Quarterfinal Loss 2-3 in First U1100 Sanctioned Tournament – Please Share Pointers

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Hello Friends,

This was my first sanctioned U1100 tournament. I’ve played unsanctioned events before, but that was over 5 years ago. I started playing again about 6–7 months back, so this felt like a fresh start. I am the guy with the bandana and Brown T-shirt!


In the round-robin, I won 2 matches and lost 1, which got me to the quarterfinals. There, I fought hard but lost 2–3 in the match. This video is from that game.


I can already spot a lot of mistakes in my play, but I’d really appreciate it if you could share some pointers, analysis, and recommendations on what I need to fix. Also, if you notice any positive things I’m doing well, please point those out too—it’ll keep me motivated to improve.


Looking forward to your feedback and guidance. Thanks! 🙏

Coolchap


 
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I do not know if you are in the red or black (you are the guy in black), but after watching the 1st point if I were coaching either of you I would scream at you for not looping long pushes. Is your ultimate goal to be 1125 or 2000+? If you think you are limited to 1125 then push away for all eternity. However if you want to get better, start looping every long ball. I do not care if your rating drops to 750 for the next year, eventually your loop will get better and you will start beating 2000+ people.

You can obsess over winning "right now" and limit your long term growth, or you can try to develop certain skills that will pay off years later. Decide what route you want to take.

I like the fact you vary your serves. Keep doing that.
 
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Yes, I am guy in the Black/Brown T-shirt.

Let me note the feedback and keep editing

1. Loop the long pushes even if that means some of them will go out. Practice will make it better and overall improve the game. Just chopping will not let me go up in rating and hinder my progress in long term. Feedback by @lightspin
 
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Hello Friends,

This was my first sanctioned U1100 tournament. I’ve played unsanctioned events before, but that was over 5 years ago. I started playing again about 6–7 months back, so this felt like a fresh start. I am the guy with the bandana and Brown T-shirt!


In the round-robin, I won 2 matches and lost 1, which got me to the quarterfinals. There, I fought hard but lost 2–3 in the match. This video is from that game.


I can already spot a lot of mistakes in my play, but I’d really appreciate it if you could share some pointers, analysis, and recommendations on what I need to fix. Also, if you notice any positive things I’m doing well, please point those out too—it’ll keep me motivated to improve.


Looking forward to your feedback and guidance. Thanks! 🙏

Coolchap


I was actually at that tournament lol. For an U1100 match, that is impressive.
 
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Hello there!
Here are a couple of pointers I noted:

1 I like that you try and vary your serves a lot, trying to look for the ones that work best.

- Ingame tip, try to notice at the end of the first game which ones worked best for setting up the third ball as you want it and use them the most often. If you find one or two that gave you the point right away out of surprise, keep them for key points in which your confidence is high (it could be 1-1 in set and 6-6 in points, or it could be 1-2 in set and 10-11 in points, what's important is that you feel confident in that moment of the game - then they have, in my opinion, the best chance to work again and to boost your confidence further).

- Tip for training, the serve is arguably the most important shot of the match, and absolutely certainly the easiest to train (because you don't need a partner, just a table and a lot of balls) and the best shortcut existing to better results. Half an hour every time you train, in any moment of the training you may choose, or even at home if you are lucky enough to have access to a table. Try everyone of them, master the ones you like more and try to vary spin - speed - placement with the same motions. Have fun doing it!

2 I like that you try all the shots and you take your time setting them up. Now it's a great time to honestly assess what your style is and lean into it. It may change with time and that's a good thing, you're evolving your game.

-
Ingame tip, form a clear image of what you want to play as a first and third ball when you serve, and then execute it without doubting yourself. You will be surprised by how many times it works and when it doesn't you and your body will learn why it doesn't. When it is your opponent who serves, challenge him by placing the ball where you think he leasts expect it. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong for a while, keep him guessing.

Tip for training, in any training session, work on one aspect of the game at a time separately first (in the realms of technique - legs - regularity), and then (in the second half of the same session) work on inserting it in your game. If your aim is to win in competition, this second half must be competitive as well, because that can, and must, be trained too. Count the points on exercises too, first to 11 wins. Treat it like a match and it will be a match. Have fun doing it.

