Feedback on my League games

[Zezima]

Falkenberg needs to be fast enough that you never wait for the ball to be truly useful. Otherwise you'll be dealing with the same pre-move issue. Robots can be helpful for certain things, I sometimes set it up even when my training partner comes over. The rapid FH/BH shot to a single spot is one fine example of where it can be excellent.

How does that help with premove? If anything you would just have to premove faster?

 

[blahness]

How do you avoid the sidespin if you contact it at the back?

When the righty does this spin I have more confidence looping it compared to the leftys tomahawk or rights backhand serve
I know what you mean by recover. But I don´t think I can achieve that ever without proper coaching and training session dedicated to that. What I can work on is atleast after the first ball I can try to go recover faster but even that I struggle with because I don´t know where the ball is going to. I also don´t have the strength/energy to do it. Probably lack of practise and not eating properly...

From your diagram, this is clockwise sidespin from your perspective. Notice how if you contact on the right side of the ball it is actually where the strong spin axis is. Around the back of the ball is actually relatively easier to loop than on the right side.

On recovery this is because you need to recover with the body leading the arm, not just the arm. If you recover with arm it will be way too slow. This is an intentional movement that needs to be shadowed many, many times for it to become part of your game.

 

[blahness]

could you show me the examples? because no matter the spin I tend to hit the ball from the right side I think. But at the heat of the moment I dont really think about hitting the ball at the right or at the backside. For me it´s not the sidespin that gives me the problem (its not going out to the sides) its more of a it goes into the net or out (most of the time out I think).

 

[Zezima]

From your diagram, this is clockwise sidespin from your perspective. Notice how if you contact on the right side of the ball it is actually where the strong spin axis is. Around the back of the ball is actually relatively easier to loop than on the right side.

On recovery this is because you need to recover with the body leading the arm, not just the arm. If you recover with arm it will be way too slow. This is an intentional movement that needs to be shadowed many, many times for it to become part of your game.

The thing is I struggle more when it has side topspin. Because you cant just hit at the back of the ball it would fly out.
So you have to hit the ball closer to 1 / 12 o clock if we would look at the ball from the side.

Ok I will keep that in mind

 

[Table10Ice]

Just a note on your estimate on how to translate RC points to German TTR.
That opponent is nowhere 1900TTR level. I have seen 1600 TTR players looking way better than him. You need to take into account that he played someone(you) with >200 points less and he still did not look very dominating or outclassing you.
1500 RC also very unlikely is 1700 TTR level. I have a 1400 TTR player in a club who is more well rounded than you and who can dominate everything 200 points below. With such a difference of points I would see results of 3:0 in sets and the loosing player not getting more than 7 points per set, even when the higher player goes gung ho and does many risky shots.

I have to agree with this comment. With all respect to Zezima (and his upcoming opponent), but he is not even close to 1900 TTR.

For example, take a look at this match:

The weaker player has 1804 TTR and suffers hard against a 2246 TTR player. Yet, the 1804 player would obliterate Zezimas 1750 RC adversary.

 

[Zezima]

I have to agree with this comment. With all respect to Zezima (and his upcoming opponent), but he is not even close to 1900 TTR.

For example, take a look at this match:

The weaker player has 1804 TTR and suffers hard against a 2246 TTR player. Yet, the 1804 player would obliterate Zezimas 1750 RC adversary.

Lets put this discussion in a different thread.
I was in south Germany in a trainingscamp and played to players up to 2200TTR. Also from the past years I have participated I could easily compare my RC rating to their TTR. It has been always 200TTR. Last time it was end of December and I almost beat 1800TTR players but they were better. My opponent doesn't look flashy I agree but he plays really smart with placement. Even the players in the higher league say that they feel like he puts them under pressure just by placement and control over sheer of power.

Anyway that's not a useful discussion to have here.

 

[dingyibvs]

I don´t understand what you mean.
Is this when practising Drills you mean? If so yes I agree I am a victim of that. But my goal is not training anticipation (falkenberg drill) it´s footwork. Just get the legs moving after each shot and memorize how to stay and how to hit those balls. I think I would need a real unregular exercise to get my anticipation better. But that doesn´t work so good if the other side is only supposed to block with his BH for example. Part of anticipation is also to see is he gonna loop where is he gonna loop or is he gonna push and where or is he gonna flick? These old players I face they do it at the very last moment and a lot with their wrist. None of them have good power all comes from arm and wrist. And because they don´t have a "clean" technique the ball can go anywhere lol. But I feel like against anyone I played so far I always played better the 2nd time or just generally the more I faced them. This is my 2nd year in this League so I think after some time I will get to know them better and anticipate better.

