New Easy blade

maybe the rubber is too fast? or instead of the blade more training?

Thanks for sharing the video. It shows a lot.

You can change equipment, but what I think you need is a bit of focus on your basic technique. You're mostly using your arm only to power that FH topspin. Consistency (and power) are hard that way. If you can get it more fluid, powering the motion using your legs, hip, waist, upper body to whip it up I think you'll get a more reliable stroke. There's also a few things that will click in place as you keep practicing, with regards to footwork, positioning, timing of ball contact. Does slower equipment help? Maybe. You're young and seem to have a reasonably good feel for the ball, so maybe not. It won't harm your development to try a five-ply all-wood for a while, and it needn't be extremely costly; a Xiom Offensive S won't set you back that much.

Perhaps you have a coach available? It's not overly hard, but it takes work and some help at it can do wonders.

I recommend a classic 5-ply all-wood OFF- blade like the Butterfly Korbel, Primorac or Stiga Azalea OFF blades.

I would recommend a much slower blade too.

Your game style isn't actually fast looping, since you are too unsure of yourself to actually be looping most of the time, you actually spend more time pushing with light underspin than actually looping.

Keep your blade and rubbers as they are, and get yourself a much slower (all wood, ALL+ range) blade with similar linear non-tensor rubbers.

You need to develop feeling and confidence in your topspin shots first. There's no good reason to be responding to a long, high, slow and lightly underspinning shot with a slow underspin push of your own (which is most of how that game played out), if your playstyle is looping. You need to get used to the feeling of not needing your bat underneath what is a very mildly underspin ball.

With a slower setup, get used to pushing the ball with light topspin first (doesn't have to be alot of power, just get used to playing from on top of the ball instead of underneath it) until you are confident to close the blade angle over the ball and play more of a loop at will. You can go back to your faster setup once you have the feeling to actually be playing in your preferred style.

Right now, you arn't actually playing in your preferred playstyle most of the time because you lack confidence in your basic topspin shots, a slower, more fogiving blade will help you develop that confidence and feeling.

Also why are serving backhand? You clearly seem to prefer your forehand loop, a normal forehand service would put you in a much better table position to use this shot.

Ilcane1 said:

Ty guys.
I'm practicing with my coach and vs other players.
The big problem is that during practicing i'm very good and i use a better technique, but during official matches i cant relax enough and this is the result, i forget everything!

Click to expand...

It's not that you forget, it's that everything is easier in practice with set plays, whereas in a game comes variety and unpredictability and being out of position many times.

A slower all-wood blade will give you more feel and will be more forgiving.

Nice video, thanks for sharing. Most things have been said already so i just add.
I would also advocate for a slower blade, id recommend a primorac.
The slower blade allows you to get into longer ralleys so you learn more, slows the game and you have more time to react without having to commit. You end up in more situations to learn from and get a wider set off options to choose from (taking the ball later etc)
As backhand rubber id say go for a softer less heavy rubber for now. U seem need confidence an safety to attack on your backhand without having too swing to fast already so you dont use the ELS rubber strength but have to deal with the demand of that rubber.
I recommend aurus soft (durable, easier to use, powerful, softer and lighter).

A good indicator to see if yoursetup is too fast is by doing irregular footwork drills which force you to switch between forehand and backhand. With a too hard rubber or too fast blade one usually struggles to get a few rounds in.

Stiga Azalea off or Xiom Offensive S

You need more footwork and a Stiga allround to start also a defensive inverted rubber or long or short pips for BH.

Seems like Yoass is always right.

You can push well enough, so your gear is not too fast. Just play more and get used to it.

As you said, you have a coach, so the basics should come fast enough. IMO you improve better when you are not thinking about what to change to next. You can EJ to your hearts content when you get the basics down pat.

Ilcane1 said:

Ty guys.
I'm practicing with my coach and vs other players.
The big problem is that during practicing i'm very good and i use a better technique, but during official matches i cant relax enough and this is the result, i forget everything!

