No, I never used any of the hard ESN stuff. I'm too weak for hard sponge, it does nothing for me.
While you almost never really know what is on the ball until you play it and compare the effect to what you thought would happen, you should have some general idea if you remember what you did prior and how what your opponent did prior affected the ball. In fact, very often, inverted rallies are usually building up in spin after the serve, it's just that build up isn't massive at the beginner level, but it is really insane what happens even at the higher intermediate levels as each stroke adds more rotation on top of what the last stroke did by borrowing what the last stroke did and adding something to it (the pro level is really ridiculous sometimes though there speed dominates). Sometimes, my training partner likes to tell me that he didn't do anything, it was all my spin coming back to me. So getting a good feel for how your prior shot impacts the quality of the ball you receive is something many people don't think through much, usually until they play pips, where they are forced to adjust outside a range they find intuitive. But it is something that you have to be aware of to some degree.
That's exactly right Jammail - the apprehension and tightness is a big problem vs these guys.
Yes, you can't do half hearted shots against pips, it can backfire hard. Also imo playing flat can be even worse especially if you're used to spinning to control the trajectory because it's simply not your game. Imo the problem is that if you loop and then they chopblock it, the backspin can be very formidable, and sometimes short too (double bouncing!). If you continue to loop with heavier spin, the resulting chopblock will only get even heavier until it's impossible to loop it anymore. If you push it back you pretty much give up initiative and allow them to attack you (with LP they can attack backspin easily, or they can loop with their inverted side which they can be very good at).
Yeah exactly this was what I was trying to convey, whether attacking or pushing use quality and being dynamic/aggressive with it as you suggest.
Not intentionally, but often when with my coach he will observe that I am dropping the bat head and starting too low on both BH & FH side - I have to work very hard (especially on BH) to start the swing from belly height and not hip height. This means too many top edges and often late to the ball.
T80FX is a solid rubber. usually well respected in the backhand and I have seen guys use it on both sides of a ZLF blade. I think BRS used it ages ago and I know one guy who used to drive me nuts who used it on both sides too. Ultimately I wasn't really caring about the specific rubber, I just wanted Wrighty to go to something softer, especially on the forehand - all his stuff is way too hard. And I think it helps to play with the same rubber on both sides even if might not be best for your game, it helps you understand your strokes in similar ways. If something is working on your backhand, find out reasonable ideas to repeat on the other side. Or vice versa. You have to account for the body work but it still helps.
So the reason I ask is to make the point that the problem isn't the fact you loop, it is the fact that you would not play topspin the same way so your problem is that you are applying a backspin stroke to a topspins ball. This is more of the adaptation you have to do.
Do you feel it's more critical to be softer on FH right now? (I have either my T05 / MX-P or s sheet of T64FX for that side) whereas on the BH I can choose either a sheet of Rozena or T80FX)
The accumulation is not infinite, no, it depends on both the serve and the receive or the incoming and out coming stroke. Of course a receiver can add spin, but a receiver can also kill spin - it is more common though to use the incoming energy to control the ball and add something it.
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