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Quick background: Mid-40s guy in good shape for my age; used to play competitively in high school; self-taught (no coach when I was young); Left handed, Shakehand grip, Regular inverted rubber, Current USATT Rating 1459
Like many, I caught the fever again in middle-age and returned to table tennis after 20+ years. Two months ago, I joined a club in my area (where I play twice a week). My muscle memory is starting to come back nicely, and I should be much more consistent in another 2 months with 6-7 hours of play per week. In club play, I usually beat 1400 level players. I've also played two USATT sanctioned tournaments. In my last tournament, I beat a 1700 and a 1560 rated player, and I currently have around a ~1500 rating. My goal is to play 4 more tournaments this year and get to 1700 by the end of the year, and to hit 2000 rating in late-2022 or 2023.
My style: I joke that my game is like Steffi Graf's -- I play close to the table, have an excellent service game for my rating that gives even 2000-level players issues sometimes, have a strong forehand loop with sidespin that I use any chance that I get, and my backhand side is primarily used for slicing or blocking. I'm also left-handed, which is something that troubles the right-handed majority.
The game has changed quite a bit since I used to play tournaments as captain of my high school team more than twenty years ago. Here are some of my thoughts based on my experience over the last two months, and I would to get your feedback on whether you generally agree or have a different view. I feel that by playing a little differently from the norm, I've been able to win against higher rated payers who are unfamiliar with my style.
- Short Chops: I've found that many players (under 1700) aren't very comfortable with playing shorter, heavy chops (heavy backspin). Once they loop these a couple of times into the net, they generally abandon the loop and enter the pushing game. That has allowed me to use my more consistent backhand chop and my forehand loop to win games. At my level, the player who makes less mistakes generally wins, and the chops help me there as well. Of course, my ceiling may be limited when I play higher-caliber players.
- Backhand serve: Rarely do I see people use backhand serves anymore at any level. I use backhand serves a lot (sidespin, underspin, no-spin) since the receives tend to land nicely on my forehand side, setting up a strong FH loop or smash. Also, my fast crosscourt topspin BH serve, which I generally use once per game, has also worked surprisingly well at crucial moments for cheap points, with a number of aces or off-table returns. Why have backhand serves generally fallen out of favor?
- Serving from the center of the table: Another serve that has worked surprisingly well for me at important moments is when I stand at the center of the table and serve a simple sidespin + topspin serve to the center of my opponent's side. Most of the time, they get confused on whether to use their backhand or forehand, and so the return pops off the table. Why don't people generally seem to serve from the middle of the table now, at least occasionally, to get cheap points?
- General serve game: I spent hundreds/thousands of hours on my serve as a teenager because it was so much fun to learn new serves and I would win a lot of cheap points outright or with my third ball attack. I'm happy to find that my service variety, deception, and placement still give higher ranked opponents trouble. Yet in my last two tournaments I played 1800+ ranked players and generally found their serves to be rather pedestrian. Do these guys just focus a lot more on loops and counterloops rather than serves?
- BH receive: The BH banana receive has really taken off with younger, higher level 2000+ players, and they are super-comfortable to just step over to their forehand side for these receives. Could someone tell me the biggest advantages of this receive? I have no experience or muscle memory with this and am wondering if it is worth the investment in time. Would I be better off continuing to generally push or chop back returns and focus on improving my relatively weak BH loop?
- Flat hits/smash: I used to be an excellent flat hitter in the past and would use my smash for third ball attacks or on loops, even those that were low to medium in height. I feel like this could be a weapon for me because very few people outright smash anymore unless the ball is very high. Unfortunately, this has been one of the slowest aspects of my game to return, probably because I'm a lot older, and so my movement and reflexes aren't as good. Still, I'm optimistic that my smash will come back if I spend more time on them. Do you think it's worth the investment?
