Tactics against an anti spin player

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We have a player in our club who uses anti and twiddles fast as hell. She only uses the anti to block which results in some funky dead ball returns. It’s impossible to use a tactic which involves serving to a certain side as she twiddles so fast. Maybe not really on topic but I just wanted to say that there’re quite a few different ways to use anti.

I’ve played quite a lot against other anti players who mainly chop and they’re quite easy to beat as long as you don’t feed them with spin (unless you’re really into doing some heavy duty looping).
 
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How did it go for the guy? any updates? I agree that is proably good if you have played against anti so you know what is happening to the ball. I have almost never played against an anti player, so i would have to figure it out as the game goes on but i think one tactic would be to play alot against the inverted rubber instead. Maybe this is difficult if the opponent have a great forehand. If they do not have a good forehand, they proably will use the anti in the forehand corner aswell. Then the tactics will change to playing alot in the corners so it will be hard for the anti player to use the anti over the whole table.
 
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Hi Rahul, Carl was right when he mentioned about twiddling.. Experience players do a lot of twiddling, so be on your toes all the time. And since I used anti when I started playing in the 80's, I would also like to highlight that they also love to flick the short balls, especially the ones about net high of higher. So, as Wiwa and Moriguchi said, attack whenever you can...and just lift the ball if you think it's coming back with a heavy backspin, and start again. Good luck buddy.

Azlan… oh Azlan...
 
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Hi Rahul, Carl was right when he mentioned about twiddling.. Experience players do a lot of twiddling, so be on your toes all the time. And since I used anti when I started playing in the 80's, I would also like to highlight that they also love to flick the short balls, especially the ones about net high of higher. So, as Wiwa and Moriguchi said, attack whenever you can...and just lift the ball if you think it's coming back with a heavy backspin, and start again. Good luck buddy.

As I understand it anti spin rubbers typically don't reverse spin they simply cancel or lower the amount producing varying dead balls. I have some students of Danny Seemiller at my local clubs and they always explain it as the ball simply being caught and lowering the angle of the shot. Producing dead balls to them can force a lot of errors when they use the anti because the ball won't have any momentum to rebound across the net.

I'm not too sure about what anti does, but I just attack their backhands and then drop short. I haven't really met many anti players that were "high" level players. My thoughts are that you really have to understand your own game when playing deceptive players. If you know what you give to your opponent then you can calculate the likelihood that they will return with the opposite (LP), similar (inverted), or dead (anti/sp).

Oh, Richard would just be dying to meet ttd member erm's uncle... he is maybe .5 to 1 level higher rated, but might wipe our Richard and force him to eat a few pages like in the Fists of Fury movie...
 
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I was asked this today by one of the beginner level players in the club..

So, I'm sorry for being judgemental, I have a lot of respect for the pros commenting here, but from my experience many tips given here are useless for the players that actually need those tips.
There is a reason it's AMATEUR leagues are that are often dominated by pimple/anti players, and you need to help THESE guys. Nobody that can accurately vary their spin/hit ratio is asking these questions. It's the amateurs getting wrecked by shit they don't understand.

For example one tip is to do a 'baloon' topspin and then another one except this time against the super-heavy backspin they receive etc. What point is there in telling a beginner this?

There are also many suggestions to use no-spin long shots and serves, but this is also not good, because the anti-spin will return slight backspin to those shots too and sometimes short too if it's a dampening sponge, which is very awkward and difficult if you don't know wtf is going on. The most common mistake for beginners against antispin is driving the ball into the net, and these kinda tips will help them do that more.




So here are some tips that I think will help you if you're an actual beginner and are struggling:

1) Try using a short serve. Little underspin or no spin is good. As weak and short as you can get it. These are difficult to return properly with the anti-spin because you have to get under the ball, where the effect of the anti-spin works against the player trying to return the short serve. They can never give you a quality return with the anti-spin, but since they are also beginners they will usually use the antispin to answer all serves if possible.
This can cause them a lot of serve return errors and high/easy balls, or at least cause them to use the forehand, in which case you're avoided the anti-spin confusion.

2) AVOID! Just play everything to the forehand. Serves too.
In beginner levels, anti players tend to grow extremely dependent on their anti to return serves and difficult shots. So much so that more often than not they'll move to the forehand side of the table just to use the anti.
This doesn't mean you win the point, but you certainly have greater chances of winning if the player is no longer covering the backhand side of the table effectively.

