How to stop 3rd ball loop attack?

[TensorBackhand]

Today I lost a close match to a player with a very strong serve and 3rd ball attack. There was pretty much nothing I could do to prevent his attack, other than defend for dear life.

His serve is common pendulum serve, but it is quite wicked. It is fast, low, spinny, and always aimed at my bh corner. Occasionally, when the serve drifted long I could loop it and that would prevent the 3rd ball attack. But other than that, it was almost always too short to loop.

It was also too low to really flick hard (at least at my level). So most of the time all I could do was push it long. Then he would just do his 3rd ball attack every time. He's just waiting for the 3rd ball, so even when I pushed it to his bh corner, he would still loop it with his FH.

I also can't push it short for 2 reasons. The ball is too spinny and it bounces too hard off my rubber (more advanced players might solve this, but I can't). His serve isn't underspin either, its more just like heavy sidespin. Also, I can't get to the ball early enough because I'm also standing behind the table and watching out for the fast long serve. If I try to stand closer to the table and get to the serve, he can will use the long serve on me.

When I tried to flick, it didn't make a difference as he would just smash the 3rd ball anyways. As I said earlier, his serve is too low to flick hard, so my flick was kinda a sitter for him. Also there is so much spin, that my flick kinda just goes into his strike zone.

 

[latej]

I'd say don't give on flicking yet, just try avoid pushing for the moment. Sometimes the flick can be slow (more like an empty ball, like you don't add that much spin, like "half" flick, pros would likely not do it ;-) ), and the opponent still can't do that much with it. Continue practicing it, you'll also be able to control the angle, e.g. to put very much to his BH side, where his step-around may not be as good or not as strong, or he makes mistake...

 

[Aizen]

How about countering on 4th ball?

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Today I lost a close match to a player with a very strong serve and 3rd ball attack. There was pretty much nothing I could do to prevent his attack, other than defend for dear life.

His serve is common pendulum serve, but it is quite wicked. It is fast, low, spinny, and always aimed at my bh corner. Occasionally, when the serve drifted long I could loop it and that would prevent the 3rd ball attack. But other than that, it was almost always too short to loop.

It was also too low to really flick hard (at least at my level). So most of the time all I could do was push it long. Then he would just do his 3rd ball attack every time. He's just waiting for the 3rd ball, so even when I pushed it to his bh corner, he would still loop it with his FH.

I also can't push it short for 2 reasons. The ball is too spinny and it bounces too hard off my rubber (more advanced players might solve this, but I can't). His serve isn't underspin either, its more just like heavy sidespin. Also, I can't get to the ball early enough because I'm also standing behind the table and watching out for the fast long serve. If I try to stand closer to the table and get to the serve, he can will use the long serve on me.

When I tried to flick, it didn't make a difference as he would just smash the 3rd ball anyways. As I said earlier, his serve is too low to flick hard, so my flick was kinda a sitter for him. Also there is so much spin, that my flick kinda just goes into his strike zone.

my recommendation against pendulum aimed at your BH.
- if the ball drifts long, you have to loop or attack it with BH or FH. looks like you know how to do it already
- if its short (= would bounce 2+ times on your half table), try to put it back short to HIS FH side. because the pendulum serve is usually with side spin, the mistake not to make is to put your bat angle parallel to the net.
(a) If you touch the ball on the LEFT side with a bat angle like (seen from above)

\​

you would need to put more spin on the ball than the incoming one, basically do a chiquita is a very good solution

the other solution is to open your wrist, and contact the ball on the left and swiping with your FH and put YOUR side spin. it can be very effective if the opponent doesn't expect it, and if you can put a lot of spin so that the trajectory dies on the BH short side of the table but the problem is that you must move on the left side of the table and open the table totally , leaving your FH side empty

(b)
If you touch the ball on the RIGHT side with a bat angle like (seen from above)

/​

you will kill the side spin. you can do it with your FH and then its easier then to aim for short FH side. it will force your opponent to move. bat angle should be adjusted if the serve is underspin (more horizontal and lift a bit the ball) or no-spin (more vertical and do a mini chop at impact)

its possible also to do a long push with my BH with the tip of the racket FORWARD. With that a bit unusual angle I can push deep and fast to his BH (and its actually easier than it seems). Not many people do that so it can surprise the opponent at least the first time you do it.

if the serve is SHORT, then with the same angle, and my BH, but the tip of the racket INWARD, i can drop the ball behind the net. its killing the incoming sidespin, and very easy to control. Its often a winner for me in matches. the main problem with this receive, IMO, is that you must NOT anticipate. because if you prepare to do this shot and the serve actually comes long or even half long, the bat angle is totally wrong and you will get jammed.

there are plenty of other receives but thats what i know how to do in matches.

