Most recent tournament video...be kind...

1. Try to reset with a little hop after every shot
2. Try to spin the ball more instead of trying to hit through, in table tennis you win a point by not an outright winner but by putting the ball on the table one more time than your opponent . This is something we all forget in the excitement of match play.
3. On you backhand opening , the arm an the then force from legs is not co-ordinated, so you need to practice more .
These are somethings I noticed, I would suggest you take the video to your coach and ask him to analyze and plan your practice sessions accordingly. Guys out here will help you too.

Dustin, for 1700, you do quite well, especially on serve. I see many 2000 level players here in Korea fail to serve as well as you do. It is one of your good strengths and accounts for 1/2 your points. You FH can land when you are in position and can get it into action. You know you missed easy points. Big Deal. Dude is 300 points higher rated player and if both are fairly rated, a 300 point higher rated player is supposed to make the lower rated person miss shots.

On BH, you missed a lot of points you coulda/shoulda made. Much of this is from impacting the ball out of zone, reaching too much, leaning back too much, being to tentative and not making a positive stroke, or mis-reading the spin, sometimes simply bad timing.

Don't sweat it too much, a player 300 points higher rated will not give you the easy balls a player your rating or a 100 points lower rated will give you. There is a huge difference in the pushes, passing shots, and light attacking shots of a player thathigher rated. it is entirely natural for that to happen.

Your position after a BH is weird as you lean back too much, take a step back off balance in a bad foot postion for ready. Many of the balls you tried to attack were too far in fron of you. You realized you wanted to attack and had a good chance, but by hte time you realized it, you had too much space to close up in time and you missed nearly every one of those. You need to consider what depth you need to stay vs your opponents. You also tried to block shots from more than 1 meter away. That is about useless as there is too much time for him to make a finish. If you are that far back, just hit through the ball, you will do better. If you are close to the table and block off the bounce, you have time advantage, angles, and decption of direction and spin working for you. When you are better able to control your playing depth, you will have better shot options and more success. Anticipation is also a part of this and will improve as you get more experience.

You have enough tools to defeat this style of player, but you were out of position too much to make it work with any acceptable percentage. Some of that is your defeciencies, and the great majority of that is the difference in class of your opponent. Don't sweat it too much and keep working. When you were decisive and pro-active, you made a lot of nice points.

IMO, you rushed your points too much, trying to hit it too fast or too hard without enough ball height or not giving it enough topspin to force the ball to go down. Nice serves tho, Schlagerish

Hi Dustin, you are getting alot of feedback here which is good as it shows that we are all part of a friendly tt community, however it might seem a bit confusing as everyone is telling you different things haha so you'll obviously have to figure out what is best for your game really.

A factor that I saw that you could improve is taking your time more and not rushing your shots as your muscles actually react faster when they are relaxed! Keep working on your serves, as good to work on your strengths too, maybe get them shorter more consistently as this will definately help you when you play even better players!

Your serves are so good!

On your serves, I think it's good that you have a lot of variety in your serves, but it would do you good to use just a few of them and really master them. I used to be like you, I could serve BH and FH tomahawk and pendulum, heavy underspin/nospin, reverse pendulum, hook serves, etc... and against weaker players I would be winning directly from serve, but against stronger players I struggle to win a point because I'm not used to people receiving my serves correctly, and am confused by my own spin. I have recently chosen just to focus on 3 types of serves, FH pendulum, FH reverse pendulum, and FH pure heavy underspin/no-spin serve and use them all the time, with my FH tomahawk used in critical situations if I want to surprise the opponent. You can really play around with these serves if you study them right (amount of spin, degree of sidespin, fake movements....). Against weaker opponents don't serve that strongly, you can serve just one type of spin and learn to deal with whatever return you get, this would improve your game a lot.

I think your flicks and loops were in general way too hard... that's why you made a lot of mistakes in the game, even Ma Long doesn't powerflick each serve he receives... You can try soft flicks which will have so much more success rate, sometimes table tennis is much more about feeling and control(spin, placement and stability) than hard shots. Also, you should try to have different gears in your loops, not only hard and fast. Sometimes when the opportunity is not good (half-long serves, or when you are not in a good position), just loop a short, low topspin with good placement, rather than try to be Ma Lin powerlooping every loose ball. You have amazing power on both wings, and 60% of your energy is already enough to kill most ppl if your placement is good...

You're kinda like Zhang Jike pre-2010. Plenty of power, good technique, hitting hard all the time (which cost him more points than his opponent). The reason why Zhang Jike improved so much in 2010 was that he started to:

1) Shorten his strokes, focus on recovering, balance, footwork instead
2) Train a lot of "medium-power" strokes or "transition strokes" where he doesn't try to win the point outright but just stays with the opponent and give them a ball that is hard to attack. He correctly identifies the weak balls where he can hit hard easily, and reserves his power for those weak balls.
3) Convert more power into spin which further increases his accuracy and threat of his shots (spin is pretty dangerous for the opponent too).