Yes, I mean in drills. Footwork isn't just moving your feet, it's knowing when to move your feet and how to most efficiently move them. A slow Falkenberg is not very useful for that reason. Footwork drills need to stress your footwork, it needs be such that you can barely get your feet set in time for the next shot. This has nothing to do with anticipation. If you anticipate well, you won't have to do that, you'd get into position with more than enough time. This is training precisely for when you don't anticipate, when you're just reacting.

It's true that it won't help you with recognition, but your problem is far more than that right now. Recognition will likely only come from experience. It's hard to train for it because you'd need either a high level player/coach who can vary his shot at will and still keep it on the table or a good multi-ball feeder. Footwork, however, is something you can train with the tools you've got now -- mediocre training partners and a robot.

 

[dingyibvs]

How does that help with premove? If anything you would just have to premove faster?

Pre-move means moving toward the position before the ball is launched, if a drill from a robot is set fast enough then it'll launch the ball as soon as you finish with your last stroke, so there'd be zero time for pre-moving. This forces you to recover as quickly as possible and make the most efficient movement to get to position as quickly as possible.

 

[Table10Ice]

Lets put this discussion in a different thread.
I was in south Germany in a trainingscamp and played to players up to 2200TTR. Also from the past years I have participated I could easily compare my RC rating to their TTR. It has been always 200TTR. Last time it was end of December and I almost beat 1800TTR players but they were better. My opponent doesn't look flashy I agree but he plays really smart with placement. Even the players in the higher league say that they feel like he puts them under pressure just by placement and control over sheer of power.

Anyway that's not a useful discussion to have here.

Maybe the 1804 TTR player in the video I posted is not representative for his level? All I know is that the NRW region have lots of TT players, and that a 1800 player there could be of higher standard compared to a similary ranked player from south Germany. So my example was a skewed one, sorry for that!

I haven't played against neither austrian nor german players, so it's hard for me to judge the levels. Haven't participated in many tournaments myself, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Stockolm Sweden and got totally destroyed by a swedish 2100 player. Don't know what that translates to in either RC or TTR.

 

[Double_Trouble]

Maybe the 1804 TTR player in the video I posted is not representative for his level? All I know is that the NRW region have lots of TT players, and that a 1800 player there could be of higher standard compared to a similary ranked player from south Germany. So my example was a skewed one, sorry for that!

I haven't played against neither austrian nor german players, so it's hard for me to judge the levels. Haven't participated in many tournaments myself, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Stockolm Sweden and got totally destroyed by a swedish 2100 player. Don't know what that translates to in either RC or TTR.

This is very true, NRW has gazillion players and this might have some influence on less generous ttr (or stronger depending on anyone’s view).

 

[NextLevel]

Trust me he is. As you said you just saw him playing against me. Checked his history aswell. He beats a 1750RC!! 3-0
and his limit seems to be 1770RC. He would be in the upper half in the upper League. where he played last season but he switched his club and this club doesn´t have a higher team.
But then again TTR is not the same everywhere in germany. There are places where 1600TTR would beat other places 1900TTR maybe thats drastic but I just wanted to give an example. ~1850TTR is prob more accurate.

And I disagree he was dominating be really hard. I was nowhere near of taking a set.

@jk1980, While even in the USA, ratings can vary slightly from place to place, most of the players above a certain level travel enough that their ratings are accurate and I would consider that 1700-opponent at that level. People talking about how a player looks often don't see what he does well and you only see what a player really does well when you see him play against someone that challenges him. Because it is one thing to see a ball or serve going slowly because the player doesn't use power but to see that when the same player is attacked really hard, they can control that hard attack ball easily. That you will not see when they are not challenged. Also some players let their serves drift more when they are not attacked. But even when they are, you would be surprised at how well they control the first attack.

So please avoid these rating discussions and just focus on the match.

 

[Zezima]

Pre-move means moving toward the position before the ball is launched, if a drill from a robot is set fast enough then it'll launch the ball as soon as you finish with your last stroke, so there'd be zero time for pre-moving. This forces you to recover as quickly as possible and make the most efficient movement to get to position as quickly as possible.