 

[Abbimmael]

try and put different amounts of spin or different placement on your push

 

[TensorBackhand]

try and put different amounts of spin or different placement on your push

Yes i tried, he seemed like he was getting to my push and attacking hard from everywhere like Ma Lin

 

[canonFH]

In my previous club, there was a similar guy, except he liked to serve mostly nospin and even if you were successful at keeping them short, he had a great short push too and a slight mistake in the push game would be punished heavily by topspin attacks. He also had great footwork and covered the entire table with his FH.

I got the chance to play him regualrly, so tried different things, long pushes to the line, extremely spinny pushes, flicks whenever I could, but I could only take a game or two most days. I only started beating him consistently after I started blocking his attacks.

One thing that worked against him was sidespin pushes to his wide FH or BH. But I had to look where he was expecting the ball and place it accordingly, which was not easy to pull off often.

 

[Amayzde]

Against players with a good serve and recieve game its hard to prevent them from attacking at all, especially if they don't serve backspin. So instead of thinking "how do I recieve to prevent my opponent from attacking?" you should think more about "How can I make it harder for my opponent to get a strong attack in?".

How can we do that?

1. Keep the recieve as low over the net as possible. Doesn't matter if the ball is short or long, a ball thats low is harder to attack strong.
2. Make your opponent move before he can execute the attack. When people have to move before attacking, their atacking quality usually suffers from it. My favourite way to recieve serves is to play off the side lines:

These wide angles are not only very awkward for the average opponent to attack, but also make it easier for yourself to predict where the next ball wil come;

This is an example for righty vs righty, forehand to forehand. This will also apply vice versa. Blue is likely placement, yellow is unlikely, red is very unlikely (unless your opponent practices arount the net often).
3. Figure out what depth your opponent prefers: half long, or deep? Most people recieve somewhere in between because they are not intentionally trying to play one or the other. So try to be more intentional about this: either play it half long or close to the baseline.
4. Figure out what rythm your opponent likes. This is the same as the last tip, but this applies more to the rally that comes after the recieve. As I said, its hard to prevent good servers from attacking at all, so when they do attack, be intentional with your blocking. Either do a soft block, or an active block. Funny enough most players struggle with the softer block more then with the active block.
Counter attacking is of course also an option, but most people dont practice this enough and are prone to making mistakes. And remember table tennis is won by making the least mistakes, not by most attemps to rip the opponents first topspin.

So I hope this helps, let me know what you think.

 

[TensorBackhand]

How can we do that?

1. Keep the recieve as low over the net as possible. Doesn't matter if the ball is short or long, a ball thats low is harder to attack strong.
2. Make your opponent move before he can execute the attack. When people have to move before attacking, their atacking quality usually suffers from it. My favourite way to recieve serves is to play off the side lines:

1) In theory this makes sense, but its hard for me. When he does his pendulum serve, there is usually some underspin or some topspin. It's never the same perfect serve every time. So when I push, my height is a bit random. Sometimes if I guess there more underspin than in reality, my push will be high over the net.

2) I did try this a bit, I tried pushing to his fh side and bh side. But again, there is heavy sidespin on the serve, so a lot of times I end up just pushing right into his hitting zone. Because of the heavy sidespin, I can't really pinpoint the direction of my receive.

 

[blahness]

Basically chiquita eats this serve for breakfast. I love it when ppl serve this to me, it means i get a free 1st attack. If he goes for the FH pivot i will actually contact chiquita on the left side even more to increase sidespin and increase the angle even more so that if they still wanna pivot it will be in a pretty bad position. If they passively block the chiquita you can just easily pivot yourself to finish the ball. Otherwise it will transition into a 50-50 topspin rally.

