Is it the right approach to try to return every backspin serve with a backhand flick?

[NextLevel]

If you are playing 600-800 players USATT, focus much more on being able to play standard topspin strokes against long balls in general including long serves - it doesn't have to be powerful, that comes with time and practice. If you are an adult learner, the biggest problem adult learners have is that they want to introduce speed into their game before they have built technique, which has a lot of bad side effects.

Play as all round a rally game as possible with a focus on learning to control and place the ball. This will serve you well when you specialize on things that will serve you well in the long term. Building good ball feeling is always a strength, as when you get better and have people hitting the ball at you more aggressively, it will help you control certain balls and prevent certain players from attacking you too hard. When learning to topspin, do not be discouraged if players awkwardly smash your topspins, that is how it often starts, but that is not how the story ends.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

If you are playing 600-800 players USATT, focus much more on being able to play standard topspin strokes against long balls in general including long serves - it doesn't have to be powerful, that comes with time and practice. If you are an adult learner, the biggest problem adult learners have is that they want to introduce speed into their game before they have built technique, which has a lot of bad side effects.

Play as all round a rally game as possible with a focus on learning to control and place the ball. This will serve you well when you specialize on things that will serve you well in the long term. Building good ball feeling is always a strength, as when you get better and have people hitting the ball at you more aggressively, it will help you control certain balls and prevent certain players from attacking you too hard. When learning to topspin, do not be discouraged if players awkwardly smash your topspins, that is how it often starts, but that is not how the story ends.

2nd that

it is so important to focus on the basics and just get the basic rights.
There is no need for BH flicks and all kinds of flicks in your books at the lower level.

Learn to read spin, learn to generate spin, learn to move correctly and learn to execute your basic strokes correctly (fh/bh push and fh/bh top spin)

Then from there, is consistency (my quantity + quality theory)

In the east, when coaches are drilling young players on fundamentals, they actually only teach them backhand flicks say after a year or two of training (a year of training equated to about 30 hours a week, at 50 weeks, so say after 1500+ hours of training). Only then they incorporate the "additional" techniques that is good to have. And when there, the basic strokes are still 80% of the training.

Of course in the west, that isn't possible, but it just shows you that rather learn and master everything of 4 strokes, then learn little of say 20 strokes.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

An extra piece of info, if you are doing an over the table BH loop against a sidespin serve, coming over the top is good. But if it is against a backspin serve or a push, contacting the side of the ball instead of the back or the top will make the shot easier to execute successfully because the spin will have less bite if you are contacting close to the axis of the rotation.

 

[blahness]

An extra piece of info, if you are doing an over the table BH loop against a sidespin serve, coming over the top is good. But if it is against a backspin serve or a push, contacting the side of the ball instead of the back or the top will make the shot easier to execute successfully because the spin will have less bite if you are contacting close to the axis of the rotation.

Against extreme pure backspin it even needs to be on the side + bottom of the ball even unless your spin production ability exceeds that of your opponent.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Against extreme pure backspin it even needs to be on the side + bottom of the ball even unless your spin production ability exceeds that of your opponent.

And just like with serving, you can contact side/under and generate top/side.

 

[mihalichtheone]

I always thought that the best approach is to do whatever works against this particular opponent.
And have fun playing, of course.
Whatever makes you happy.
Igor was right. Be happy.

 

[S-Pin]

I've heard it's easier and more effective to do banana aginst side-backspin. Where there is more pronounced backspin on the serve and less sidespin it's harder to do banana (Kirill Skachkov's advice). I usually just push long to the other side of the table or push short. If you don't want to do engage in those push battles just wait for the long push to open with a slow spinny loop

If it looks like a heavy backspin on the serve and you can't really read the amount, it is easier to banana flick the ball on the side, because there's less spin on that part of the ball, and that's what aforementioned Skachkov and many strong players seem to be doing btw.
To me, I hate pushing rallies, it's just a TT cul-de-sac, so my preferred options against a backspin serve are either this side flick or a looong push to the elbow - just to let him open it up. If the opponent can return with a strong topspin, so be it. I usually try to open up ASAP and if I make a mistake, well, that only means I need to keep working on it. As my coach told me, it's not the best immediate strategy, but beneficial in the long term. 66% of failure is way too much, and here one needs to adjust, but all in all one of the mistakes many of us are prone to is training advanced strategies only to become hesitant to use it when playing a match.

 

[Topspinslinger]

My lord what a blessing are people who serve short backspin. Try swiping with sidespin. It is so much fun to flick of course but a sidespin ball is so nice. You can attack after.