Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[JeffM]

As it is about 10 days away from the important competition, possibly the biggest event for me personally for years, I have made some effort to train up as much as I can possibly.

Yesterday I drove 50km one way and then back to train with my friend in a nearby town. I realised that I am quite comfortable bh flicking his serves coming to my bh side as he doesn't have much backspin at all. He then started serving to my fh side, which caused some issue for me when they are half long or short. They don't have much backspin, so when I try to push, even with a vertical blade face, it pops up high enough for him to kill it. On further thought, I should try to use my fh to flick it. I did flick it once with fh but I sort of flicked it fast ish to his fh which he then reacted by doing a massive loop and I lost it. I asked him how I should receive it, and he suggested since I am good at bh flicking, that I can consider moving across to flick with bh. But my other friend told me after that I could just use fh flick, but vary the placement, and the speed, it doesn't have to be a fast one. I like that idea. I then spent 45 min practicing serves, which I have not had the opportunity to do so since the start of the year.

Today I went to play at my usual club, and the player that is from city is here again (and will be here next week). I know he is a level above me, so I played with him for most of the time tonight. He was kind enough to train a bit with me first and then games and then continued on games even after he had won. We practiced fh loop and bh loop against backspin, and I am really out of shape for both tbh. I am having trouble with just fh backspin loop that I am not happy about it, but I will need more practice. We also practiced some pushing. Then we play games. I think we must have played 7 or 8 sets or even more, and although it wasn't like he was winning 11-0, I only manage to win 1 set. I tried out the serve that I practiced yesterday and it worked quite well.

I also played other players and won but it wasn't the highlight comparing to getting some good practice with the strong guy.

 

[OvrChkn]

Looking to get into league play at a club 3 hours from me later in the month. Would be a good test to see how far I've progressed in the past few months.

After that, I'll probably look into getting a new sheet of R7 or trying something else out.

 

[blahness]

As it is about 10 days away from the important competition, possibly the biggest event for me personally for years, I have made some effort to train up as much as I can possibly.

Yesterday I drove 50km one way and then back to train with my friend in a nearby town. I realised that I am quite comfortable bh flicking his serves coming to my bh side as he doesn't have much backspin at all. He then started serving to my fh side, which caused some issue for me when they are half long or short. They don't have much backspin, so when I try to push, even with a vertical blade face, it pops up high enough for him to kill it. On further thought, I should try to use my fh to flick it. I did flick it once with fh but I sort of flicked it fast ish to his fh which he then reacted by doing a massive loop and I lost it. I asked him how I should receive it, and he suggested since I am good at bh flicking, that I can consider moving across to flick with bh. But my other friend told me after that I could just use fh flick, but vary the placement, and the speed, it doesn't have to be a fast one. I like that idea. I then spent 45 min practicing serves, which I have not had the opportunity to do so since the start of the year.

Today I went to play at my usual club, and the player that is from city is here again (and will be here next week). I know he is a level above me, so I played with him for most of the time tonight. He was kind enough to train a bit with me first and then games and then continued on games even after he had won. We practiced fh loop and bh loop against backspin, and I am really out of shape for both tbh. I am having trouble with just fh backspin loop that I am not happy about it, but I will need more practice. We also practiced some pushing. Then we play games. I think we must have played 7 or 8 sets or even more, and although it wasn't like he was winning 11-0, I only manage to win 1 set. I tried out the serve that I practiced yesterday and it worked quite well.

I also played other players and won but it wasn't the highlight comparing to getting some good practice with the strong guy.

You can try the nospin straight FH flick to his BH (it's called 推挑）, it produces a very dead ball and that usually causes a lot of trouble especially against ppl with bad BHs, sometimes you can even add the fade component to make it even trickier with heavy sidespin. I find that flicks without topspin are even deadlier than flicks with topspin in general because the other player has to actually play a loop in a small amount of time and can't just do a normal counter because there's no topspin to counter.

 

[NextLevel]

As it is about 10 days away from the important competition, possibly the biggest event for me personally for years, I have made some effort to train up as much as I can possibly.