Click to expand...

One clarification, before the video you said you are the guy with the blue shirt. Both of you have blue shirts. But I am going to assume you are the guy who is YOUNGER, with the lighter blue shirt. Not the older guy with grey hair and a dark blue shirt. Is that right?

BTW: thanks for providing all the details we would need to actually help you including the context of how long you are playing, how you assess your play and the video footage. You get big props from me for that.

On FH gear is actually probably not the issue. Truthfully, it is not at all the issue for your FH. However, I do think a Xiom Offensive S might be a good blade for you. And for sure, that blade will help your BH as well. Primorac Off-, Korbel, Azalea....those would also be good choices. For you, I might choose the Korbel.

I actually think a lot of what is going on on the FH side has to do with practice, game skills, and you misreading balls.

A lot of the balls I saw go long were balls where you misread the spin and thought a dead ball or a topspin ball had backspin instead. You are also not seeing where your opponent is going with his shots soon enough. So, you are not doing a good enough job watching what the opponent is doing with the ball. That takes time to develop that skill. And lots of game play. And lots of random training.

However, your BH needs a slower blade and it probably needs a much different rubber. That rubber is good for your BH continuing to push. But it will hinder you in learning to loop those pushes. You could get FXP, you could get Rakza 7 soft, Vega Europe, Aurus Soft, Tenergy 05FX and a whole host of other rubbers. But you need something softer and more dynamic for your BH or you will continue to be stuck pushing on BH when that is what goes to your BH.

In training, in practice, part of the reason you look better is that you know what spin is on the ball and you know where the ball is going. In this match, when the ball is in a little different placement from what you thought, or when the ball is a different spin from what you thought, you are not reading those things as well as you need to. But this skill can and will get developed by you.

As far as I am concerned, your FH is pretty darn good. Especially if you have only been playing for a year. Yoass is correct, using your body more will make your FH more powerful and more consistent, and as you train and develop, that will happen. But for the amount of time you have been playing, your FH is darn good. However, you are not missing because of technique when you miss with your FH. You are missing because of misreading what is on the balls your opponent has given you. If you loop a dead ball or a light topspin ball as though it is a backspin ball, it will go long. And that is what is happening on most of your FH shots that go long.

That takes time to develop the ability to read the game.

So I am going to leave you with one of my favorite videos. Watch it a few times and think about what they are saying and ways you could implement random training in practice. You could even show this to your coach for him to wrinkle in random placement training for you to develop. Because this is part of what you need to work on: reading and planning.

Ilcane1 said:

Hi, thank you for your thinking. Yes i noticed too that sometimes i overestimate the incoming spin. Probably coz i like to put much spin on the ball.
Another question: i'd like to start with my bh topspin, but during a match i can't feel the right time and position, so at last i push. Which kind of exercises can i do to make it "automatic"? Ty. Later i will watch the video.

Ps: i don't want long or short pimples for my bh. Some players using these rubbers told me that i have a good bh (normally with them its easy to play because i know what its coming if they use the long pimples).

Click to expand...

Exercise 1: You serve backspin, training partner pushes to your BH, you loop (NO MATTER WHAT you loop). Do that a few thousand times. Then another 100,000 times after that. Then more.

But don't wait for that to do exercise 2.

Exercise 2: In match play, no matter what, when it is pushed to your BH, LOOP.

At first you will miss many. Then you will make some. Then, when you are making more than 50% of them, then you push sometimes too and use strategy to determine when to push and when to attack.

But nothing will get you attacking backspin with BH the way attacking backspin with your BH will.

No short pimples. You will get the BH loop quickly. The main thing keeping you from it now is fear. With exercise 2, accept that for a little while you will lose against people you can already beat. Don't worry about that. Once you are solid looping with BH, those players you were beating close, will not be able to get 3 points off you.

