Happy to report my wrist and fingers doesn't hurt as much. I noticed I curled my fingers a little and not as relaxed on the overall grip so after a night of play my fingers ache for 2 or 3 days. So i tried just extended with no curl - no achiness, however a few more balls hitting my fingers LOL
I feel your pain. I've been there and that was somewhat of an ever constant annoyance for me. So much to where I tried not to hold the blade and high up on the neck opting for a somewhat looser grip further down the blade so my fingers don't protrude so much on the blade face.
I think it just takes practice and hey you get to train your eye-hand coordination.
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Hit with my training partner today. Really focused on more steady play. Particularly in the service receive game. I chopped or just returned safety probably 90% of the time only attacking the other 10%. Just enough to keep him honest. That's a pretty big jump from how I use to play it.
I played great. Told myself in my head that not only will I return his serves short, but I will focus on placement. Namely, his BH because he likes to FH loop 3rd ball a lot and I was determined to win the short game vs him.
Anyways, played great. But then the final 15 minutes, I really tried that service return Cazuo was demonstrating above. I don't perform mine quite like his. Never have. My stroke is more wristy. I'd say it looks a lot more like this, just not as aggressive, as Xu Xin does here. But you get the wristy part.
My goodness this return gave him fits. The amount of side you can generate from this motion makes it like they're having to 3rd ball a serve right back at them. He even mentioned it after practice that this new technique gave him fits.
What I like about it is that it feels so safe. It's still feels like a passive return but there's definitely a lot of funk on it going back to them so in a way it's also like you're attacking their serve.
If there's backspin on the ball, you come more under the ball. If there's more sidepsin, you come more on the side. The more there's side or side top, the more touch you have to have. Have to hit this ball thin. Otherwise it's easy to float long. I'm slowly learning and getting better at that yes you can even chop or push topspin serves if your touch is good and if the ball isn't coming at you too fast. I'm liking it.
So all of a sudden I feel like there's more spin options to give back to them on their 3rd ball. No longer is it simply returning backspin to them if you push. Or returning topspin to them if you attack. Now going back to them could be back, side in either direction (more on that in a moment), top or I use a LP play of which who knows what spin will be on their. Depends on their serve. All in all, I like it.
So on the sidespin part. You'll notice in the Xu Xin gif here, he's applying sidespin one direction. If you want to apply sidespin going the other way, you have to scrap this motion and instead go for that Ma Lin TPB sidepin chop he was famous for where your blade comes across your body. The motion Xu Xin does here goes away from his body. So in the other direction.
I couldn't find a good gif of that Ma Lin sidespin chop-block but I assume 90% of you know what shot I'm referring to.
Lastly, take note if you do this if you're doing this shot on a side-spin serve, are you continuing their sidespin from their serve? Or going against it. IMO if you're going against their sidespin with your motion, be careful not to send the ball long. The ball will bite harder into your rubber. If you're going with the spin, the ball won't bite as hard and you have to put a little more into it just to get it over the net since you're actually not hitting into the ball all that much applying forward momentum. Remember, you're hitting the side of the ball. Just my amateur 2 cents.
