How to get the upper hand in bh-bh exchanges?

[Tyce]

If the speed is the problem, you gotta find a way to decrease speed or make yourself faster.

Decreasing your own shot doesn't guarantee a speed decrease and *could* put you on the back foot, but it's something worth trying. A sudden dropshot with a (chop)block could disrupt the game enough for you to take over - but you have to be sharp on it as it can also offer your opponent the chance to break through.

Decreasing your opponent's speed means either you punch through to throw him on the back foot (basically what he does to you, as you literally say you can't keep up and your quality goes down) and/or you use placement to the gut, elbow and maybe even beyond to force him to play a difficult FH shot.

Increasing your own speed could be done by making you swing more compact, that can be done both in backswing and follow-through. Compacting your swing while keeping quality is going to take a lot of practice but will make you level up for sure.

Lots of good suggestions here and actually nothing I said hasn't already been said, but I just try to word it a little different in hope it helps. Interesting development, let us know how it goes!

 

[yoass]

Hi Community,

so this question will be a little bit vague but maybe some of you have some ideas. I play in a new league this year, since we got promoted last year. So far the matches going great, I can really feel that my opponents are alot better and tougher than previously, and the challenge is really fun.

Recently I had a match where I ended up in a lot of fast-paced Backhand to Backhand rallies versus a guy. Very shortly after serving and open up loops, the ball became very fast because he pinned me to my backhand with mostly fast punches but also occasional spin attacks. I am decent at holding the ball on my backhand and vary between passive blocks and active blocks where I add some spin, but I struggle to keep that up after a while, like after 4-5 exchanges. At some point the ball becomes very fast , especially when he switched to punching more. My passive blocks became floaty, so i tried active blocking, but it was very hard to add spin and vary placement when the ball is fast. His backhand was good, I give him credit, but I feel like I should have been better at avoiding this situation. He was also a balanced player with a spinny forehand, so its not as easy as "just play into his forehand"

Is there anything you can do to either slow the ball down, or practise how to get better at those bh-bh exchanges? I am already drilling those from time to time but I find it very hard to add quality when the ball reaches a certain speed, even in practise

Thank you for your tips

Placement patterns. Move the opponent about, seek their hip/elbow (crossoverpoint) then go wide, back. Play fast and deep, alternate with shorter, slower, dead or, contrarily, with heavy spin.

Getting the opponent slightly uncomfortable, slightly out of position, is key. You can see this pattern a lot in the women's game especially, where bh-bh exchanges are quite dominant.

 

[sebi]

My 2 cents on it.
Best taktik in my opinion is to play at the cross ever point and then far into the side the chose to use. So backhand at middle next ball far into backhand.

This is probably the easiest to do fast without learning new stuff.

Long tearm you could learn how to chop block or better bh technique.

 

[latej]

This happens to me too, and I try to ingrain 1 thing, to react to the power that is coming at me, by letting it push me a bit back. Sometimes I stubbornly stay, but the other guy is more powerful. I need to step back a bit (or better be stepped back a bit), this small distance gives your more time to play a different shot than just "a reacting BH drive", now you can play more powerful BH spin. Similar thing can happen on the FH, sometimes I play nice fast powerful topspin (such that I myself am satisfied with the feeling ;-) ), but since it is fast, it comes back so fast that I don't have time to react. This must be anticipated, I need to "react" here to my own power and "let it push me back" just a bit so I have time for the next shot. What I said has already been said, I just wanted to say in diff. words.

 

[blahness]

It sounds like you probably need to drill fast close to table rallies with lots of spin and placement variation and focus on holding the table position no matter what is coming at you. The ability to get a lot of spin back (mainly with fingers and forearm action) with a very short stroke, ability to adjust to different incoming spins as well as fast footwork to reach all the balls in time are the key abilities here.

But @Takkyu_wa_inochi is right, there is no escape other than making your BH even stronger.

If you pivot against strong BH players who can switch down the line at will, you will get destroyed even harder.