Video of my game

Two things I immediately notice is that you always receive serve expecting the ball on your backhand and if you ignore your top half and just watch your feet for the whole video you will notice they need to move a lot more. You have some nice shots though, nice to see your video up here hope we can get an update later to see some more improvements

Hi Mate,

On your backhand - your wrist is in a locked position (Sometimes) ,Meaning you are playing upwards/not getting topspin?

A Backhand 99% of the Time depends on a Flexible Wrist

I don't know is it the way your opponent plays or what, but you only push for a few times during the whole match and screw up like 50% those few pushes.
So the only time you use backspin is when your serving. An offensive player has to master backspin too to be good.

A relaxed backhand will help

Relax, and more relax when playing the game.

However, it looks like when you hit with your Backhand, your arm tends to be more further than your body. However, since I'm using penhold, therefore I can't really comment on this part.

The footwork need some work on it. Try to bend down a little more, especially when receiving the serve.

Biggest thing I noticed is actually for the both of you. I don't think I saw one short serve in the whole video, and this is key to getting better. If you play higher level players they can just wait that extra little second and open the point wherever they want. Your strokes look pretty decent but they would benefit more from some strategy as far as third ball drills so you can learn how to set yourself up and take control of the point. I think just take a little time to focus on serve strategy and placement and you'll see your game improve.

And the guy with the pips gave up in the fourth game! Rushed every ball trying to attack! If you use pips use patience too!

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It's cool you posted your training vid to the forum for advice. I agree that you need to keep low as you are tall (like me), you have pretty good technique but you lack good footwork and anticipation. You can play strong shots when your body is well placed to meet the ball - I try multi-ball to improve my footwork. A box of 100 balls is £20 (stiga club select). Get your partner to feed variations in length and direction, e.g 2 x BH, 1 X middle, 1 x wide FH etc. Try returning to a neutral ready position between your shots to help your anticipation, stay low, bend your knees and lean forward. Push away from left to right foot- watch Xu Xin's feet in the stiga training clips, he shuffles, ankles are loose. Be strong be positive.. you will improve!

exept from what everyone else said you forehand can have to much follow thru at times and can lose time to recover

Relax is definitely the key word. The trick is to build the acceleration up over the length of your stroke. It's called 'stored acceleration' as opposed to loosening up then trying to hit the ball hard on contact or stiffening up completely.

kiwiNCFC said:

I played last night (forgot to video it) and i was doing a pendulum side spin serve and i was trying to get it short but i could never get it short enough. What part of the bat is the best place to brush it for that serve?

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There are a few factors of it. But first, try to hit the ball at close to the left or right edge of your paddle. And second will be try on small motion of swing first, instead of big motion. Then third probably try to adjust the height of ball and paddle at which the point you hit the ball.

serve is too high if it was me i would have smashed u all around improve ur serve keep it low nd use differerent variations slow up the serve keep it short sometimes deep

chughtai said:

serve is too high if it was me i would have smashed u all around improve ur serve keep it low nd use differerent variations slow up the serve keep it short sometimes deep

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Yep. That is what I was thinking. Those serves, from both players are too high, too long and too predictable. It does not seem like there is any deception. You always know where the serve is going to go, and it is high. Against a good player, all of those serves would get put away. I think the two players are focused on trying to get spin on the ball and not on control. You need both. If you get the ball really short and it has no spin, it will be a better serve than any of those. If you get it short and learn to vary the spin--heavy, light, underspin, topspin, sidespins--it will help.

It is also interesting that, when you are receiving serve, kiwiNCFC, you are standing pretty much in the middle of the table, and you are turned to your backhand, and you are setting your paddle for your backhand. You should watch how the top players receive serve and imitate them. Usually they start way on the backhand side of the table. They start facing open for a forhand, right foot farther back than the left foot and the body turned a little towards the right. They keep the paddle lower than the table, so the opponent cannot see what they are looking for. They bend their knees so much before receiving serve that their eyes are about the hight of the net. You can see the table better from there. And if they are thinking backhand they move into position for it in the middle of the serve motion as the player is contacting the ball. But they do not show that to their opponent.

A good player, serving to someone standing in the middle of the table with the blade high and everything in body motion and paddle saying "give it to my backhand" would serve you deep to the backhand where you could not possibly reach it, and then if you moved over to the backhand side and were still turned to your backhand they would serve you deep to your forehand where you could not possibly reach it. You are lucky your playing partner is telegraphing where he is serving to so you know pretty much where the ball is going.

Another thing I notice with the serves, this is also something you are both doing, you are trying to spin the ball a lot by the pace of your racket and you are making a lot of contact. That is actually not how you get a lot of spin on the serve. You want to make a different kind of contact. Unless you are serving long to surprise your opponent and want pace without too much spin, you should use what is called brush contact. I don't think the term describes it right. You want to catch the edge of the ball, let the ball sink in to the rubber a little, which means that on contact the blade should not be moving too fast, and then you want to snap your wrist and accelerate the speed of your blade after the tiniest part of the edge of the ball sinks in to the rubber. It is similar to how you would want to make contact for a touch loop against heavy underspin. You are contacting the whole ball directly the way a person playing baseball or tennis would hit directly into the ball. For heavy spin you want to just contact the edge of the ball.

Now, all that being said, your strokes are good, your technique is good, you are doing a lot of things well. Most of the things that need improvement that I am talking about really just have to do with playing with a lot of higher level players. And of course, everybody needs work on things like footwork and serve and receive drills.

For serving short again focus on what you are doing. Your first bounce should land somewhere on the half of the table closest to the net. Let your rubber do the work not the blade this will help you in your touch. Like someone above said you shouldn't go for max spin because it just ends up long and loopable. I used to do the same thing as you when I wa serving, everything long and loaded to the moon with spin, or so I thought haha. Now I've been using a lot more deceptive short serves and its quite a difference when you can almost guarantee a push from your opponent and really get into it on third ball attack.

I'm going to refer to Wang Liqin videos for 2 reason. Firstly, he's tall, secondly, he's my favourite player. heheheh


FOREHAND
1. Bend your knees.
2. Watch the ball. You tend to look across the table too quickly.
3. Bat close (FH rubber facing downwards, and finishing forward). If you don't mind me saying, your's finish upwards with your body leaning backwards (esp spinning against chop). Resulting the ball to go long, and you not going to get pace on the ball and also consistency.
4. Look at how relax Wang Liqin is. The moment of impact is when he stiffen up his grip and wrist. Not before and after.