Table tennis is amazing because it has endless aspects you can explore and get better at, find the ones you like more and build your game around them!
 
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Your general stance is to upwards/straight basically all the time. Bend your legs/knees more and lean a little more forward to actually stand on the front of your feet.

1756162176723.png
If your knees are not bend like in this picture you have no lateral movement ability and hitting the ball below your belly button is not the height you want to hit it. You want to hit it more between shoulder height and upper belly height.

You get drawn into the "old grandpa push battle" where you basically are lazy and sometimes even have your right foot planted in front and just play backhand pushes. It is easy to be lazy and to think "hey the next ball will be a push too so i stay with the right foot infront", but the real answer should be to instantly go back with that right foot so you are in a proper stance to actually loop the next ball. It is probably not intuitive at first but you really HAVE TO get out of that right leg forward stance, because otherwise no ball will feel like it is the right one to loop.

The push rallies mainly were with very low spin, where your opponent even opened up his bat so that the rubber pointed at you and lobbed the ball over which means there is actually no backspin on it. Especially in these kind of "push rallies" you can basically loop every ball at will. Now you can not play a bomba loop on these relatively empty balls, but you can at least show the initiative to put some topspin into the rally.

Gladly your opponent can't loop either, because he has a too thick ball contact and punches the ball into the net instead of actually spinning it over to you.

All of the serves i have seen so far (your's and your opponents) did have next to no spin in them. The movement was more of somebody acting as if they had seen Ma Long do a serve, but the actual contact was blunt and mostly no or topspin. Additionally these were all quite high. Some of them you could have smashed, some of them you could have looped (but not with a big move, but rather just go over the ball just using your forearm).

Professional start to the serve
1756162536752.png
Then you throw it up correctly, but hit it too high and without brushing you actually shoot the ball into the table
1756162599061.png
The serve is probably 20 or 30 cm above the net and a more seasoned player would simply smash it
1756162649086.png

As others already mentioned. Serves are the easiest to learn since you can do it alone. Try to get them low over the net first. That will be hard enough for amateurs to handle, because if you do a topspin serve that is low, the amateur response to low balls is always push which will lead to many easily smashable balls for you.


Many points i mentioned actually depend on each other. The more upright upper body posture disables you from properly reacting to the serves and loop them. I have the same problem, but perhaps i am 10 % lower and it does work and it intuitively enables you to react to the serves. The rule should be to loop every long serve.
I do have the same problem that i can get lured into the old grandpa push battles where i keep my dominant foot forward and stay planted while pushing several times. I do a deliberate reset of the stance after i notice it to be able to loop the next and usually that works.

On 05:20 you received the no spin high serve to your backhand well by simply countering it. This is of course even easier than spinning it. Well done !
On 05:43 until 05:58 you try to outlast your opponent in the grandpa pushing rally keeping your right foot in front probably simply waiting for your hair to become grey so it does match the game style ;)
Another note on that very ball exchange is that your "backspin serve" actually has no backspin in it otherwise the opponent could not return it with such an bat angle.
1756161656535.png

Here are a few examples of a trainig match against a guy who is better than me and who often plays side-topspin serves to my backhand or wide backhand. The first times i played against him i always tried to push or chop them which basically made them go everywhere but on the table. I really had to be courages enough to spin them. Bonus of this is that i never get into the stupid old grandpa chopping duel.

(me being in the black outfit on the left)

Hope it helps to see a more amateur player show what he says than expecting you to imitate WCQ or Ma Long. If i can do it, you can too.

In my opinion you dont need any tactics to win against this player because he has nothing that would really threaten you if you just did the basics right. There is no need to powerloop him or place the ball very well. Just do a simply spinny loop and the rally is over.

The one thing that i liked was the pendulum sidespin serves of your opponent to your forehand and especially towards the end of the games you returned them quite well.
 
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Thanks a lot for your elaborate answer and tips which you gave. I already kinda read few times. I will to note them down in the above pointers where I am collating other details to take it to my practice in coming future. I am not sure what is wrong with back spin serve I remember I used to even really good back spin serve so well that even when the people knew that it was back spin they could not return it. I had hurricane 3 Neo but I dont think Razka 7 should not be able to generate at least 70% of that kind of backspin. Need to re look at my spin serves. And even many a time I think that I did back spin but seems that brush is not happening properly to give the rotation that it requires.
 
