Is this a backhand top or flat hit?

Y agree with most of you, thanks for your replies... can you believe that here, at Argentina, most players would call it "flat"?

I think that this has to do with the fact that in our country the era of the celluloid ball and European-type techniques has been very marked, along with its materials, which are generally made of soft rubber (with a soft rubber, perhaps my ball would not have entered into table). With hard and sticky rubbers the technique is different from what is done with soft rubbers without stickiness.

Here, screen shots:1) Before contact the racket is vertical (not closed at all).2) In the followthrough, the racket is completely vertical as well:3) This last photo is hard to sort out without watching the actual video in slow motion. Your slow motion version, the quality is not good enough. I watched the regular speed video on the slowest speed YouTube allows (0.25x speed or quarter speed). I will explain the last photo under the photo:The white line near your wrist that is parallel to the ground is the path of the ball and racket as the racket is vertical. So, you contact the back of the ball and during contact the racket is going almost straight forward, almost parallel to the ground. The shot probably has some topspin.....but it probably does not have a lot of topspin.


You drive directly into the ball. The racket goes from below the table till it is behind the ball and then the racket goes mostly forward and up only a little from the point where the racket is behind the ball. But this ball is fairly high. So, it seems to me, the right shot to make on that ball.


So, it makes no difference. It is a nice shot.


One way to test that would be to hit a shot like that directly at your friend's racket and have him block the shot with his racket closed only slightly. If the ball has real topspin and his racket is not very closed, the ball will go up several feet and pass over the net 2-4 feet higher than the net, maybe even higher than that if the ball really has good topspin on it. If it has mild topspin it will go more forward than up, but it will go up a little. With the racket very mildly closed (pointing a little down), if the ball goes straight forward or forward and down, it would have very little topspin.


One thing to note: shot like that may be harder to handle for an opponent if it does not have a lot of spin because you are likely to have someone return the ball into the net when they attack that or block it as if it was heavy topspin. So, it would be almost like a shot from a Short Pips player where the ball has pace but feels empty which means you have to spin it back with heavy heavy spin or you will make an error on the return.

Originally Posted by Dominikk85

I think topspin. Why are you doing the abbreviated finish? Is that kinda a fake move to confuse the opponent?

thank you for your appreciation: over time I have gotten into the habit of shortening the strokes... it also happens to me with the drive top... I try to give it a lot of explosion but then I don't continue it... once the blade makes contact with the ball I don't continue the path of the arm... especially thinking that if the opponent blocks and returns the ball quickly, I have to be prepared. My goal is spin, relaxation and explosion: I don't always achieve it.

Another thing to look at is the arc or trajectory of the ball:

Screen shot 1)



Screen shot 2)



Screen shot 3)



The white line that shows the trajectory of the ball is harder to see in the last photo. But if you piece them all together, it is a pretty straight line from the contact of the ball to where it bounces. If it was heavy topspin, there would be a more visible dip towards the table somewhere in the path of the ball.

Still, the best way to really tell would be to see what happens if your training partner blocks it. And if it goes way up, you would know it had pretty decent topspin. And returning a backspin ball that is as high as that, I think that is the shot you want regardless of whether you are spinning the ball or not.

One more way you can tell: listen to the sound of the contact. The ball definitely bangs into the wood. That is a wood sound not a rubber sound or a corking sound. If you hear that, it is drive or smash contact, not spin contact. The sound would not be that sharp or high pitched if it was spin contact.

Originally Posted by UpSideDownCarl

Here, screen shots:1) Before contact the racket is vertical (not closed at all).2) In the followthrough, the racket is completely vertical as well:3) This last photo is hard to sort out without watching the actual video in slow motion. Your slow motion version, the quality is not good enough. I watched the regular speed video on the slowest speed YouTube allows (0.25x speed or quarter speed). I will explain the last photo under the photo:The white line near your wrist that is parallel to the ground is the path of the ball and racket as the racket is vertical. So, you contact the back of the ball and during contact the racket is going almost straight forward, almost parallel to the ground. The shot probably has some topspin.....but it probably does not have a lot of topspin.


You drive directly into the ball. The racket goes from below the table till it is behind the ball and then the racket goes mostly forward and up only a little from the point where the racket is behind the ball. But this ball is fairly high. So, it seems to me, the right shot to make on that ball.


So, it makes no difference. It is a nice shot.