Yeah that is what I have been doing. Otherwise I wouldn't say that I go out of fuel after just 2min-4min doing it.
But this is still premoving for me because after I play the ball with my backhand I step around immediately even though the ball hasn't even reached him yet. I realize I have the speed to do that. But in an actual game if I do that my opp would play the next ball to my fh or wider to my bh. And if I face a good blocker I don't even want to loop weak and wait for a ball that I can loop with more power and spin or when I know I will be able to recover fast after playing that topspin.

Nevertheless it's a good exercise still I just feel that it doesn't help with anticipating at all. And it's kind of demotivating that to get better at anticipating I would need many many years to get good at it. It's like I have the tools but I can't use it properly because I don't know where the next ball is gonna go

 

[Zezima]

I think we had this discussion already. But should I give H3 neo 39° commercial + boosting a go? In theory it sounds like it might work out for me and give me better confidence when looping harder because it doesnt have the raw power d09c brings to the table. Just for the Fh obviously.

 

[NextLevel]

I think we had this discussion already. But should I give H3 neo 39° commercial + boosting a go? In theory it sounds like it might work out for me and give me better confidence when looping harder because it doesnt have the raw power d09c brings to the table. Just for the Fh obviously.

Don't waste time on equipment for forehand. D09c is good enough for anything you need Hurricane for unless you are really powerful. The real question is whether you are okay with D09c speed on backhand and if so, the answer is training, not equipment. Work harder at producing more variation with practice.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I think we had this discussion already. But should I give H3 neo 39° commercial + boosting a go? In theory it sounds like it might work out for me and give me better confidence when looping harder because it doesnt have the raw power d09c brings to the table. Just for the Fh obviously.

I don't think changing equipment will really make much difference either way but from what I saw in the videos, you rarely loop hard and are more of a "reach and touch" type rather than making active and aggressive strokes with arm speed. So no, I don't think H3, or even 09c/hybrids really, would be good for you.

 

[dingyibvs]

Yeah that is what I have been doing. Otherwise I wouldn't say that I go out of fuel after just 2min-4min doing it.
But this is still premoving for me because after I play the ball with my backhand I step around immediately even though the ball hasn't even reached him yet. I realize I have the speed to do that. But in an actual game if I do that my opp would play the next ball to my fh or wider to my bh. And if I face a good blocker I don't even want to loop weak and wait for a ball that I can loop with more power and spin or when I know I will be able to recover fast after playing that topspin.

Nevertheless it's a good exercise still I just feel that it doesn't help with anticipating at all. And it's kind of demotivating that to get better at anticipating I would need many many years to get good at it. It's like I have the tools but I can't use it properly because I don't know where the next ball is gonna go

In that case, you're not really capable of doing a really useful Falkenberg drill then. You're looping way too slow if you have time to move before the shot even lands on the other side, so I'd stop doing that drill.

Also, as others have pointed out, your issue is not the rubber. You're not looping hard enough to make use of the D09c so I doubt H3 would be helpful. I think if anything, you might wanna give a different blade a try. I think the HL5 is too hard for you to activate and too non-linear. Maybe try something like a Viscaria which is a lot easier to hit into without being too fast.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

In that case, you're not really capable of doing a really useful Falkenberg drill then. You're looping way too slow if you have time to move before the shot even lands on the other side, so I'd stop doing that drill.

Also, as others have pointed out, your issue is not the rubber. You're not looping hard enough to make use of the D09c so I doubt H3 would be helpful. I think if anything, you might wanna give a different blade a try. I think the HL5 is too hard for you to activate and too non-linear. Maybe try something like a Viscaria which is a lot easier to hit into without being too fast.

I edited my post but yeah, even 09c and hybrids are not best suited for this type of gameplay.

 

[Zezima]

In that case, you're not really capable of doing a really useful Falkenberg drill then. You're looping way too slow if you have time to move before the shot even lands on the other side, so I'd stop doing that drill.

Also, as others have pointed out, your issue is not the rubber. You're not looping hard enough to make use of the D09c so I doubt H3 would be helpful. I think if anything, you might wanna give a different blade a try. I think the HL5 is too hard for you to activate and too non-linear. Maybe try something like a Viscaria which is a lot easier to hit into without being too fast.

I can film myself and post it here next time. I doubt I do it too slow because I compared myself to the videos on the internet of better players.