Also, anti players tend to have very bizzare forehand shots. I dunno why this is, just an observation from years at the club. Not necessarily a bad shot. It's often incredibly spinny because they tend to use very soft blades, but still. More prone to error, which may probably increase your chances of getting a point.

3) Your topspins and also your non topspin, including your no-spin serves; whatever you do except for pushes, there's gonna be some degree of backspin on the ball you get back, because even your basic drives have a bit of topspin on them, including topspin generated by friction when the ball hits the table, and the anti-spin rubber will reverse that.

So simply remember that most of your shots are going to be returned with backspin.
So don't drive any ball you get back from the anti-spin rubber. Or at least not until you're sure you can read the ball properly and know there's no spin on it.

4) Long pushes to the backhand are very difficult for amateur players with antispin. With fast shots they can generally just put the racket there and absorb the ball with their speed-dampening effect and you'll be left with a ball that's very difficult for you to return (possibly a fast underspin ball etc). But with pushes it is more difficult for the antispin players to read the actual speed on the ball, so they will make more mistakes trying to return that.

5) Wait longer before hitting the ball, if possible.
This is in general is a good idea, but especially against anti-spin. The spin on their return is often greatly diminished since it's just your spin back, and air resistance and table friction saps away much of the spin by the time the ball gets back to you.
So the more you wait, the less spin there will be on the ball.
If all your drives are going into the net, you can either 'never drive the ball', or try waiting a bit longer. The spin may dissipate completely in many cases (if there wasn't a lot of spin in your shot that was returned by the anti).


Uhm.

So...
There ya go.
Dude from 2011. And dude from my club.

Some certain members might say this post is arrogant or condescending... I would say lightzy did a good focus to kept the advice relevant for who is asking and their level/abilities.

Even the most widely accepted advice - use controlled loops... means you need to do several in a row vs spins/placement/depth player is unsure about...

I don't see even half the 2000 USATT crowd able to do that consistently vs an anti player even one level below them.

What is important to catch onto some concepts and easily visualize them. It is how adults work best.

Out of the 5 things he focused on, an adjustment that would pay off is No. 5 suggestion... that gets the ball into the effective hitting zone.

However, I would amend that to say MOVE FORWARD a little more once you see a not a screamer anti shot coming at you. This will not only get the hitting zone right, but makes you position more solid, better kinetic energy to transfer, you can see the ball better, you have more angles to use, and most important, you are hitting in the right timing.

That is real important for confidence.

Once a player sees all his attempts to adjust and play offense result in a Denver & Rio train wreck of epic proportions... it is over for that player.
 
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#1 is a good idea. Short dead ball serves to the anti will work but you much keep the ball low. The spin doesn't matter much if playing against frictionless anti, flanti. Hopefully the anti player will need to hit the ball up over the net. If he hits the ball too high then go for the kill. Mix this up with a couple of very fast long serves to the anti that will hopefully bounce long.


#5 is a good suggestion but the reasoning is flawed. The ball will not slow its rotation in any appreciable way. I started a thread about why waiting works. What must be avoided is getting too much in a hurry and rushing forward to hit the ball instead of waiting and stroking up. If the anti player blocks short you should treat it like a short underpin serve.

Also, anti rubbers are not alike. I have played with many anti rubbers. Yasaka Anti Power, YAP, does not have very good spin reversal if any. Most of the time it returns dead balls. However YAP does allow for more aggressive play or even chopping.
The new German flanti, are similar to LP 0X but since flantis don't have pips that may or may not bend they are much more predictable to play against as well as play with relative to LP 0X. Watch some PushBlocker , Amelie Solja, and AA videos, on the OOAK forum, videos.

If you are playing against a twiddler and you don't pay attention, you will lose. Instead of the ball coming back slow with backspin it will come back with speed and top spin when twiddling. To keep the anti player from twiddling you must keep the pace of the game high but then you also risk making mistakes.
 
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I’m not a fan of low dead balls. There’s an anti player in my club who is good at giving you these weak, dead balls just over the edge of the net, and super short to boot. The only thing that I’ve found that’ll consistently put a point away is a good flick long if he’s near the table, (beat him to the corner) or if you’ve pushed him back, chop it short and dump it at a sharp angle on either the Bh, or Fh side. I’m fairly inexperienced, but watching him in match play he handles even the other experienced guys in a similar manner. His placement is super precise.


