Being a very much forehand oriented player i think it's time i develop my backhand. My level is intermidiate. - I try to loop kill slow underspin balls over the table and also attack every half long ball with the beauty that 09c is. Now comes the question what kind of backhand i want and i am struggling to decide. I fancy Ma Long's punchy backhand style but i'm not sure whether FZD and many others regular topspin backhand is actually the way to go.. Which one is best suited for a forehand oriented player? Or maybe the one with less learning curve.. Playing with the the rubbers in my BIO in case it is relevant. Any experience shared is welcomed!
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Technique and equipment are linked together.
Ma Longs technique works well with W968 and soft H3 on BH.
Assuming your equipment is the Cybershape carbon with D09c on the BH I would say the following:
While youre learning backhand, dont forget how powerful and effective your forehand is.
It shouldnt stop you from stepping around or using your forehand from time to time.
This is what you can do.
Watch the pros:
Pros you can watch to learn from their backhand: FZD, Ovtcharov, Zhang Jike.
There are more but there is a lot of matches from these 3 also from different angles.
While watching, specifically look for these things:
- What does their technique look like
- Focus on each body part they use for the different type of shots
- Footwork, preparation, body tension, weight shift, shoulders, forearm, wrist
- When they use their backhand in which situations
- How frequent they use their backhand
- How much upwards/forwards movement
- How they use their backhand against different types of opponents
- etc.
Technique step by step:
- Take things one aspect at a time, keep your focus mainly on that part
- Lets say: Forearm ( can be anything)
- practice alone first, without a table or ball
- take an extrinsic goal, meaning dont focus on your body but e.g. making a semicircle movement
- take it slow and focus on the one thing that you are working on at the moment
- imagine the scenario, how the ball is bouncing and coming at you and how you are using it
- sort of like multiball but just in your head in an empty space ( do this a lot)
- then implement in in training, also slowly and careful at first
- ideally multiball or where your partner is playing balls in a certain way
- then in drills, combine it with other movements and forehand for example
- practice matches where you try to implement it
- keep practicing and working, repeat for the different feature
Keep practicing!
Ma Longs technique works well with W968 and soft H3 on BH.
Assuming your equipment is the Cybershape carbon with D09c on the BH I would say the following:
While youre learning backhand, dont forget how powerful and effective your forehand is.
It shouldnt stop you from stepping around or using your forehand from time to time.
This is what you can do.
Watch the pros:
Pros you can watch to learn from their backhand: FZD, Ovtcharov, Zhang Jike.
There are more but there is a lot of matches from these 3 also from different angles.
While watching, specifically look for these things:
- What does their technique look like
- Focus on each body part they use for the different type of shots
- Footwork, preparation, body tension, weight shift, shoulders, forearm, wrist
- When they use their backhand in which situations
- How frequent they use their backhand
- How much upwards/forwards movement
- How they use their backhand against different types of opponents
- etc.
Technique step by step:
- Take things one aspect at a time, keep your focus mainly on that part
- Lets say: Forearm ( can be anything)
- practice alone first, without a table or ball
- take an extrinsic goal, meaning dont focus on your body but e.g. making a semicircle movement
- take it slow and focus on the one thing that you are working on at the moment
- imagine the scenario, how the ball is bouncing and coming at you and how you are using it
- sort of like multiball but just in your head in an empty space ( do this a lot)
- then implement in in training, also slowly and careful at first
- ideally multiball or where your partner is playing balls in a certain way
- then in drills, combine it with other movements and forehand for example
- practice matches where you try to implement it
- keep practicing and working, repeat for the different feature
Keep practicing!
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The Ma Long technique is more suited for a FH oriented player. The FZD technique generates power by pivoting around the elbow, and the elbow is kept as the fulcrum it so remains relatively stable. This, however, requires that the elbow is far to the right of the ball, so your stance will need to be more to the right as well, thus putting you in a more BH-oriented stance. With this technique, you'll often have to slide to the right in order to maintain BH quality.
The Ma Long technique generates power with a combination of pivoting around the elbow as well as pushing the entire arm forward. The main advantage of this stroke is that it doesn't require you to move to the ball's right as much to hit a good shot. If you're always looking to pivot for a FH shot, i.e. slide to your left, then this technique will work better. The main disadvantage is that it's a bigger motion which involves your entire arm, which makes it less suited for very quick paced BH/BH counters.
Thank you for the contribution. I actually have 09c on fh and D80 on bh. Looks like better to go for the more flat hitting style then as i really stay very much on the bh side always looking for fh fade when possible or fast brush/loop over the table. Also.. i though stiffer blades and hard rubbers such as mine are better for punching /flat hitting. I think Korean’s tend to have more flat hitting bh style of play don’t they? Are there any players with punching/flat bh while being fh oriented i can look at? Other than Truls. Any reputable videos that are good at explaining the technique perhaps? Not that i am sure i will go with it but makes more sense i think..