 

[Amayzde]

1) In theory this makes sense, but its hard for me. When he does his pendulum serve, there is usually some underspin or some topspin. It's never the same perfect serve every time. So when I push, my height is a bit random. Sometimes if I guess there more underspin than in reality, my push will be high over the net.

2) I did try this a bit, I tried pushing to his fh side and bh side. But again, there is heavy sidespin on the serve, so a lot of times I end up just pushing right into his hitting zone. Because of the heavy sidespin, I can't really pinpoint the direction of my receive.

Well that means your recieve will need some work.

I can't really help you to fix this if I haven't seen you recieve this serve. But it sounds like you just put your bat against the ball. This makes it indeed really hard to control the direction and length of the ball. Always try to neutrelize the spin by spinning the ball yourself.

When having problems with sidespin serves, try to hit the ball slightly on the side to neutralise the spin. there is 2 ways of doing this:
1. Going with the spin: You hit the bal in the same direction as the incoming spin. This is the more controlled option of the 2 when you have to overcome the incoming spin. Similair to when trying to topspin against backspin, but sideways.
2. Going against the spin: You hit the bal in the opposite direction as the incoming spin. This is the faster option, but harder to control. The angle needs to be more percise or else the ball flies out. Similair to trying to topspin against topspin, but also sideways.

I would reccommend going with the spin, because its easier to control the incoming ball. Like @blahness mentioned, the chiquita will work great against a regular pendulum serve, because you hit the ball in the same direction as the incoming sidespin.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

You should ask 1800 Harimoto to teach you

 

[Sims]

His serve isn't underspin either, its more just like heavy sidespin.

If it's sidespin only the BH drive is the shot you need to direct the ball back.
It's pendulum so it's naturally going towards his BH corner (if righthander). Getting is well placed over there makes a FH loop more difficult.

Also, I can't get to the ball early enough because I'm also standing behind the table and watching out for the fast long serve. If I try to stand closer to the table and get to the serve, he can will use the long serve on me.

Moving in and out is basic footwork.
You HAVE to be able to move in to in easily, I can't imagine why you can't do this, unless you are wearing your boots again 😉

When I tried to flick, it didn't make a difference as he would just smash the 3rd ball anyways.

If he is smashing every flick you do then maybe he's just a far superior player and there's no short term solution for you?

As I said earlier, his serve is too low to flick hard, so my flick was kinda a sitter for him. Also there is so much spin, that my flick kinda just goes into his strike zone.

Again, if it's pure sidespin only, or side top then BH drive the serve to a more difficult area of the table.
If coming with backspin you can try a more loaded push, for many players this is a difficult loop as the ball comes lower and faster to them.
If he really can loop everything then he's a challenge for your development rather than your tactics I reckon!

 

[Dominikk85]

Today I lost a close match to a player with a very strong serve and 3rd ball attack. There was pretty much nothing I could do to prevent his attack, other than defend for dear life.

His serve is common pendulum serve, but it is quite wicked. It is fast, low, spinny, and always aimed at my bh corner. Occasionally, when the serve drifted long I could loop it and that would prevent the 3rd ball attack. But other than that, it was almost always too short to loop.

It was also too low to really flick hard (at least at my level). So most of the time all I could do was push it long. Then he would just do his 3rd ball attack every time. He's just waiting for the 3rd ball, so even when I pushed it to his bh corner, he would still loop it with his FH.

I also can't push it short for 2 reasons. The ball is too spinny and it bounces too hard off my rubber (more advanced players might solve this, but I can't). His serve isn't underspin either, its more just like heavy sidespin. Also, I can't get to the ball early enough because I'm also standing behind the table and watching out for the fast long serve. If I try to stand closer to the table and get to the serve, he can will use the long serve on me.

When I tried to flick, it didn't make a difference as he would just smash the 3rd ball anyways. As I said earlier, his serve is too low to flick hard, so my flick was kinda a sitter for him. Also there is so much spin, that my flick kinda just goes into his strike zone.

