Help needed: How to deal with soft / no spin / minimal spin short ball

hard to tell without seeing a video.do your shot end up in the net ? off the table ?

the general advices are:

- keep the lowest possible posture given your abilities. eye line nearest to the net you see better the spin and trajectory the head should be close to the ball. watch the pros !

- watch carefully the ball when its on your half table

- don't rush to play the ball ! get quickly in position, but ONCE you're in position wait for the ball to nearly be almost in your racket to play it. Make then a short stroke

- the easiest timing is to take the ball just after the top of the bounce with a flick. you may not realize it but most of mistakes at our level is by trying to hit the ball too early while moving ! we have time to play. You don't need at all to play a fast shot with the flick. focus more on the timing and placement (usually middle or down the line, cross court is dangerous unless you really surprise the opponent)

- never play a short ball by extending the arm ! you have no control there

Thanks a million you guys. I know that I can count on you people to give some technical input that on my own I would not be able to think about. I will read some of the suggestion given a few more times to really digest it. Some of the points that stuck to my mind immediately:

1. Don't rush the ball. Take my time to be in good position first. Checked.

2. Push long to force my opponent to return long to initiate my looping game. Checked.

During my coaching session yesterday, I had the opportunity to let my coach watch my game play against a slightly higher level player. These are my coach's comment post game:

1. I am too passive with my serve return. I need to be more aggressive. I am letting the opponent dictate the game tempo instead of otherwise.

2. I am not aggressive or too timid to open up my game early. I lost many opportunity because I am too careful which allows my opponent to dictate the game ( placement and spin variation )

3. He said this is just training, you need not be afraid to lose. Just play my style which he said is suppose to be the aggressive attacking style. I was neither here nor there yesterday.

Thanks for listening to my sharing.

Originally Posted by lodro

maybe your problem comes from the "european set-up"
Just for a laugh, stick a DHS H3 on the BH. These rubbers are exactly made to reply to short nasty game.

Perhaps you wrote this in a jest, wait, I am sure you wrote this in jest.

However, to give a little bit of context here, during my 6th coaching lesson, my coach said to me to stop using Chinese Tacky rubber as my stroke does not support it, or rather this type of rubber does not support my stroke. Initially he told me to get Tenergy but I did not listen to him as I thought he just wanted to sell me the most expensive rubber to make money from me. Instead I bought Donic Bluefire M1 ( Euro ESN rubber ) which is 1/2 price of Tenergy.

NB: At that time I was using H2 on FH and H3 soft on BH.

Yesterday is my fifth month with him ( 20th lesson ) and I said to him, " Hey Coach, what about the Dignics 05? Can I use Dignics 05? " To my surprise he said, no, stick with the Euro rubber as I can see this rubber supports your stroke very well. Dignics may not suit you. " He said I am now able to use the power of the trampoline effect of Euro ( ESN / Tensor ) rubber very well. My ball is fast and catapulty, he added. That is my strength.

Originally Posted by Gozo

Perhaps you wrote this in a jest, wait, I am sure you wrote this in jest.

However, to give a little bit of context here, during my 6th coaching lesson, my coach said to me to stop using Chinese Tacky rubber as my stroke does not support it, or rather this type of rubber does not support my stroke. Initially he told me to get Tenergy but I did not listen to him as I thought he just wanted to sell me the most expensive rubber to make money from me. Instead I bought Donic Bluefire M1 ( Euro ESN rubber ) which is 1/2 price of Tenergy.

NB: At that time I was using H2 on FH and H3 soft on BH.

Yesterday is my fifth month with him ( 20th lesson ) and I said to him, " Hey Coach, what about the Dignics 05? Can I use Dignics 05? " To my surprise he said, no, stick with the Euro rubber as I can see this rubber supports your stroke very well. Dignics may not suit you. " He said I am now able to use the power of the trampoline effect of Euro ( ESN / Tensor ) rubber very well. My ball is fast and catapulty, he added. That is my strength.

I think you should check out Yinhe Big Dipper 38 or 39 deg. It's an "almost" hybrid, but more like Chinese rubbers. Boost it a bit, and it's very nice. It will help you keep your returns shorter, and offers superb spin properties. It's also quite cheap, so why not try it out?

Originally Posted by NDH

Chopping and changing equipment when you've not got the shots nailed down is going to slow progress, and I'd bet it's a big reason why EJ's don't usually progress as quickly as others (again, not all the time, but I see it a lot).

My thoughts exactly

Originally Posted by Gozo

NB: At that time I was using H2 on FH and H3 soft on BH.

Yesterday is my fifth month with him ( 20th lesson ) and I said to him, " Hey Coach, what about the Dignics 05? Can I use Dignics 05? " To my surprise he said, no, stick with the Euro rubber as I can see this rubber supports your stroke very well. Dignics may not suit you. " He said I am now able to use the power of the trampoline effect of Euro ( ESN / Tensor ) rubber very well. My ball is fast and catapulty, he added. That is my strength.

This sounds like an awesome tip. I agree with NDH to just keep one setup for longer time. If you see someone with G1 though in the club, I would suggest persuading that person to give you a try.

Originally Posted by NDH

I wouldn't disagree with your comment here, but I don't think it applies to Gozo in this specific instance.

Above all else (within reason), being consistent as you learn Table Tennis is the most important thing for me.

Consistency in training and equipment would be my two biggest pieces of advice (again, providing the baseline for both of these is within reason in the first place).

Chopping and changing equipment when you've not got the shots nailed down is going to slow progress, and I'd bet it's a big reason why EJ's don't usually progress as quickly as others (again, not all the time, but I see it a lot).

From Gozo's previous videos, switching to a Chinese rubber or Hybrid rubber would be a backwards step.

Right now, he's learning the shots, and probably playing at 70%-80% speed compared to the future, when he'll be fully confident in the shots he's playing.

The Hybrid/Chinese rubbers really need 100% arm speed to get the desired effect.

On the flip side, in this specific thread, a Chinese/Hybrid rubber would be the recommendation (for the slow, controlled, short plays).

But the downside in the rest of the game for Gozo would be huge right now.

Sure. I haven't seen Gozo play. I just mean that going from H2/H3 to Donic Bluefire M1 is big step to take. In my experience, players not satisfied with how their equipment works with their technique often tend to make too big changes at once, and risk getting lost on the way.

If Gozo is used to play these harder Chinese rubbers, but lacks some functions with these, maybe a step in the right way is to change toward ESN-type of rubbers, trying a softer variant like Big Dipper and evaluate what that might do to his game play. I really thing that the short game will improve a lot, and if he has a powerful FH loop, this kind of rubber wouldn't be a problem to use, and it's quite more forgiving than H2/H3.

I just mean. What's the point having a super forehand loop, if you never get the opportunity to use it?

Only my opinion

Originally Posted by mocker88

Sure. I haven't seen Gozo play. I just mean that going from H2/H3 to Donic Bluefire M1 is big step to take. In my experience, players not satisfied with how their equipment works with their technique often tend to make too big changes at once, and risk getting lost on the way.

If Gozo is used to play these harder Chinese rubbers, but lacks some functions with these, maybe a step in the right way is to change toward ESN-type of rubbers, trying a softer variant like Big Dipper and evaluate what that might do to his game play. I really thing that the short game will improve a lot, and if he has a powerful FH loop, this kind of rubber wouldn't be a problem to use, and it's quite more forgiving than H2/H3.

I just mean. What's the point having a super forehand loop, if you never get the opportunity to use it?

Only my opinion

If I remember correctly, gozo has published videos in the safe thread.