Thank you for patiently reading through this. Would love any feedback, and also any suggestions on how I can improve my odds of reaching a 2000 rating. I don't have any videos yet, but will send a video of my next tournament in September. I used to play 4-5 hours a *day* between the age of 12-18 (I was obsessed), and now I can only probably put in 4-5 hours a week at the club and maybe another 2-3 hours on my robot, so I'm trying to optimize my time investment
- Andy
Like many, I caught the fever again in middle-age and returned to table tennis after 20+ years. Two months ago, I joined a club in my area (where I play twice a week). My muscle memory is starting to come back nicely, and I should be much more consistent in another 2 months with 6-7 hours of play per week. In club play, I usually beat 1400 level players. I've also played two USATT sanctioned tournaments. In my last tournament, I beat a 1700 and a 1560 rated player, and I currently have around a ~1500 rating. My goal is to play 4 more tournaments this year and get to 1700 by the end of the year, and to hit 2000 rating in late-2022 or 2023.
My style: I joke that my game is like Steffi Graf's -- I play close to the table, have an excellent service game for my rating that gives even 2000-level players issues sometimes, have a strong forehand loop with sidespin that I use any chance that I get, and my backhand side is primarily used for slicing or blocking. I'm also left-handed, which is something that troubles the right-handed majority.
The game has changed quite a bit since I used to play tournaments as captain of my high school team more than twenty years ago. Here are some of my thoughts based on my experience over the last two months, and I would to get your feedback on whether you generally agree or have a different view. I feel that by playing a little differently from the norm, I've been able to win against higher rated payers who are unfamiliar with my style.
- Short Chops: I've found that many players (under 1700) aren't very comfortable with playing shorter, heavy chops (heavy backspin). Once they loop these a couple of times into the net, they generally abandon the loop and enter the pushing game. That has allowed me to use my more consistent backhand chop and my forehand loop to win games. At my level, the player who makes less mistakes generally wins, and the chops help me there as well. Of course, my ceiling may be limited when I play higher-caliber players.
- Backhand serve: Rarely do I see people use backhand serves anymore at any level. I use backhand serves a lot (sidespin, underspin, no-spin) since the receives tend to land nicely on my forehand side, setting up a strong FH loop or smash. Also, my fast crosscourt topspin BH serve, which I generally use once per game, has also worked surprisingly well at crucial moments for cheap points, with a number of aces or off-table returns. Why have backhand serves generally fallen out of favor?
- Serving from the center of the table: Another serve that has worked surprisingly well for me at important moments is when I stand at the center of the table and serve a simple sidespin + topspin serve to the center of my opponent's side. Most of the time, they get confused on whether to use their backhand or forehand, and so the return pops off the table. Why don't people generally seem to serve from the middle of the table now, at least occasionally, to get cheap points?
- General serve game: I spent hundreds/thousands of hours on my serve as a teenager because it was so much fun to learn new serves and I would win a lot of cheap points outright or with my third ball attack. I'm happy to find that my service variety, deception, and placement still give higher ranked opponents trouble. Yet in my last two tournaments I played 1800+ ranked players and generally found their serves to be rather pedestrian. Do these guys just focus a lot more on loops and counterloops rather than serves?
- BH receive: The BH banana receive has really taken off with younger, higher level 2000+ players, and they are super-comfortable to just step over to their forehand side for these receives. Could someone tell me the biggest advantages of this receive? I have no experience or muscle memory with this and am wondering if it is worth the investment in time. Would I be better off continuing to generally push or chop back returns and focus on improving my relatively weak BH loop?
- Flat hits/smash: I used to be an excellent flat hitter in the past and would use my smash for third ball attacks or on loops, even those that were low to medium in height. I feel like this could be a weapon for me because very few people outright smash anymore unless the ball is very high. Unfortunately, this has been one of the slowest aspects of my game to return, probably because I'm a lot older, and so my movement and reflexes aren't as good. Still, I'm optimistic that my smash will come back if I spend more time on them. Do you think it's worth the investment?
Thank you for patiently reading through this. Would love any feedback, and also any suggestions on how I can improve my odds of reaching a 2000 rating. I don't have any videos yet, but will send a video of my next tournament in September. I used to play 4-5 hours a *day* between the age of 12-18 (I was obsessed), and now I can only probably put in 4-5 hours a week at the club and maybe another 2-3 hours on my robot, so I'm trying to optimize my time investment
- Andy