Yesterday I drove 50km one way and then back to train with my friend in a nearby town. I realised that I am quite comfortable bh flicking his serves coming to my bh side as he doesn't have much backspin at all. He then started serving to my fh side, which caused some issue for me when they are half long or short. They don't have much backspin, so when I try to push, even with a vertical blade face, it pops up high enough for him to kill it. On further thought, I should try to use my fh to flick it. I did flick it once with fh but I sort of flicked it fast ish to his fh which he then reacted by doing a massive loop and I lost it. I asked him how I should receive it, and he suggested since I am good at bh flicking, that I can consider moving across to flick with bh. But my other friend told me after that I could just use fh flick, but vary the placement, and the speed, it doesn't have to be a fast one. I like that idea. I then spent 45 min practicing serves, which I have not had the opportunity to do so since the start of the year.

Today I went to play at my usual club, and the player that is from city is here again (and will be here next week). I know he is a level above me, so I played with him for most of the time tonight. He was kind enough to train a bit with me first and then games and then continued on games even after he had won. We practiced fh loop and bh loop against backspin, and I am really out of shape for both tbh. I am having trouble with just fh backspin loop that I am not happy about it, but I will need more practice. We also practiced some pushing. Then we play games. I think we must have played 7 or 8 sets or even more, and although it wasn't like he was winning 11-0, I only manage to win 1 set. I tried out the serve that I practiced yesterday and it worked quite well.

I also played other players and won but it wasn't the highlight comparing to getting some good practice with the strong guy.

Sometimes with level differences it is not about your technique. That said, varying serve returns is very important but I suspect if you were popping up thr serve. It had more topspin than you realized. I find that for me, I can loop kill short topspin to the forehand if it is high. The other thing is to realize is that while the server is trying to keep the ball short, short no spin and topspin tends to drift long. you need to watch the bounce carefully or you will be pushing a lot of long serves too early. If the ball is coming long or half long, don't try to flick it early, wait for it to come or you will too far over the table to recover. And given how you described the ball, it is quite possible you might have been able to loop it. Even short topspin isnusually pushed short. just high unless you have the practice.

As blahness points out, speed is not everything when it comes to slowing down a player. Given them a ball they need to work hard to play against is more important especially if it limits their options against you. Flicking the ball soft and short is actually a good stroke because the opponent has to come in to play the ball. Even better if they think you are going to attack hard before doing it

 

[blahness]

This is one of the best videos I've seen on the FH flick, it would be good if someone who knows Japanese can give a better translation. Although even without the translation I think just watching this has given me a lot of ideas.

 

[blahness]

Sometimes with level differences it is not about your technique. That said, varying serve returns is very important but I suspect if you were popping up thr serve. It had more topspin than you realized. I find that for me, I can loop kill short topspin to the forehand if it is high. The other thing is to realize is that while the server is trying to keep the ball short, short no spin and topspin tends to drift long. you need to watch the bounce carefully or you will be pushing a lot of long serves too early. If the ball is coming long or half long, don't try to flick it early, wait for it to come or you will too far over the table to recover. And given how you described the ball, it is quite possible you might have been able to loop it. Even short topspin isnusually pushed short. just high unless you have the practice.

As blahness points out, speed is not everything when it comes to slowing down a player. Given them a ball they need to work hard to play against is more important especially if it limits their options against you. Flicking the ball soft and short is actually a good stroke because the opponent has to come in to play the ball. Even better if they think you are going to attack hard before doing it

Flicking a ball soft and short is indeed quite a devastating shot against those who kinda step back after a short nospin or topspin serve to prepare to loop hard. It's one of my fav flick variations especially if they prove they can deal well with the nospin and sidespin flicks first.

There's actually also a chiquita version of this where you flick slow and short (Ma Long's chiquita in the final point against Fang Bo in the 2015 WTTC comes to mind)

 

[JeffM]

You can try the nospin straight FH flick to his BH (it's called 推挑）, it produces a very dead ball and that usually causes a lot of trouble especially against ppl with bad BHs, sometimes you can even add the fade component to make it even trickier with heavy sidespin. I find that flicks without topspin are even deadlier than flicks with topspin in general because the other player has to actually play a loop in a small amount of time and can't just do a normal counter because there's no topspin to counter.

