Starting to consistently punish heavy long top/side serves again. The main key for me is backswinging above the table and not being afraid of it. A lot of lower rated players don't really have a gameplan other than "serve heavy and deep", so it's good to get outright winners off them.
Also getting my backhand flick back; I couldn't flick even topspin until just a short while ago because my posture and mechanics were so messed up. Changing to an extremely compliant rubber may also be part of it.
Sometimes I chickenwing a bit on counterloops and it's pretty rare it adds anything to the shot and doesn't fuck it up, so I might need to also pay attention to that specifically. Anyone decent will just put away a shit loop especially from mid distance.
Still nonstop bad tactical decisions and questionable lack of aggression at times so I tend to throw away sets which are there for the taking, but I'm not pressed about it.
Part of it might be psychological, because I've started beating some players who consider themselves superior and they're not keen to play me anymore, and I'd like to keep having people to play with who aren't my dedicated partner, but I guess eventually the brakes need to come off. I'm doing stupid shit like netting my serve if I get a lucky point prior and so on.
Yes, not dropping the racket is super important in receiving long topspin serves. It's not that different from close to the table counterloops. Also, as it relates to counterloops, it's actually better to chicken wing it when close to the table. You usually just don't have the time to do a full backswing.
Recently I've been focusing on reworking the fundamentals of FH and BH drives/loops with my new coach, and I think we've made a ton of progress there. I don't have time for another lesson for a few weeks so in the meantime I'm working on a few things on my own:
1) Grip change to hold further up the racket. I've been doing this a little bit here and there over the years, but this time I'm planning to fully change it so it's more like where the pros hold the racket. This change allows for much more consistent contact, but it's a tough habit to change.
2) Work on footwork on the BH side and going forward with the stroke, especially against backspins. This habit has been surprisingly difficult to kick. I tend to just wait for the ball instead of moving to the ball, and I tend to loop up and to the side instead more forward. This really, really limits my strike zone on the BH side. I seem to be able to do it in practice, but it's been surprisingly difficult to translate it into games unlike my other BH technique changes. I think what I need to do is to just focus on BH shots for every shot.
3) I've developed a new method to practice BH loops, which has been super helpful. When practicing with my practice partner, I'd start by first just hitting the ball with minimal power and spin, basically trying to lob the ball back except with the goal of keeping it low. It's basically arm only, and the goal is to just find the correct timing, contact, and relaxation/acceleration sequence. Once I can do 10 in a row, I would move on to doing the same but add footwork and body usage. Once I can do that 10 times in a row then I start adding a bit of spin without losing the thick contact. After that, I gradually increasing power each time I reach 10 landed shots in a row. This gradual, systematic approach has produced far superior results than before.