Funny I just tried Viscaria with the same rubbers (d09c 2,1) both sides. It was a bit lighter than my setup. A bit harder feel. I could control it but I didn´t like it as much as my own blade. I think it also had a lower trajectory in comparison. Control wise I had more with my own blade but thats because I am more comfortable with my blade obviously. But just played 2minutes with it so I wouldn´t give too much value on this information.

 

[NetProphet]

I have a hard time reading how much topspin the ball has. Its so unpredictable for me. It´s not loaded with heavy topspin like those open ups from some players against long backspin balls for example. But still has some a bit. Also his technique doesn´t match what the ball has for me at least. His movement looks much bigger but the ball doesn´t have that much spin? So I kind of lose confidence in attacking that ball. Like its hard to judge the trajectory since I would need to hit the ball at the very top. Maybe I would have a bit better time if I would attack it not at the highest but when its starts falling down again.

Really, with the 09c, how much topspin the incoming ball has is not a huge consideration if you are hitting a counterloop, that is one of the 09c defining attributes.
Just remember, topspin V topspin is a more fwd stroke and more on top of the ball (1-2 o clock) rather than the more vertical stroke V backspin more back of the ball (at 2-3 o clock), roughly speaking. If you lift too much in your stroke V a topspin ball it's gonna go long.

his rating is 1700RC. Thats roughly 1900-2000TTR. But I agree his game should suit me more and you can see me I get to attack pretty often actually for someone who is much lower rated.

Exactly. He is happy for you to attack him and he enjoys that game. Just stay relaxed but focused and enjoy it.

well it´s really hard to move if you get this low. Try it out yourself. You cant move well being this low. Only when standing still and you hit the ball its effective. I don´t know even pro players who train and have the leg strength for it stand up and they receive much more short serves than I do.

I stay low to move. A little movement or hop before service helps to be ready for the receive, I get that, but standing up as you do isn't what you want to be doing. Stay down

In this game I just made too many mistakes receiving serves just fundamentally bad. One of my notes for this game was flick his short backspin serves that come into my FH with a backhand flick which I trained in the previous weeks with someone (with success).

Ok, that was the tactic! Well the basics for Chiquita, wrist position, elbow position, footwork were the issue then. I get it, it's harder in matches.

But here it was catastrophical. And right now my backhand flick is not that consitent anyway so I won´t even bother trying and will focus more on looping with my FH this time.

You can only loop FH for the long ones of course. If they're actually short then the Chiquita/flick can still be a weapon.

How would u describe the feeling of killing it and counterloop? Both are fast strokes.

Here I mean to not hit it too hard. Sometimes against better players you can feel you need to hit harder to win the point but then you miss the table altogether. Hit with control and put more emphasis on placement over power.

I would need to watch the clip again but I am pretty sure he has a FH flick.

He flicked 1 or 2 short flat balls but not any backspin that I saw.

You mean I got direct points because I served short to his FH?

Nope, scratch that comment from me, it must have been another opponent where I saw them struggling there, sorry.
Anyway, good luck for Monday. Looking fwd to seeing how it goes.

 

[Zezima]

I don't think changing equipment will really make much difference either way but from what I saw in the videos, you rarely loop hard and are more of a "reach and touch" type rather than making active and aggressive strokes with arm speed. So no, I don't think H3, or even 09c/hybrids really, would be good for you.

well you make it sound like as if I never attack any balls. Not sure what rubber you would recommend but no rubber can help with "reach and touch". But what I meant was when I do decide to loop with my fh, I thought I could be more considerate without having to worry too much that it will go out.
I do feel like I need 10% less speed for the same spin amount. My current big problem with my fh strokes are that usually the balls I am attacking have not much backspin on it or are somewhat float balls. So by trying to do a FH topspin stroke instead of hitting flat like Dominik did against me, the rubber grips and arcs just slightly over the table. Then I lose a bit of confidence and slow down my stroke or just do the same mistake again and again. 90% I hit it out 10% it goes into the net mostly because I slowed down too much. I do actually think a different rubber would work better for my fh atleast in matches. In training I am actually quite happy with it because I am more relaxed there.

@Sims

Am I supposed to hit that ball more thinly or more compact aka flat but still tangential. What gives me less error? How does the stroke differ if the ball is coming slowish but high trajectory vs fast?

I don´t know if I will score more points this time against him but it will be a different game with many different mistakes atleast. I am not going to play to survive and just try to attack from the get go. And yes I do expect him to shorten the serve to my FH he already did that in the first game when we played (we played twice already - this will be the third time)

I will come back and post the game here when I have it ready to upload.