Yeah that is what my other friend suggested me to do after hearing what I described too. I will definitely do that in my next game against him. I do it alot when I was playing end of last year but often against just short no spin ball instead of the shovel serves which carries bit of reverse side spin. But it will be equally effective.

 

[JeffM]

Sometimes with level differences it is not about your technique. That said, varying serve returns is very important but I suspect if you were popping up thr serve. It had more topspin than you realized. I find that for me, I can loop kill short topspin to the forehand if it is high. The other thing is to realize is that while the server is trying to keep the ball short, short no spin and topspin tends to drift long. you need to watch the bounce carefully or you will be pushing a lot of long serves too early. If the ball is coming long or half long, don't try to flick it early, wait for it to come or you will too far over the table to recover. And given how you described the ball, it is quite possible you might have been able to loop it. Even short topspin isnusually pushed short. just high unless you have the practice.

As blahness points out, speed is not everything when it comes to slowing down a player. Given them a ball they need to work hard to play against is more important especially if it limits their options against you. Flicking the ball soft and short is actually a good stroke because the opponent has to come in to play the ball. Even better if they think you are going to attack hard before doing it

yeah it isn't top spin as there are times that I landed the ball in the net, but that could also be that he might be putting a slight backspin on it at times and then at times no spin or slight top spin. I do think about waiting on the ball to come off the table, but I don't practice enough to be able to safely execute those half long when they do actually second bounce on the table.
I will definitely try the short fh flick next time, I suspect it will work better than I imagine, I just need the confidence to do it and to move fast enough into position.

 

[JeffM]

This is one of the best videos I've seen on the FH flick, it would be good if someone who knows Japanese can give a better translation. Although even without the translation I think just watching this has given me a lot of ideas.

I watched it and it looks good but yeah, translation from someone who knows Japanese would help alot..
It is all bit hard for me without the ability to try it until next week.

 

[NextLevel]

yeah it isn't top spin as there are times that I landed the ball in the net, but that could also be that he might be putting a slight backspin on it at times and then at times no spin or slight top spin. I do think about waiting on the ball to come off the table, but I don't practice enough to be able to safely execute those half long when they do actually second bounce on the table.
I will definitely try the short fh flick next time, I suspect it will work better than I imagine, I just need the confidence to do it and to move fast enough into position.

It is usually easier to push long if the ball comes half-long and you can see it is NOT coming off. But you don't have to loop a ball with second bounce on the table, you just aren't stuck over the table popping it up and recovering. The main thing is just don't trust the tightness of serves to the short forehand down the line, they drift long very often and you need to let the server prove their consistency. Trying to return long serves with short serve techniques usually causes errors. So if I am flicking many balls long, or popping up the serve I can usually tell the serve is really longer than I thought it was.

 

[blahness]

It is usually easier to push long if the ball comes half-long and you can see it is NOT coming off. But you don't have to loop a ball with second bounce on the table, you just aren't stuck over the table popping it up and recovering. The main thing is just don't trust the tightness of serves to the short forehand down the line, they drift long very often and you need to let the server prove their consistency. Trying to return long serves with short serve techniques usually causes errors. So if I am flicking many balls long, or popping up the serve I can usually tell the serve is really longer than I thought it was.

I think the hard part is if an opponent actually intentionally or unintentionally varies the length on this serve - you really have to be watching the length of the ball like a hawk. This is why I think the reverse pendulum/tomahawk/BH pendulum serve to the short FH is quite deadly against shakehand double inverted players.

Penholders have a much smoother transition between flick and loop so they don't really suffer that bad here imo.

 

[NextLevel]

I think the hard part is if an opponent actually intentionally or unintentionally varies the length on this serve - you really have to be watching the length of the ball like a hawk. This is why I think the reverse pendulum/tomahawk/BH pendulum serve to the short FH is quite deadly against shakehand double inverted players.

