Your TT game/story I’m starting to suspect is an ever changing one with the times. At least for me it is.
So I use to play about the trickiest/weird style you could imagine. Short pips (sometimes inverted)/Long pips penhold twiddle game. I loved the mind games it played but after plateauing after a while I came to the conclusion that “you can only trick people so long”. Once your club mates figure you out, then you’re toast.
I later switched to short pips/inverted on the RPB where while there are elements of my game that need work, I’m confident to say my RPB is pretty nice with a lot of speed & spin. So I played that for a while and played better.
Then in my last tournament over the weekend, I advanced to the class I’ve never made it into before and promptly got my @$$ kicked from there. I know I was playing a little tight but it dawned on me that I was simply hitting slow. There was a 56 year old shakehander who is smaller than me and I know with about the same amount of TT experience who was flat out pacing me speed wise. On my backhand? No problems. Plenty of speed there. But it was that FH… Not good enough.
Now I know you can hit Short Pips really fast but I’ve played them long enough to know the % of shots you can hit fast or hard is limited. Your margin for error is just much smaller. So that in my mind make them feel slower and there’s a smaller % of balls you can really be more aggressive with. Just my two cents.
Played with my work mate over lunch today. This time duel inverted. This time I picked up a tip in my game that I noticed over the weekend with many top level players. I know this got me into trouble in the past when I’ve tried duel inverted.
“Just because you’re playing duel inverted, doesn’t mean every stroke has to be this over the top spiny loop. It’s okay to flat out smash or drive it for a winner if the ball is high.”
My takeaway from today was really positive. If I was close to the table like I normally am and vs topspin, I would drive the ball with my FH similar like I would do with short pips. I found my speed was better and the feeling wasn’t too far different.
But wow the options. Say I’m in a rally with my buddy. Now I can willingly play off the table and either drive or loop accordingly. Being a lefty, I’ve always had a FH side/spin loop as a change up loop. This is obviously an inverted shot. Instead of brushing the back of the ball, it definitely comes around the side of it as the head of my blade is pointing down at the ground. The kick off their side of the table was fantastic and there were several balls he mis-hit off the edge of his blade.
So we’ll see where this goes but I’m optimistic. Much like I said earlier in “you can only trick people so long”, I still stand by that. Sooner or later you just have to beat them skill vs skill. So it looks like I’m playing a more modern game for now.
