Does anybody else mentally fall apart against pure pushers or weird styles?

[Yuomay]

If he’s old and not very mobile then you could always go for the tactic “long slow with arc”. It’ll force him to either move or to take risks

 

[navuzor]

If he’s old and not very mobile then you could always go for the tactic “long slow with arc”. It’ll force him to either move or to take risks

Yeah, that's the tactic that has worked best for me against him. He's very old, well into his 70s, no way I can out-push him so I play these high arc slow loops to force him to attack me. Then I can counter-attack, but he learned not to attack me too. I can hold myself very well against much better attacking players, but these passive-weak-pushers I consistently struggle with.

 

[Tyce]

I'd rather play a weak-pusher than a pips blocker tbh. Weak-pushers you can usually force to push longer by varying your speed, so with a bit of wile and patience it's pretty easy to get an attack in. Disguised topspin services are also great here.

 

[merlin el mago]

Today I played a 1600 rated guy who only pushes nonstop. They just push to my backhand all the time. Normally my bh loop against underspin is my strength...but for some reason I totally fell apart mentally against a guy who only pushes to my bh. What is going on?

I think maybe because he's pushing so much, my body gets too used to pushing and when I want to loop my body is stiff and doesn't flow.

I think also because psychologically I know he will never do anything, it seems to put me in a zombie state where I can't do anything. Not just my bh loop, but every part of my game starts falling apart.

What is the best way to handle this type of situation? I heard from other players as well that this individual often takes down much higher rated "traditional" players. But his own rating never goes up because he doesn't have the other techniques to beat the lower ranked players.

Play long without spin so not topspin nor backspin only driving FB or BH, don't play short because if he his good surely open angles and you will die, maximum you could do soft topspin for your control but bear in mind that all spin you do he converts in disruption & backspin so better no feed the beast....

Another trick is when he push & you return with chop or push-chop both long if he isn't a lot skilled surely returns with a chop so the ball comes to you with a little bit of topspin: if high time to smash and if not high time to power topspin.

I's very hard to write this because I'm the same kind of person: old & handicaped so playing like the guy you want to win.... but as you guess I have solutions for these and all other weak situations as push-chop/block close to the table player.

 

[alain61]

Why "weird styles" ?
Why not "atypical styles" ?
There are so many different ways to play table tennis ...

 

[merlin el mago]

And to speak/write & respect the others....

 

[ajtatosmano2]

I played against one recently. The funny thing is, we played together in the same team last season, he's a good mate of mine. Well into his 70's. I remember how frustrated the opponents were when they played against him. I suffered him too. He's perfected his push over his 50+ plus years in table tennis. I can't out-push him, and the pushes are really hard to attack. The pushes are not long, not short, right in the middle of the table, with little spin and no power... if you wait for the ball to drop, it will land very close to the end of the table, so the open ups are very difficult. If you flick, you have to put a lot of energy into it and your technique has to be very refined. Flicks are my least developed technique ( I am a counter-attacker, so I rely a lot in the energy that's given to me). So the games fall into this really really long push rallies, making him move as much as I can hoping for a mistake, every point takes ages... it's mentally taxing... I remember last season when he started losing his games, I used to tell him, "play your game, be patient".... it's hard to beat him, he really makes you sweat every point. I struggle the most against these players. Something that has worked relatively well (not always) and just give me lobs, to tempt him to attack me, then I can counterattack that has worked in ocassions but sometimes he doesn't attach at all... anyways, just wanted to let it out more than anything XD He's a very good mate of mine but so so frustating to play against.

I see two ways to go about this:
1. Treat it as practice and improve your open ups. sooner or later you will learn it (unless you're doing something wrong), so just try to loop every ball coming behind the white line.
2. If you want to win: If he just pushes, you don't have to try to trick him, outpush him etc. give him weak, safe pushes. You don't have to care much about ball quality, he won't attack. He has to be careful. The game plan is still to attack, but you must wait until a comfortable ball comes. Don't wait for the first oppurtunity, wait for a good oppurtunity.
If your opponent has weaker open play, you have to simplify the game. If your opponent

 

[suds79]

I'll just say this because I only learned this trick many years after playing and I wish I was wiser to it sooner.

For the OP. There are many types of pushes. If your push game stinks, you might by in large push the same pretty much every time. Just get the ball on and I'm just waiting until I can loop right? Eh we can do better.

Learn & mix in your game the heavy spin based push and the dead push. Some might call it a lift or bump. But this is a push is the opposite of your heavy spin push. Here you're just looking to get your paddle under the ball and just kinda bump it up enough to clear the net. Just lift it over. Do not add spin. Let their spin do all the work.

Now this ball back at them will still have backspin. But it's much less backspin and certainly a different pace of ball that if, and almost assuredly, will push back again, can mess up on and pop it up a little higher than they wanted if they don't realize some of the spin on the ball has cooled off by now. All of a sudden this ball is a pinch higher and it's not super spiny. An easy loop on your next turn if you want it.

If you're in a push battle with someone and you're likely the one to open up first, why are we trying to make this harder on yourself and have a really loaded ball to loop? You get the idea.

You mix this between deep heavy spin pushes and all of a sudden you'll start to think about the push game differently. "What if I got my racket under the ball and kinda lifted it to the side left or right adding some side-spin? How would they react to that?" etc. Really opens up your options. You'll start to think about your pushes to sometimes focus more on depth. "can i push this ball to just barely go over the net dropping it short? and then hit them with a deep fast push to their backhand." etc.