Have you tried a fast long push like this

Maybe if you can't flick or push short yet you can switch between long fast push and long slow push to keep him on his toes a little.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Well that means your recieve will need some work.

I can't really help you to fix this if I haven't seen you recieve this serve. But it sounds like you just put your bat against the ball. This makes it indeed really hard to control the direction and length of the ball. Always try to neutrelize the spin by spinning the ball yourself.

When having problems with sidespin serves, try to hit the ball slightly on the side to neutralise the spin. there is 2 ways of doing this:
1. Going with the spin: You hit the bal in the same direction as the incoming spin. This is the more controlled option of the 2 when you have to overcome the incoming spin. Similair to when trying to topspin against backspin, but sideways.
2. Going against the spin: You hit the bal in the opposite direction as the incoming spin. This is the faster option, but harder to control. The angle needs to be more percise or else the ball flies out. Similair to trying to topspin against topspin, but also sideways.

I would reccommend going with the spin, because its easier to control the incoming ball. Like @blahness mentioned, the chiquita will work great against a regular pendulum serve, because you hit the ball in the same direction as the incoming sidespin.

Yeah I've never learned this technique before, and I've never even heard of it before. Do you have a video to show and explain it? But it sounds like with 1) you just mean you are pushing slightly down but also to the left?

To be honest, I can't imagine how this would help against this player. As soon as I push, he will just loop the 3rd ball.

 

[AutomaticBackhand]

Make the 3rd Ball as uncomfortable/weak as possible.
Then deal with that.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Basically chiquita eats this serve for breakfast. I love it when ppl serve this to me, it means i get a free 1st attack. If he goes for the FH pivot i will actually contact chiquita on the left side even more to increase sidespin and increase the angle even more so that if they still wanna pivot it will be in a pretty bad position. If they passively block the chiquita you can just easily pivot yourself to finish the ball. Otherwise it will transition into a 50-50 topspin rally.

Firstly, his serve is very hard to chiquita for me. It's very low and fast and spinny. And especially when it has underspin on it, it's just not practical.

Second, whenever I did for for the flick, he just did the same. He was just waiting there for the 3rd ball and killed it the same.

 

[TensorBackhand]

If it's sidespin only the BH drive is the shot you need to direct the ball back.
It's pendulum so it's naturally going towards his BH corner (if righthander). Getting is well placed over there makes a FH loop more difficult.

Moving in and out is basic footwork.
You HAVE to be able to move in to in easily, I can't imagine why you can't do this, unless you are wearing your boots again 😉

If he is smashing every flick you do then maybe he's just a far superior player and there's no short term solution for you?


Again, if it's pure sidespin only, or side top then BH drive the serve to a more difficult area of the table.
If coming with backspin you can try a more loaded push, for many players this is a difficult loop as the ball comes lower and faster to them.
If he really can loop everything then he's a challenge for your development rather than your tactics I reckon!

No, I felt I had more overall complete game in every department, apart from the service situation. I could never get comfortable with the serve situation.

After being down 0-2 in games, I came all the way back and lead 8-5 in the 5th game. But then the serves got to me again and I lost.

In terms of technical ability, I felt better. But he was beating me tactically very badly. Also, I didn't even mention this: but he is a penhold player and has LP on his BH. Sometimes he will twiddle and use his LP just to confuse me and make awkward balls. This wasn't actually the main deciding point though. The deciding factor was the very difficult serve, and the relentless 3rd ball attack.

 

[God-scrubplayer]

push long and get into rally. nothing you can do about a serve that is wicked.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

If the opponent is consistently 3rd-ball killing every return I make, then they're either playing on fire or they're just better than me. Sometimes this happens and all you can do is congratulate them on a good performance.

In the match there are some tactical things you can do to try and throw them off. Even if BH flicks aren't working, try to mix up the spins, lengths, placement, etc. of your returns. Give one return some heavy backspin, another some lighter backspin, and mix in side spin, etc. Of course keep track of returns that give them trouble, but the main idea is to break their rhythm and draw errors, and make them think. It may not work, especially if the opponent is simply better. But the main thing to avoid against an in-form player is giving predictable returns and letting them get into a rhythm.