How to play Penhold looper with long pips bh?

[TensorBackhand]

I am really struggling to beat this 1 guy. He has a very good 3rd ball loop, and very good follow up loops as well. So his FH is really quite good.

But the biggest problem is actually his bh. He has LP on his backhand and he is really good at standing close to the table and blocking and punching with his bh. If I push to his bh, he punches back a weird LP ball. If I topspin to his bh, he blocks back and I am forced to push the next reversal shot. Then he uses his strong FH loop to attack me.

It's very difficult to play him because his bh is very disruptive. His FH is fast and spinny and deep, while his LP BH bounces short and long and all over the place with reversal spin. It's just very disruptive and hard to find any rhythm against him.

How can I play him?

 

[Dominikk85]

So basically a penhold Version of Monica Batra? Watch videos of other girls playing her.

 

[TensorBackhand]

So basically a penhold Version of Monica Batra? Watch videos of other girls playing her.

Is she the one that almost took down team China some months ago?

But yeah I find this style much more frustrating than LP chopper. With LP chopper at least you can get used to the rhythm.

This penhold guy is like a elastic band, it goes fast and slow and fast and slow.

 

[Dominikk85]

Can you avoid one side and only play one side mostly?

if you can pin him on the backhand you could get used to the spin reversal. Or you could play him mostly forehand to forehand (unless he is beating you there too).

 

[vanjr]

How does he do when you play long and dead to his BH?

 

[zhzhzhz]

I am really struggling to beat this 1 guy. He has a very good 3rd ball loop, and very good follow up loops as well. So his FH is really quite good.

But the biggest problem is actually his bh. He has LP on his backhand and he is really good at standing close to the table and blocking and punching with his bh. If I push to his bh, he punches back a weird LP ball. If I topspin to his bh, he blocks back and I am forced to push the next reversal shot. Then he uses his strong FH loop to attack me.

It's very difficult to play him because his bh is very disruptive. His FH is fast and spinny and deep, while his LP BH bounces short and long and all over the place with reversal spin. It's just very disruptive and hard to find any rhythm against him.

How can I play him?

This sounds very familiar to me. Penhold, LP RPB, good forehand loop. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that he is also good with traditional penhold backhand.
All I can say is that you need to push the backhand. Keep making that person use backhand until they get tired

 

[TensorBackhand]

How does he do when you play long and dead to his BH?

He handles this well. He kinda pushes or punches with his LP and keeps it low. Gives me a fairly hard ball to deal with.

 

[TensorBackhand]

How does he do when you play long and dead to his BH?

He handles this well. He kinda pushes or punches with his LP and keeps it low. Gives me a fairly hard ball to deal with

This sounds very familiar to me. Penhold, LP RPB, good forehand loop. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that he is also good with traditional penhold backhand.
All I can say is that you need to push the backhand. Keep making that person use backhand until they get tired

When I push the backhand, he just keeps using the LP on me. Its unfair because my bh push gives the same spin, but his BH push is reversing all the time

 

[Tyce]

There is nothing unfair to it. Try it yourself, it's actually pretty hard to master a dangerous ball with LP from close range. When you push with it, the ball loves to pop up unless you do it exactly right

 

[Brs]

This describes 80% of my opponents. There are two strategies, really no different than vs penhold without LP.

1) pound the backhand as suggested earlier. People put pips on weaknesses. You should generally go at the pips. Also, penhold, so backhand.

2) Play angles. If you want to play to the forehand you must place it outside the corner. Then you can come at the backhand when he has to move. Very difficult for everyone, and using penhold even more so.

 

[vvk1]

Long pips are not magic, penhold or not. You really need to stop describing their effects as "weird" as that literally prevents you from being able to deal with them effectively.

If your pushes into his BH were really deep and low and loaded with backspin, then his options would be quite limited - either use LPs giving you an easy long ball with mild topspin back which should be easily attackable or step around and play a fh loop exposing his wide fh corner ...

If you topspin into his BH and he blocks, you don't *have* to push back. You could loop again ... Your first topspin doesn't need to be very spinny, just deep enough so his BH block lands deep enough on the table. And if you chicken out of attacking the LP block again, make sure you really chisel the ball when pushing, spinning it a lot and again, cannot stress it enough, landing it deep and low on the table.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Long pips are not magic, penhold or not. You really need to stop describing their effects as "weird" as that literally prevents you from being able to deal with them effectively.

If your pushes into his BH were really deep and low and loaded with backspin, then his options would be quite limited - either use LPs giving you an easy long ball with mild topspin back which should be easily attackable or step around and play a fh loop exposing his wide fh corner ...

If you topspin into his BH and he blocks, you don't *have* to push back. You could loop again ... Your first topspin doesn't need to be very spinny, just deep enough so his BH block lands deep enough on the table. And if you chicken out of attacking the LP block again, make sure you really chisel the ball when pushing, spinning it a lot and again, cannot stress it enough, landing it deep and low on the table.

I know what you're saying, but its not that easy to execute. When I push to his LP, it comes back quite fast and low and dead, so its not easy to attack at all. But I guess I just have to attack this ball whatever the cost, because just rallying against his LP is killing me.

When I topspin to his LP, the next shot isn't easy to attack either. It's oddly short and of course has backspin, and it's not easy to execute a followup attack on this.

 

[blahness]

This describes my practice partner super well. If you're not his level whatever you do is useless because he will still win just due to fundamentals. You can have good strats but you need to execute them very well too.

When i was double inverted, these are the strats i used. One of the biggest weaknesses of penhold is wide angle shots. This is because TPB has less reach compared to shakehand BH, so you can exploit it by:

1) when looping you want to primarily aim for heavy spin wide to the FH. If you give lukewarm loops to their FH it will get countered back easily. But it is always not easy to deal with very heavy spin when the ball is outside their body. If they start moving to middle to cover this then wide BH becomes a weakness so just watch their positioning. With this strategy, of course the issue is that they will place a lot of pressure on you especially on your BH, so if your BH loop down the line is not solid then you cant really pressure them this way. For me BH down the line is a major point winner.

2) Long fast serves to their wide BH. I have very good long fast serves so this is a major point winner for me. You have to vary them a lot from heavy under, sideunder, no spin, sidetopspin, topspin etc...

Also vary between shorter wide serves and long jamming ones to the corner.

Without variations they can increase the quality of the LP receive and that makes your 3rd ball much harder.

the thing is without inverted RPB it is impossible for them to generate any serious attack off these long serves and you will always get a free attack after the fast long serve.

3) If they move to cover the wide BH serves well then the short FH is a major liability. But penhold is still very good at pushing so you want to mainly serve no spin or sidetopspin to their short FH, only occasionally heavy underspin. But your service motion has to be exactly the same between long fast to BH and short to FH otherwise they can premove to position and you will be in trouble.

4) if at any point your loop gets chopblocked, step in fast and give him a deep fast jamming push either wide to their FH or into their middle, then either block their loop or loop their push. Trying to reloop this nasty chopblocked ball is usually asking for trouble.

5) During receive you have to really pressure them positionally and also play wide angles. One of my biggest point winners is to push fast with sidespin wide to their FH, they are forced to loop it, then I defend it to their wide BH and they are in trouble because they have no BH attacking options - you will again get a free attack with your FH. With my BH receive i also like to directly chiquita and then attack the next ball strongly with my FH (again see point 1). If they move to cover wide FH then do a soft no spin flick to their BH - they absolutely hate this ball especially LP players because there is no spin to borrow and even with TPB this is a hard ball because they cant generate topspin with it. You will again get a free attack so just make the best of it.