Penholders have a much smoother transition between flick and loop so they don't really suffer that bad here imo.

Of course, but we are not pro players, so you can be confident that most players are not serving short unless they prove it to you consistently. But it takes the awareness that your errors may just be about the length of the serve to even change your mind. It may sound crazy, but even pro players sometimes fall victim to this mistake of attacking a long serve early with an all purpose Chiquita rather than letting it come long and killing it with the forehand. Obviously their opponent set them up, and they think the Chiquita is a good aggressive response, but the bigger picture is still sometimes lost that they should be waiting for the ball so they can use their forehand to kill it.

But below the pro level, most people can't keep anything that isnt heavy backspin consistently short, the serves will tend to drift and you have to let them prove it. Don't let it just be about the bounce, short topspin or no spin tends to drift long, but if you read it as backspin, you will take it early, and cost yourself the opportunity to attack. I have started serving more short topspin to good effect, I just have to train with someone who attacks the serve so I have a reliable counter.

Even many people who serve short often serve high. Again it's something that if you are aware of, you can take advantage of against many players. Players who serve short with quality below the pro and semi-pro level are rare (the speed and the height of the serve need to be good, with decent spin). Long serves with quality are far more common even if not very common.

I definitely agree that going crosscourt helps a ton. But many people need to be made aware that serves into the forehand down the line tend to drift.

 

[GarField000]

Looking to get into league play at a club 3 hours from me later in the month. Would be a good test to see how far I've progressed in the past few months.

After that, I'll probably look into getting a new sheet of R7 or trying something else out.

3 hours before a club?
In 3 hours you can drive everywhere in my country and join 155 clubs .
We have almost in every little town a club. In bigger city's even more than one.

I have family in Australia that came for a visit. They where surprised how close everything is .

 

[NextLevel]

So there is a TT channel that regularly feature a Vietnamese champion, To Duc Hoang. Worth following and watching, the guy is really insightful. Subtitles with translation to English are good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd-kkjZMwOehqEupZxyAz9g

 

[Jslick89]

3 hours before a club?
In 3 hours you can drive everywhere in my country and join 155 clubs .
We have almost in every little town a club. In bigger city's even more than one.

I have family in Australia that came for a visit. They where surprised how close everything is .

Hey man how can i convince my wife that it is in both of our interests to travel to the netherlands so i can play table tennis there?

 

[Jslick89]

So there is a TT channel that regularly feature a Vietnamese champion, To Duc Hoang. Worth following and watching, the guy is really insightful. Subtitles with translation to English are good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd-kkjZMwOehqEupZxyAz9g

love coach To Duc!

 

[Der_Echte]

Hey man how can i convince my wife that it is in both of our interests to travel to the netherlands so i can play table tennis there?

Buy her a Volvo XC40 from the factory (you get two free plane tickets and 2 hotel nights to Goteborg) and you can drive to whatever European city you like for vacation... you get two weeks of veh registration and insurance.

I may stop by Copenhagen again or Malmo this time.

 

[Jslick89]

Buy her a Volvo XC40 from the factory (you get two free plane tickets and 2 hotel nights to Goteborg) and you can drive to whatever European city you like for vacation... you get two weeks of veh registration and insurance.

I may stop by Copenhagen again or Malmo this time.

that's a pretty neat program. Now i just need to save up 20% for a downpayment on a house, 40k for a volvo, 1.5k for a power pong omega and i think i'll be pretty content with life. lol.

 

[Der_Echte]

that's a pretty neat program. Now i just need to save up 20% for a downpayment on a house, 40k for a volvo, 1.5k for a power pong omega and i think i'll be pretty content with life. lol.

I drove $300 hoopties for the first 20 years of my career and never bought a new car until age 40... and that was for wife. Savings can be done and it takes time for most people. (My first car was a rolling Molotov Cocktail -no gas cap, stuffed a plastic bag in there)

You have some time.

 

[Der_Echte]

Year 6 in the Army I still only made 1000 a month take home pay, I have the pay stubs and they are hilarious. I still saved 400 a month+ for the future.