One way to test that would be to hit a shot like that directly at your friend's racket and have him block the shot with his racket closed only slightly. If the ball has real topspin and his racket is not very closed, the ball will go up several feet and pass over the net 2-4 feet higher than the net, maybe even higher than that if the ball really has good topspin on it. If it has mild topspin it will go more forward than up, but it will go up a little. With the racket very mildly closed (pointing a little down), if the ball goes straight forward or forward and down, it would have very little topspin.


One thing to note: shot like that may be harder to handle for an opponent if it does not have a lot of spin because you are likely to have someone return the ball into the net when they attack that or block it as if it was heavy topspin. So, it would be almost like a shot from a Short Pips player where the ball has pace but feels empty which means you have to spin it back with heavy heavy spin or you will make an error on the return.

Carl is taking this into professional levels. Career habits perhaps?

2) In the followthrough, the racket is completely vertical as well:

There are some frames missing there... if you had them, you will see the truth.

"The white line near the wrist that is parallel to the ground is the path of the ball and racket, since the racket is vertical. So it touches the back of the ball, and during contact the racket moves forward." almost in a straight line, almost parallel to the ground."

In truth, the video prevents you from seeing the friction of the rubber against the ball and the angle of the racket at that moment, because it is filmed in 30fps... if it were 120 fps you would see it very clearly... but this technical limitation prevents us from everyone can see that there is no shock from back to front, but rather from bottom to top: that is why the ball has a top effect.


"The shot will probably have some topspin...but probably not much topspin."

It has a lot and it shows in the subsequent bounce of the ball on the table: it rises, accelerating.

"You hit straight at the ball. The racket goes from under the table until it's behind the ball and then the racket goes mostly forward."

skimming the ball, crashing but giving it top spin.


"and just a little bit up from the point where the racket is behind the ball, but this ball is quite high."

After watching this other video, do you still think the same?

Originally Posted by Marcos Guglielmetti

After watching this other video, do you still think the same?

Show us footage of your friend blocking the shot. It will be easy to see how much spin is on the ball. To me that looks and sounds like you smack into the ball. It is a good shot. But I am not sure there is a lot of spin. I could be wrong. But your racket meets the back of the ball while your racket is completely vertical. And watching your blue video with the ruler over you contact, it still looks to me like the racket goes straight forward once you are behind the ball when I watch it on 0.25x speed....at least to me. And that ball is not a ball with a lot of arc on it. I do like the blue light effect though.

It does not matter to me. I was just showing what I saw from close observation.

In this video of yours, you get to see when it hits the net, and when someone blocks the shot:
Our definitions may be different. That first BH shot that hits the net, it has some topspin....but not that much which is why it bounces slowly back to the net. If it had a lot of spin, it would have gone back to the net much faster. Then the second BH shot that hits the net and bounces in, your friend has no trouble with the spin when he lobs it back. If that had a lot of topspin and he tried to lob it, the ball would have flown off his racket.

But again, you are making good shots. But I don't see a lot of spin on any of them. Not on your serves either.

Your friend who is older, there are a few shots he makes that have nice spin. Listen to the sound of his racket when he makes heavier spin.

Hi, thanks again for your words, Carl

"But I am not sure there is a lot of spin. I could be wrong. But your racket meets the back of the ball while your racket is completely vertical"

That's the frame we are missing...

in a frame that you have published, "2) In the followthrough, the racket is completely vertical as well:" the racket is seen in that attitude but it is not the one it had when hitting the ball... that completion is due to inertia and to the fact that I cut off the movement that the arm carried... then the wrist rotates (due to inertia and the weight of the paddle) at the end and the paddle remains like this... but at the moment of contact, which is not appreciated clearly because of the 30fps, I'm brushing/stroking the ball as well as bumping, and the angle of the paddle draws more diagonally, say maybe 60º, not 90º, maybe not 45º either, although that could be the angle of impact with the ball .

My purpose in making this type of shot is to give it the necessary spin so that, traveling as fast as possible, it enters the table: I do not intend to exaggerate the spin, just enough so that it does not go outside. It has to rotate and the hard sticky rubbers help in this if you hit it very hard.

On the other hand: I hit the ball from overpitch, pay attention that it is below the strap of the net, not above it. If it were a flat hit, it would go out.

Hi Carl: I think you were missing this frame, when I hit the ball I am not only strocking it/crashing... I am brushing it at the same time... that is why the ball go a bit upwards (contact point is a bit lower than the net) and then it goes down due to the topspin effect...