Hope you get a good tournament!

dustin....you play good...always keep in mind there is no end to learning...at whatsoever level...so keep going. i liked the part where you said you were on your own....i started off by watching youtube as well...but i've been recieving professional advice for the past 3 years...so i'll just point out some mistakes that i did in my early days...table tennis is simple math...the more you keep the ball on the table the more you have the probability to win points...simple...now, it's okay to watch videos...and get inspiration..you can try copy thier serves...and even learn from thier positioning...but never copy thier game.they are absolutely top notch...the international players...and thier accuracy is beyond imagination...i know you want to blast that backhand like ma long does...its easily tempting...but also know...they might look flat strokes but they have incredible amount of spin...generating pace with that much spin and control...can be done by years and years of hard work. i tried copying him and in the process i saw i hit quite a few amazing strokees but mainly i missed...that way, seldom are you going to defeat a higher ranked player...because he's going to win on your misses...so think about your game...learn from the videos...see thier footwork, positioning but not the strokes...the first backhand flick you did on your very first point was perfect...make him play...don't just give away points...hit loops, not hugely strong ones, but medium ones...and try to keep as much as you can on the board...once you are confident...then you yourself will go for pace in your strokes...in table tennis you have to plan your game...hit a spinny loop comback to position...do your counter...place the ball...and then finish...this is hugely difficult...but the more practise you do the more precise you will be...you might lose few easy games..but it will help in the long run.topspin on topspin looks fancy and attractive...but you cannot reach that level in a day...even i'm no where close to it.so i dont even try it. so develop your own game..be stable, and assess your strong points and try work on your weaker ones...everybody here is correct...but having said that, a coach or a pro player as a friend...will always help immensely...even for a couple of days in a week if possible.he'll guide you with the drills....and then then you can do it on your own.i'm sure you already knew a lot of things i said. be confident about your game and have fun !!!

I think you can play a lot better than that buddy. Just too many unforced errors from your part.. If you can reduce that and choose your shots carefully, you'll be a 2000+ player...easy

The only difference between a 2000+ players and sub 2000 players is, they make lesser mistakes...consistency is the key here. That's all. You have the shots Dustinz, just make sure your opponents have to earn their points when they play you.

Okay, here we go.

First off, you are playing really well and you should take that away with you. It is important to know that you are doing a lot of things well. Second, it looks like you have isolated part of your biggest issue in play. Rushing. But rushing is only one part of that issue. The deal is that when you rush you are making too much contact and not spinning the ball anywhere near enough. You need to work on slow spinny openings. And you want to think, MORE SPIN, all the way through your rallies.

Being honest, you could also work on something that Der_Echte has pointed out elsewhere. You need to contact the ball on your serves lower and keep them lower. That being said, good stuff.

Now, I am guessing you know that the guy you are playing is Edmund Suen. He is a great and fun guy. He is an ambassador of the sport in a very real way. Everyone in NYC knows him. He went because he drove Damien there. You said he is a 2000 level player. Not really. Yeah, right now his rating is about 2080 but he is not really serious. He goofs around a lot. His highest rating was 2247 just about a year ago. But when he plays lower level players he has fun, he goofs around, he tries different things. He is not playing seriously against you. I can see it. I know what he plays like.

I am around the same level as you. He does the same thing to me. That is not how he returns serves when he plays players his level. If you watch, he is not trying to spin the ball. He is just being creative and having fun. He never is worried about the score. The other day I was playing doubles against him. He was playing with a woman named Anna who is actually 2000 and I was playing with a friend named Tahir who is about my level: 1700. When Tahir was serving to Edmund he kept doing the same kinds of things, hitting the ball into the net and saying: "Oh, so spinny." or, "So spinny, I can't lift it." Then when Tahir served to Anna, she just ripped the serves every time. It made me laugh. When Tahir was serving to Anna, I was serving to him and he did the same thing.

It is nice that he does stuff like that. He actually is doing things in the match to bring your level up if you watch closely. He is a very good character. When he does things like that, it does help a players confidence and level go up. At the same time, my bet is, if you played other matches, he might have played harder and if he is playing for real, perhaps you got 5 points in the whole match. With one game 11-0. No loss of face there. He should be able to give you zero in a game if he really wants to play his best.

Here is Edmund playing against a 2500 level player:
[Edit: I should have said, the 2500 level player in red is Peng Yin]


Those serves are way lower than yours and my money says they are way spinnier. But notice that Edmund is spinning the ball and has no trouble returning them.

All this said, you are playing great in the video against Edmund and you are doing a lot of things well. Nothing wrong with having your troubles against a player whose real level is really 500 points higher than yours. Peace.

I love to see the guy in red at the next table. I salute him if I ever comes across him!!...

DustinZ said:

HA! That zero game came after a 3 hour drive coupled on top of 12 hours of playing at the tournament and me no longer caring. And then I had to drive 3 hours home. I'm completely okay with it.

Click to expand...

Edmund and Damien came from NYC. My guess, a longer drive.

Also, I decided to look at # of matches. It looks like you played 13. Edmund played 18.

But a player whose real level is 2200 should be able to give a 1700 level player 5 points in a whole match. USATT records for the tournament say it was 0, 4, and 1. Again, nothing wrong with that.

If you look at those two points he plays against Peng Yin (the 2500 level player in red in the video in my post above), you can tell he is not playing for real against you. But it is great that a guy like Edmund can play in a way where you can up your game as well. And it is great that he is able to record the match and upload it so you can see it. He has a top notch camera as well. And he has a lot of good videos of NYC Table Tennis.

FYI, Here is a video of Edmund Suen playing against "Kevin" Can Wang. Can is a 2500 rated player.


You can tell that Can is goofing around and having fun. You can also tell that Edmund is a pretty decent player, and once again, he is not having trouble with the serves of a 2500 level player because he is spinning the ball. Can's backhand around the net, edge shot at 1:30 is a fun and cool shot though.

Again, I think the main information for Dustin's game to improve though is, SPIN EVERYTHING. Take your time, loop your opening attacks instead of smacking them. Don't make so much contact. Instead go for a ton of spin. As your level gets higher, you want to spin the ball more and more. Spin = power. Smack = speed. In the end you want both but you have to learn to spin the ball first and get it on the table very consistently. Then you learn to rip the ball with spin and speed.