and spin the hell out of the ball.

If I am playing someone and I see that my short backspin serves get them to push, I will use them all day because as soon as I get a push as the return, I will loop. I don't think about it. I have trained that enough that it is an automatic response. I get happy when I see someone push my serves back.

You just have to practice looping backspin enough that it becomes the default response.

Multiball is good. So is you serving backspin, training partner pushing anywhere, and you having to loop the push no matter where it is. You do that drill for long enough, your looping of pushes, will get better. You can start with all long pushes to attack. But at a certain point you need to be able to attack the ones that are short as well.

In a match, you may strategically decide which short pushes to attack and which to push. But long pushes, they all need to be looped. You need to get good enough at it so that is the automatic response that is baked into your technique. So, find ways to train it and keep working on looping backspin.
 
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My 2 cents: i've just changed my game from no-stop backspin rallies into topspin rallies vs backspin balls.
The first thing to improve quickly (for me) was focusing in my wrist position, once corrected a new world opened.
Second: leg and body low position - ready to sprint
3rd: once you feel good vs backspin balls you need to be ready to attack every long stroke, you have to force your brain to change old habits.
For me it taked 4 months
 
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For us amateur players, it's not about attacking every long backspin ball (oftentimes our footwork isn't good enough for us to always be in a good attacking position). It's more about preventing our opponent from attacking comfortably, while creating opportunity for our own attack. Doesn't matter if it's a topspin or push, it's a good quality shot as long as it makes your opponent uncomfortable.

Like some others have already said above, if you have to push, use good placement to throw off your opponent's game.
 
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For us amateur players, it's not about attacking every long backspin ball (oftentimes our footwork isn't good enough for us to always be in a good attacking position). It's more about preventing our opponent from attacking comfortably, while creating opportunity for our own attack. Doesn't matter if it's a topspin or push, it's a good quality shot as long as it makes your opponent uncomfortable.

Like some others have already said above, if you have to push, use good placement to throw off your opponent's game.

If you can attack all pushes, it does not mean you have to attack all pushes. But a mid level player should be able to attack any push.

Even at the highest levels players choose their times when they decide to push. But deciding to push is different than having to push because you cannot attack. It is not that hard to make it so you can loop any long push. It is not that hard to make it so you can loop many pushes that are over the table. Without the choice, you are stuck. When you have both choices, you can employ effective tactics.
 
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It is okay to push back, but not if the reason is because you feel you can not make a loop against backspin. If you can loop well against backspin i think it is okay to push back if you are in a wrong position. But still, i still think that all players that are better attacking with loops than blocking always should try and aim on looping the long push.

And i think you can barely be surprised that you will get a long push. If you just think what you do i think you most of the times can be a bit ready. Very few times you will get so surprised that you can not loop. If you choose to push it is more that youre playing style is blocking or a defender or you just need to work more on the techniue.
 
An over the table loop is not ideal for beginners becauee you will be contacting the ball early while it is on the rise. It is only for advanced players.

I fully agree with Carl and the others that while varying your push placement and serves is a good strategy the best thing you can do is to learn to power through a heavy backspin ball with an over-the-table topspin stroke.
 
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