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Threat level of topspin BH is much higher imo because of spin and Magnus effect. You need to train a shit ton to get the punch BH to work consistently. Even Ma Long has a mainly topspin BH (he often reaches 6000+rpm with the shot), just that it's not as spectacular as WCQ or FZD. But it is solid af and he doesn't miss much with it.
BH punchers are mainly for eg Truls and Aruna but they're not exactly known for their BH threat.
The main technique difference is that Ma Long does a lot of hip thrust and drops his hand to thigh/knee level when he loops underspin which imo is an outdated technique because it leads to a backwards lean which compromises on the recovery (but he is fast af and his block is insanely good so no probs at all). The modern BH technique uses a lot more open blade angles to lift heavy underspin to maintain the forward lean posture and hand never drops to thigh level for the most part, it's always roughly at the hip level regardless of ball.
BH punchers are mainly for eg Truls and Aruna but they're not exactly known for their BH threat.
The main technique difference is that Ma Long does a lot of hip thrust and drops his hand to thigh/knee level when he loops underspin which imo is an outdated technique because it leads to a backwards lean which compromises on the recovery (but he is fast af and his block is insanely good so no probs at all). The modern BH technique uses a lot more open blade angles to lift heavy underspin to maintain the forward lean posture and hand never drops to thigh level for the most part, it's always roughly at the hip level regardless of ball.
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I am loving this conversation on technique but a bit confused about the difference in technique.
I thought this explanation seemed to be the best and modern lifting underspin method (according to him):
He states taking the ball in the middle helps with possibly pivoting to forehand since the distance to ball between backhand and forehand becomes smaller.
He explains further about middle verses left side (for Right handed player) logic here in Tip no 2:
Ti Long has a great video on Ma Long Backhand technique but says the recovery is faster with his technique.
Hoping someone posts videos to show the differences being talked about. I guess the conversation needs to be divided into lifting underspin vs topsin, then further subdivided into close to the table versus middle vs far distance.
I thought this explanation seemed to be the best and modern lifting underspin method (according to him):
He states taking the ball in the middle helps with possibly pivoting to forehand since the distance to ball between backhand and forehand becomes smaller.
He explains further about middle verses left side (for Right handed player) logic here in Tip no 2:
Ti Long has a great video on Ma Long Backhand technique but says the recovery is faster with his technique.
Hoping someone posts videos to show the differences being talked about. I guess the conversation needs to be divided into lifting underspin vs topsin, then further subdivided into close to the table versus middle vs far distance.
Along with Aruna suggested above, Adriana Diaz is very much someone who can boss a match against the best with BH punch technique.
Jeong Youngsik was quite punchy with his backhand, before him you would be looking a further back at Primorac, Samsonov, Persson and of course Waldner
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Imo the coach is right - everyone would love to hit the BH directly in front of the body in the middle (not on left nor on right), and top players like Ma Long/Harimoto/etc all try to hit BHs in those position. But in a real matches the balls ain't gonna be that comfortable, so knowing how to adjust the technique when you're not fully in position is quite important too (being able to hit a reasonably good BH loop/counter when ball is to your left or your right), but obviously the coach wants to drill in correct technique first lol.
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Try to tap your feets a lot when do your backhand, lots of time players can get into a better optimal position to play BH but instead they stand still at their place. Those minimal of your feet like drop back 0.25 step or go to right left 0.25 step is important since the window for hitting optimal BH is a lot smaller than FH. You don't move the ball will be usually at your elbow or sucking into your stomach or you have to reach wide to stroke BH. If you stay close to table try to take earlier timing (you can practice this thing while you do the warm-up, just dry to drive the ball at the earlier timing). After you open-up, drop back 0.5/1 steps to avoid the ball come back too fast. Hope this helps.
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Does equipment really play a role here? Maybe it creates the last 2 percent but I'm sure they could hit a great BH with almost any rubber.
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Most intermediate players have strong forehands, and lack a bit in backhand (myself included)
The best advice i've ever gotten for backhand is to trust the progress, buy the rubber that you can handle and practice a lot.
My backhand over the time became a lot more stable, mostly from a lot of practice and playing against top 200 of my country in tournaments.
Just play with propper form and you'll see results within a year. Enjoy playing
The best advice i've ever gotten for backhand is to trust the progress, buy the rubber that you can handle and practice a lot.
My backhand over the time became a lot more stable, mostly from a lot of practice and playing against top 200 of my country in tournaments.
Just play with propper form and you'll see results within a year. Enjoy playing
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What comes naturally to you? Punchy or spinny BH? You build upon your strong suit, it doesn't really make much sense to forget what comes naturally and relearn something you're less talented at, unless you are a total beginner which you said you aren't.
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