How to play against flat hitters.

[songdavid98]

This thread got hijacked so badly.

I'm just waiting for NL to get in here and preach about racket head speed. If you hit fast enough, anything's possible.

LOL. NextLevel does indeed do that. But NL has a point: there a lot of things that are possible with a good follow through and good speed, but there's a catch: you'd have to be SUPER GOOD.

Are there underspin flips:

not heavy underspin, but I've done light underspin forehand flicks before, rarely. They are kind of similar to backspin smashes.

As for a more spinny variation, I (I'm a lefty penholder, by the way) find the forehand underspin banana flip more useful than it's backhand variant. It's probably because I'm left handed though.

If you've never seen the forehand one, go look at some of Xu Xin's games. He does them occasionally. As for the backhand, just search for the table tennis chiquita service return.



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How to play against flat hitters:

If they are playing close to the table, any fast deep shots will do, even serves. If I see someone playing like this, I immediately start to serve long underspin to the backhand.
Going along the backspin trend, long deep pushes will also do you good.

Honestly, a flat-hitting playing style isn't sustainable if you just keep looping. If opponents are flat-hitting your loops, that means your loops don't have good enough quality. Work on making your loops faster, deeper, and LOWER.

Height is a big deal when it comes to flat-hitting. If you make your shots low, the flat hitters are going to be forced to hit the ball upwards a some point. At that point, they can no longer flat hit and have to spin the ball.

From what I've seen, a large general trend that I've seen is that, players tend to loop spinnier, arcing loops. I know that those loops are easy to do, but unless the opponent has been scared into blocking, shots like that are just asking to be attacked.
I know that arcing loops are more consistent. Looping lower is harder. But you gotta practice and learn to improve your game.

A better picture of what I mean by looping lower would probably be loop kill. Or in Chinese, ?. Learn to loop kill the blocks.

EDIT: fast sidespin loops are great too (read below). This is simply because of the fact that in order to make the shot, they have to be low (there is less topspin for the magnus effect to push the ball down). When the opponent hits the ball, they would have to lift the ball a little. A low, fast, deep shot that has to be lifted. This seems like a really good shot against flat-hitters.

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Story time?:
When I was still looping high arcs, I did play and beat against a mostly flat hitter (Edina Haracic, 2183 at the time, now 2172). I won 3-1. She did indeed flat hit my loops, because my loops indeed weren't very good at the time.
I just backed up and kept looping. As she drove the ball and backhand punched me, I just looped them back. At some point, I would find an opening to loop the ball harder, more like loop drive the ball. I forced her into the net in those games because she would usually be expecting a high spinny loop, when I would give her a lower, faster, less spinny one, almost just driving the ball back like her. Another thing I noticed was that my backhand loop sent her to the net a lot because it was more of a sidespin shot (I play with the reverse penhold backhand), which gave her trouble. I actually used a lot of backhands that match. Probably the winning factor too, because I was able to use it mid-rally

Now that I think about it, sidespin loops actually seem to be a viable and useful option against flathitters. She played well that day, so it wasn't really luck. As a mini-Xu Xin, my playing style probably was probably super-effective against hers. But hey, that's advice you guys are looking for right?

 

[NextLevel]

Anyway, it doesn't matter. I have no idea how you can make an FH backspin flip.
Sent from Inside The Chamber of Secrets by Patronus

Hit downwards on the back of the ball or with a fairly flat motion. Ball has to be high of course and the flip will feel relatively heavy and need to be lifted. I do it all the time in matches when I don't want to flip with spin into a blocking or hitting opponent.

 

[Archosaurus]

Hit downwards on the back of the ball or with a fairly flat motion. Ball has to be high of course and the flip will feel relatively heavy and need to be lifted. I do it all the time in matches when I don't want to flip with spin into a blocking or hitting opponent.

That does make sense. Do you just flip it normally and kind of hit along the bottom?

 

[NextLevel]

In general, these "how do I play against X" posts were generally answered in a book by Larry Hodges and if you don't buy the book, you can find the advice in his tips on the internet. The truth is that if you are young, you simply beat any style by ... you guessed it, playing good table tennis. Some players are just better than you are in the quality of how they set up and execute the point and you have to accept that sometimes, even if you don't like it.

To get better at table tennis, you need to work on your arsenal of strokes and improve your ability to read the incoming shot and adapt your stroke to it.

The truth is that I could just as well beat an 1800 flat hitter and lose to a 2200 flat hitter. I could also beat a 2200 flat hitter who just couldn't read or return my serves, while losing to an 1800 flat hitter who returned my serves well and then left me stranded with nothing to work with.

That's why it is best to post video so that we can all get an idea of what is really going on. A flat hitter with a bad backhand could be susceptible to my all-round backhand looping, punching and serving matchup while one with a good backhand could give me fits with backhand punches I cannot track.

Very often, I see players who are 1200 lose to a 1600 pips player and then come to me asking how they should play pips. It is a good question, but they probably would not beat the 1600 pips player even if they knew how to play pips. So the real question is whether they would have beaten a 1200 pips player but some of them do not even look for such players to play with so they don't know. You may prefer the way you felt playing a 1600 inverted player to how you felt playing a 1600 pips player, but that only means, assuming you have decent technique, that you have spent more time adapting to the inverted ball than to the pips ball.

In the end, there are strategies/plays you need to build into your arsenal - on your serve, you need to be able to serve long and short with various spins to all points on the table. You need to practice looping different spins and returns on third ball. On serve return, you need to get your flicks and pushes.

Then you just try your different plays and see how your opponent adapts. Is he weak in the middle or when you go wide? Does he like topspin, backspin or no spin when he attacks? Does he play better on the forehand or the backhand? Does he produce topspin, backspin or no spin balls on his preferred returns? Does he return any of your deceptive serve combinations really well? Does he attack first or does he prefer to defend or counterpunch?

Then just play the guy and continue to adjust what you learn. Any general rule about how to play a style assumes a certain level of play from you and makes generalizations about styles that may not apply to the person you are playing.

If you provide a video, we might be able to help you see weaknesses that match up better with your game. But the idea that there is something we can tell you about how to play a specific style has a lot of assumptions built into it about what you can or cannot do.

 

[NextLevel]

That does make sense. Do you just flip it normally and kind of hit along the bottom?

Hit downwards. Most topspin strokes are upwards or upwards and forwards, even when relatively flat. No body hits a ball along the bottom unless they are pushing heavy backspin. The point of a flick with some measure of backspin is that you do not want the opponent to simply block and get the ball back.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

NL dropping wisdom as usual! I'm not at your level Sir, in physical skill as well as expressing clearly in posts

I find as I read your post and nodding in understanding.

THANK YOU!