playing with short pips

CLV said:

The only thing I don't really know: is it worth it to try this style of playing. I'll need to invest a considerable amount of time to learn this and get to the level I'm playing at with inverted. But will it take me further in the long run. There is no way of knowing. How did other short pip players approach this?

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You really won’t know if it’s going to help you in the long run unless you give it a good try, but even if you ultimately return to inverted, I don’t think it will have been a waste of time. That was my personal experience.

I like to play very aggressively, am a flat hitter, and am comfortable playing close to the table. As a result, different ones kept telling me I should go to short pips. So to find out for myself, I played short pips exclusively (training, club & tournaments) for 6 months to give it a good try, but ultimately returned to inverted this past year.

Being a flat hitter that likes to play close to the table, the transition to short pips was very easy. I found everything with short pips to be positive, with one major exception: I never found a short pips rubber that had anywhere near the same speed as my inverted, and I tried all the most popular ones in the market.

To be honest, I have personally found that the playing characteristics of the inverted I use is very close to short pips, with the advantage of the speed I want and need for my game style. So for me there weren’t any advantages to staying with the short pips.

I don’t believe it was 6 months wasted as I now know for a certainty that at this time, SP’s are not for me. Also anything you try (short, long pips...) will help you play against opponents that use them.

I think many people start to use pimples for the wrong reasons. At least in my opinion. I think you should start to use pimples to make a strength better or if you have a natural tenedency that favors pimple technique.

So in you case short pips would hav been a obvious choice if you have a natural flat hit. If you need to change very much and adjust it is probably not as good to change to pimples but give it a go.

Short pips is easier because not sensitive to spin but much harder because you need to do the correct stroke all the time. With inverted you can come wrong and still do an okay stroke. So it takes time. Think you need at least a couple of months to see if it is working and some years to be good at it.