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I guess it is a good subject. But, Lightzy, what caused you to play the necromancer and wake up this LONG DEAD thread?

hahaha. I guess it is just entertaining to me to see stuff written 7-8 years ago and people responding to that. :)

Again, it is a timeless subject. So I am just entertained by people responding as though the comments from 2011 were written last week. :)
 
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I guess it is a good subject. But, Lightzy, what caused you to play the necromancer and wake up this LONG DEAD thread?

hahaha. I guess it is just entertaining to me to see stuff written 7-8 years ago and people responding to that. :)

Again, it is a timeless subject. So I am just entertained by people responding as though the comments from 2011 were written last week. :)

I guess 'Lightzy' got a question from one of his beginner friends (as mentioned in the post), tried to find an answer here and did not like the gist of advice.

Anti players did not go away in the last 6 years, so no harm in reviving old thread - keeps info in one place. Why there is such a general dislike of 'necromancing'? I thought this particular one was quite tastefully done :rolleyes: .
 
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Learn to brush no spin balls by contacting the top part of the ball.

Yogi, your comment deserves a little clarification.

Given an incoming no-spin ball, ball arrives one foot past the end line, ball is at top of bounce, ball is 6-10 cm above net height, speed of ball is slow medium.

That situation is similar to if you served a dead, deep ball medium speed and anti opponent pokes it back long with his anti...

If we are talking about a clock, where on the clock are you suggesting the impact? You said THE TOP of the ball.

12 O'Clock is TOP. 3 O'Clock is BACK of ball.

Your suggestion sounds like around 1 O'Clock.

Please clarify.
 
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Yogi, your comment deserves a little clarification.

Given an incoming no-spin ball, ball arrives one foot past the end line, ball is at top of bounce, ball is 6-10 cm above net height, speed of ball is slow medium.

That situation is similar to if you served a dead, deep ball medium speed and anti opponent pokes it back long with his anti...

If we are talking about a clock, where on the clock are you suggesting the impact? You said THE TOP of the ball.

12 O'Clock is TOP. 3 O'Clock is BACK of ball.

Your suggestion sounds like around 1 O'Clock.

Please clarify.

I feel that you are making this harder than it is. I think he just mean that you need to hit the on the top of the ball by closing the angle of the bat and hitting over the ball. So you hit around 12, 1 o'clock or close to that. And by doing that you will get topspin. Just like you loop on a no spin or topspin ball. But maybe im wrong.
 
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Hitting the ball at 1 o’clock is risky because the timing must be perfect and the swing must be extremely fast. The ball has backspin and the paddle is closed so the stroke tangential speed must be much faster than the angular speed of the ball to carry it above the net. then why? Most of the energy goes in to spin not speed. the anti player will block it back and now the ball has even more back spin. Also, it will take a lot of effort to recover quickly from an extremely fast brushing stroke. I think waiting is better and hitting controlled shots concentrating on keeping the ball low is safer and a higher percentage way to go.
 
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Well it's weird to resurrect threads where like some guy asks what equipment he should buy in 2011 (which for some reason keeps happening) but with this yeah, like pgpg said, I was looking for a repository of advice I could point a beginner to.
And it's definitely useful. It wouldn't have occurred to me the idea of deep pushes to the backhand because that's not how I play against antispin but some smart dudes wrote it here, so I added that to my collection.
 
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Der_Echte is not opposed to adding to discussions past... especially if they are on the topics of technique/tactics. We never get enough of that stuff on the forums.

Yeah, I get the part about adding to old conversations just for the heck of it when there is nothing relevant going on. That happens too much.
 
Why are you assuming that every ball from antispin has backspin? It is also clear that the one being discussed is a no spin ball.

Hitting the ball at 1 o’clock is risky because the timing must be perfect and the swing must be extremely fast. The ball has backspin and the paddle is closed so the stroke tangential speed must be much faster than the angular speed of the ball to carry it above the net. then why? Most of the energy goes in to spin not speed. the anti player will block it back and now the ball has even more back spin. Also, it will take a lot of effort to recover quickly from an extremely fast brushing stroke. I think waiting is better and hitting controlled shots concentrating on keeping the ball low is safer and a higher percentage way to go.
 
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IMO, the advice to serve short to an antispin player (or a combination bat player with long/medium/short pips) is somewhat questionable, to put it mildly.

Aside from the fact that the vast majority of beginners do not possess the ability to serve short and low consistently, all this achieves is giving the initiative to the opponent inviting them to do an awkward return at a sharp angle where you least expect it to be.

If this was a reasonable general approach, someone like Greg Letts or Larry Hodges would have mentioned it ages ago.

In my personal experience and many post-match conversations with combination bat players, they seem to vastly prefer short and/or spinny and/or slow serves from their opponents than fast long serves which immediately put them under pressure.
 
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