But read the spin on the ball. Especially for your FH loop. Watch the opponent's racket during contact. That is very important. If you do that, you will start seeing where the ball is going and what is on it much sooner and much more clearly. This is more important than stroke technique. That old man can't hit a FH like you. But he reads you and the game much better than you. So, without attacks that can hurt you, he still can hurt you by moving you out of position and making you make poor decisions and weak shots.

Watch the opponent's racket on contact. Also watch his body.

Hi! My first post, sorry if I do something wrong. Ilcane, I have been playing for about 1.5 years and I understand the struggle putting what you can do with your coach during training, into action in match play, especially at tournaments and league. I first started with a blade too fast for me, and despite trying softer and softer rubbers, I simply did not have the control I needed. I ordered a blade from the Pingskills website which I like. Basically I would say get a 5-ply all wood, maybe All+ or Off-. I also switched to Hurricane 3 neo for my FH, and it felt terrible at first, but it forced me to create power with my body and it has helped me develop a stronger FH loop than many club member who have been playing much longer. Your choice, but it helped me. Definitely go with more control on the blade though. The confidence alone will make your shots better.

There are some good insights in the replies here, but like UpsidedownCarl said, you just need to use BH loop against those long pushes. Maybe not in tournaments yet, but in every other situation, you must force yourself to do so. It will look bad, it will feel worse, and you will miss a lot of shots. But you will make some, then more, and eventually it will look and feel good and it will just be the way you return weak push shots. This is how I developed, along with coaching, into a two winged attacking looper.

Another thing I thought to mention is that it looks like sometimes you use a BH push from the FH court, and while doing so, you shift your body that way as well. Since your FH is your strong attack, you want to keep that open for you FH. If you gravitate your body to that part of the table, you will miss chances to use FH loop b/c you will be out of position.

Also, like was mentioned above about reading spin, read the angle your opponent uses to push the ball. If they cut deeply under, expect much backspin. If they use an open racquet face, it has little spin and you should attack. You don’t even have to use much upward motion and you can use power (too much upward may send ball long). Om that note, many of the push shots you and your opponent exchange are weaker pushes (long and not much spin). My thought is that if you are using a fast blade and soft rubber (like I started), there is too much catapult on soft shots and its hard to keep the ball short. I would say cut under the ball more to create better backspin when you have to push because you will not always ne the only attacker. Also, a more controlled setup will help you to keep the pushes shorter and spinnier. If you can’t attack the ball, make it hard for your opponent to.

Sorry for all the rambling, hope I made sense somewhere in there.

Also, UpSideDownCarl, that video is the most profoundly helpful video I’ve seen in probably hundreds of hours of watching tutorials, analyses and matches online. It illustrates many frustrations myself and a lot of players I know have. They apply it to golf and volleyball, but I think it applies much more significantly to TT, where we often must Read and Plan in less than a second.

I will be probably be preaching about this video for years. Thank you very much!

Trying starting exercises with serve and try some irregular exercises.

I've rewatched the video and in the first set, you lost around 4-5 points due to top spins going long or directly into the net.
Also you seem to generate not that much spin. Seeing your motion from your BH serve, if I do such kind of serves and the opponent is going under the ball like yours in the video, the ball shoots off the table around 1,5m high to the right from my perspective. In your case, your opponent can easily chop it back. Also your top spins seem to have less spin. If I would do a top spin with that kind of upward motion, my opponent would have a really hard time blocking them.
So my guess is that you really need to get the basics right with the brushing strokes. Something like a blade with composite material and especially rubbers with a lot of catapult might be not the best choice. You don't have enough contact time to really feel the ball and how it should feel if hit properly with a good brushing motion.
First I thought that sticking to your material and just train might be enough. After seeing the problems with the spin, I would also suggest a 5ply all wood blade with maybe even a Yasaka Mark V.
Maybe something down the line like Stiga Allround Evolution with both sides Yasaka Mark V and then train to generate spin.

I agree with a lot what Carl writes but I would stay clear of T05FX as it's quite tricky to push and chop with unless you have very good touch.