How should I return short and low no spin serves that come to my backhand other than pushing them long or slowly flicking them being left handed?

[Yuomay]

I’d say any return that doesn’t set up your opponents game is good to a short serve.

I always start with a preferred return. Lowest percentage of direct mistakes.

Then if they do attack my preferred return I try to augment the quality of that return. (Placement, height, deception) and add variety.

 

[You're Tacky & I Hate You]

It seems a lot like you're too focused on what FZD was doing in 1 particular match, rather than what you are capable of. I'm pretty certain there'll be countless other examples of FZD matches where he barely misses a flick regardless of what spin is presented.

It sounds like you struggle with these serves because you're not receiving with confidence.

A. Obviously I can’t kill these balls with flicks because they’re very short and low so at best I can slowly flick them which work if they don’t kill my flicks with their third ball. (Open to ideas to where and what spin to flick the balls with)

If you can slow flick it, I would focus on placement. Get the ball deep into the crossover or as wide as possible to the left of the table (your left, assuming a RH opponent), hit those white lines, a slow flick landing half long will easily be attacked. If going for crossover, the purer the topspin the better in most cases, really get the ball to jump at the your opponent. If going for the wide angle heavy side spin, as a lefty your banana flick will naturally spin the ball away from the table to the left, use it to get them on the run.

B. Pushing long is always an option but I’m not a fan of letting others take the initiative especially if they have a strong forehand. (Pushing long to the middle works well until I get figured out)

If I were you I'd push long to middle until they work it out. Get as many points from this as possible until it stops working. Then move the long push to either corner as a surprise and see what happens, just make sure you recover properly to cover most likely result.

C. Side swiping with my backhand to their forehand also works but it’s not that easy to keep them short and have good quality at the same time. If I miss one of the two I’ll either be punished right away (too long) or they push a fast long ball to my backhand (short but lack quality or really even good side swipes) and I won’t have time to loop it with quality.

If you know this works. Practice it to build the confidence so you know you can put the ball you want on the table.

Someone else also suggested that you can touch the dead balls back short. Id agree with this, you don't have to attack. Putting the ball back short and dead is like saying "no, give me something I can work with" and often works a treat for me.

I also wonder if your returns might not be as weak as you fear, but you are stopping to ball watch and not moving out to recover effectively (this is a bad habit of mine too). I find that even with a weaker than planned return, proper recovery for next ball can keep you in the point.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[jk1980]

I suppose variety is key here since there’s no obvious answer for this kind of serve.
Pushing short a dead serve with quality is extremely hard to do consistently but mixing it up with flicks, long pushes and side swipes make or break the match.
Tho, I just want to add that even Fan Zhendong couldn’t really do anything against these serves, though, fortunately, my opponents are nowhere near as strong as LSS.

you're observations are correct.
There are simple rules and i am surprised that seemingly more advanced players would tell anybody to push an empty ball. This just tells me that who actuall recommends such things are lacking in the short game, because this simlpy does not work.

dead spin usualyl actually has slightly top spin, because even only the friction of the ball hitting the table twice (on a serve) will generate some kind of top spin.

Pushing such a ball will always go upwards and half-long to long(if we define push by having a bat angle that is more open with the rubber more facing the ceiling than forwards).

A faster empty, slight top spin can be blocked if it has enough power to penetrate the topsheet and sponge and get enough lift via the incoming topspin to guide the ball over the net.
For shorter and lower energy dead spin/slight topspin usually fail to dig enough into the rubber, so that this automatic lift over the net will not work, so you need to do an active movement to have a thick enough contact to not let the ball drop off the bat into the net.

The challenge here is that any active movement with thick enough contact will also drag the ball to that direction. Some serves you can keep short by using the side of the ball to chop down on it, but only because the incoming spin and momentum is enough to guide it back over the net. This is not the case in the scenario described by Robin.

The opponent uses the deliberately to force the open game and there is not much chance to avoid that (if you play inverted).

I think you need to embrace the situation and know that you will get into the open game, so you need to work on your flicks. Be it forehand (more intuitive but less dangerous) or backhand banana. The main point is to have a very closed angle on the backhand banana. Open enough to guide it over the net but close enough to not hit it in a too high arc.

i watched a higher level league match lately where i noticed that the backswing for the backhand flick was basically totally closed (rubber pointing to the table).

TLDR; flick it with a closed angle and medium acceleration to get the minimum thickness of contact needed to engage the topshit and lift it over and use positioning to give the opponent a not that easy opening to loop, but remember he will loop.

 

[blahness]

This makes me really want to go back to inverted BH which allows me to use chiquita to immediately get an advantage. Antispin BH is really bad against this sort of light underspin short serve with an opponent determined to attack your return hard.

 

[Ghostzen]

It's percentages in a real match. If you are playing a serious match against a player of similar or better standard then percentage rates will fall on certain things. A player will need to go harder or with more degree of risk to put someone under pressure.

A blanket flick everything and it will go against any level just isn't a real match mind-set. Variation is king to keep you on top and the other player off balance.