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Thanks a lot for your elaborate answer and tips which you gave. I already kinda read few times. I will to note them down in the above pointers where I am collating other details to take it to my practice in coming future. I am not sure what is wrong with back spin serve I remember I used to even really good back spin serve so well that even when the people knew that it was back spin they could not return it. I had hurricane 3 Neo but I dont think Razka 7 should not be able to generate at least 70% of that kind of backspin. Need to re look at my spin serves. And even many a time I think that I did back spin but seems that brush is not happening properly to give the rotation that it requires.
Any ball that goes long can be attacked, don't fall into the trap of thinking of backspin as something that is hard to attack based on your current experience and playing level. Even if it works at this level, a lot will change at 1500-1600 and you have the potential to get there with proper play and experience, don't get too hung up on scoring points with pushes/backspin.
 
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More spin and spin more often with the fh, not every fh has to be a strong hit. Slow and spinny provides a nice contrast to cannon fh style shots
This is really good advice I was also given some time ago and it worked for me so I will extend.
On this initial level often matches goes into pushing competition. If the opponent is heavy pusher you either push or hits the net. There slow FH loop comes to help you. From the things what work on beginner level you can either push back or try slow topspin with bigger clearance over the net to avoid hitting it. The former does not really support your development, while the latter improves your brushing skill what can be used later when you go to the faster and flatter loops. Just try to hit the ball with your FH not very fast and forward, focus on brushing motion and try to hit the end of table on opponent side. Beginners who push a lot are not usually really good at attacking balls like this which jumps high after hitting the table. When you encounter better rivals of course they will be able to attack it better, but hopefully before that you improve enough to make faster loops with more aggresive trajectory.
 
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Wow, may be next time when you see me, let me know. Good to see players from the same area/tournament on the forum. :)
I am thinking this was in Texas. It is probably easier for you to find me than for me to find you. Will send you a PM.
 
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I watched a small bit so far and I noticed your stance, but also your grip is a bit off.

Stance, you seem to bend at the upper back/ shoulders rather than at the waist or knees. If you want to feel what is a good stance, find the position that enables you to move lightfooted while keeping your upper body and head relatively stable (so you don't lose sight of the ball).
Grip, especially on BH pushes it's visible that your finger is creeping upwards rather than staying sideways at the lower edge of the rubber. This is a sign that you're trying to extend your reach, something that I also see in the rest of the movement. You're hitting the ball pretty far in front of you, which means you're already at the end of the stroke and have nothing left to give the ball spin, speed or even redirection.
For a push, that means you need to step in.

The good news is that you don't seem to do this on the open BH strokes. Sure, you take a couple of them a bit far left of your body but it works for now.

As for improvement, you want solid fundamental footwork. The basic strokes are there, you want to get yourself in the perfect position to execute them as much as possible. This focus can carry you from 1100 to 1800 even without big increases in other techniques. Footwork is essential, and that's why you want a good stance to do it.

It's also why you don't want too fast equipment. If you want to be in place, in time, you want to have enough time. And if you are in place, in time, you can place the ball better, which brings you more time etc. You get the idea.
 
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I agree with previous posts focusing on serve and receive. You are very predictable because your instinct is to push return every serve you receive. Even the ones that are fast with zero spin or slight side/top spin. It actually looks a bit like somebody with long pimples on backhand would play.

I am not saying you have to all out attack a long no/top/side spin serve, but at least punch it back or add some topspin to it. Your game plan now is very centered on relying on the opponent to make mistakes. This might win you a few games in the lower brackets, but with such a game plan if you want to advance, you have to go towards using disruptive equipment like long pimples or anti. And this also takes some skill to master, so you are better off trying to improve your offensive game.

Next advice is to move your feet. You have to move your feet even if you are quite sure where your opponent will place the next ball. After you hit a ball, return as much as possible to neutral position. I.e. if you have stood close to the table making a push, you need to take half a step back and place arm and racket in neutral position, so that you are ready to hit either fh or bh. In this match your are very much rooted in the same place. You look quite athletic so I do not think you are actually slow. I think you are probably a bit "mind locked" because this is a tournament, and you are scared to make mistakes.

Keep up the good work, keep practicing!
 
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