Sweet spot

Well, it’s internal and sometimes a bit tricky to locate. Once you do and stimulate it in a fashion according to personal preference, great pleasure can be delivered. It is known.

If you hit more in the center of the blade face, the contact feels better. If you are off a little and hit more towards one of the edges of the blade, the shot will not feel quite as good. This is particularly the case on harder shots.

Part of why it this happens is that, when you hit nearer to the edges of the blade, you get more of the kind of vibration you would not want to feel on a TT shot. With carbon blades, carbon masks vibrations so, often, people say carbon blades have a larger sweet spot. From the standpoint of developing technique, I am not so sure you would want that. This is equivalent to saying, you can mess up and use worse technique and poor contact and get away with it.

So, for a developing player, a blade that will mask mistakes in contact and technique will make it take longer for the player to improve the quality of their contact. For a high level player, they already have good enough technique for this not to effect their future development.

I think, originally, the idea came from tennis rackets. With a racket with strings, it is clear that, in the center, the strings will give the most rebound. Off center, you will get less rebound and more unwanted vibrations. It is not as noticeable in a TT racket. But it is still similar. And you can feel it. Closer to the center, the contact will feel more solid. Closer to the edges, contact will feel weaker and create unwanted vibrations. Wood vibrates less than the strings and material of the frame of a tennis racket. But wood still vibrates. And hitting off center, the wood will flex and vibrate significantly more.

That is at least when Sweet Spot refers to in racket sports. Where the ball contact feels the best.

Tennis racket flex and wobble:


Some flex and wobble is okay. It happens on every shot whether with a TT Blade or a Tennis Racket. But when you hit off center, there is more flex and wobble than you want. When that happens, the ball does not go as fast, you do not get as much spin, and in your hand, those vibrations feel bad. Whereas, when you hit closer to the center, where the center of gravity is and where the blade is more solid (for a TT Racket), you feel the vibrations you want without the excessive vibrations you don't want. And it feels like, "Ah, that was nice shot, that felt gooooooood."

It sounds like sweet spot is being used to mean both a) how the contact feels to you b) affect on ball quality of speed and spin.

If composite blades improve a but not b, then they could hinder development. Making bad shots feel.good is def not an unmixed blessing.

If composites improve both a and b then everybody should probably be using one. Except what feels sweet to one player is not the same for everybody.

Brs said:

It sounds like sweet spot is being used to mean both a) how the contact feels to you b) affect on ball quality of speed and spin.

If composite blades improve a but not b, then they could hinder development. Making bad shots feel.good is def not an unmixed blessing.

If composites improve both a and b then everybody should probably be using one. Except what feels sweet to one player is not the same for everybody.

Click to expand...

You do have a point. It does make a shot with poor technique feel better. But it also allows you to get away with poorer contact without the shot suffering noticeably. The key word there is "noticeably." However, those fine distinctions, it not being noticeable to the player that the shot is not as good will not change the fact that with more precise contact you will get more spin and pace on the ball.

If your technique is well developed enough, it does not matter because you already have developed that subtle touch and feel for the ball; how to contact thin, how to contact deeper without bottoming out, when to let the ball engage all the way to the wood.....etc.

If you are lower level and don't realize your shot quality will improve with better contact, then, it will limit development. The composite layer, and the blade masking suboptimal contact won't cause you to feel or realize that, with more precise technique the ball would have gone faster and you would have generated more spin. Because the shot will feel fine. And the result will be good enough.

But it won't be anywhere near as good as it could be. Or, we may all have the shot quality of Ma Long if we just used a composite blade.

Will a player improve those details of precision if they only use a composite blade. It does depend. For someone under 14, it actually might not make a difference. For someone who has a real talent and experience in related racket sports, it also may not make much difference. But someone more on the beginner to low intermediate level it is much more possible to learn the precision of how you touch the ball on contact with a blade that helps you feel the difference in different kinds of contact.

In golf, the sweet spot corresponds to the center of mass. Hitting the sweet spot means that the ball will have more acceleration because the direction of travel and the center of mass of the club face are aligned with the center of mass of the ball. Not hitting the sweet spot causes harsh vibrations and actually will rotate the club face and cause your shot to go off line. I know a table tennis ball has much less mass than a golf ball, but on a flexible blade, I’ve felt the blade open up on a smash and the ball goes off the table.

BauerPower said:

In golf, the sweet spot corresponds to the center of mass. Hitting the sweet spot means that the ball will have more acceleration because the direction of travel and the center of mass of the club face are aligned with the center of mass of the ball. Not hitting the sweet spot causes harsh vibrations and actually will rotate the club face and cause your shot to go off line. I know a table tennis ball has much less mass than a golf ball, but on a flexible blade, I’ve felt the blade open up on a smash and the ball goes off the table.

Click to expand...

Yep. That is a good way to explain it.

Tru bouncing the ball on the bare blade. The moment it changes sound from the center to the edge, that is where your sweetspot ends.

Interesting discussion. How does this relate to coaches advice about contacting the ball with the fastest moving part of the blade, wouldn't that be outside the sweet spot?

KMTT said:

Interesting discussion. How does this relate to coaches advice about contacting the ball with the fastest moving part of the blade, wouldn't that be outside the sweet spot?

Click to expand...

Yes that would be on the tip of the blade and that's outside the blade. But at least my coach suggested to do so only on the golden ball, a ball that's hard to miss.