Slowing down your play

[NextLevel]

Captain Obvious to the rescue!

You have to meet Der_Echte and hear him speak to realize that read him as Captain Obvious is a big mistake. And a key part of what he said isn't obvious to people who want to play fast and even occasionally eludes me when I am playing faster - I don't play faster because I am trying to play faster, I play faster naturally because I am reading my opponent's play and ball better.

I am actually going to write an article about this on OOAKforum because I think this point goes over many people's heads especially in a best of 5 or 7 match. Your opponent has time to learn you and you have time to learn your opponent, even more so when the opponent has a coach or teammates. Therefore, you need to always be alert and trying to win the match quickly because as your opponent learns you, things can always turn. Never underestimate it.

After the match is over and your opponent came back to win 3-2 or 4-3, everyone likes to say they choked, but the truth is that it isn't usually choking. Your opponent had a chance to figure you out and once they did so, you just couldn't fight as well. I find that if I am winning points off my serve by itself in game 1, I might not be winning those same points in game 2/3 and definitely not in game 4. If my loop is always to the forehand side from my forehand, my opponent now anticipates it. If I have a backspin/topspin reverse serve alternating combo, my opponent now remembers the pattern.

So to play faster, don't try to hit the ball harder, just find ways of creating time for you to read the opponent's play or just do it better. Because as you play quality shots in response to his shots, you will naturally gain time. But quality shots are not always about hitting the ball harder/faster - my preferences are placement and spin.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

You have to meet Der_Echte and hear him speak to realize that read him as Captain Obvious is a big mistake. And a key part of what he said isn't obvious to people who want to play fast and even occasionally eludes me when I am playing faster - I don't play faster because I am trying to play faster, I play faster naturally because I am reading my opponent's play and ball better.

That is a great post, NextLevel!!! You guys should pound the daylights out of that like button.

And if what the Der_Meister was saying was so obvious, then why do so many intermediate players swing harder than they need to, rush and end up being late because they are overswinging and not set for the next ball. Playing faster has to do with technique and readiness as well. When you have the reset and are ready for the next ball, tracking and intercepting it are much more possible. Reading the spin is much harder if you are not ready to watch the opponent's racket before he hits the ball which will help you read the spin and the placement.

Then the last thing is the touch, feeling and timing of impact on the ball. If you have a fast racket speed you can use a pretty small stroke and get a lot of spin, pace and power and be set for the next ball pretty fast.

When the impact is just so and the contact is the right amount of sponge and topsheet you can do much less and that precise contact and the acceleration on impact and high bat speed can give you a very powerful shot with minimal effort and a tiny stroke.

So the whole thing is a feedback loop. Compact stroke, acceleration and fast bat speed with compact stroke, precise contact with strong impact as topsheet grabs ball and ball sinks into sponge fractionally while brushing past ball, reset fast, read spin and placement of next ball as opponent makes contact, track incoming ball and move to it, correct spacing, compact stroke, precise contact....etc.....

Far from obvious and so much skill in any of those details.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

 

[Ilia Minkin]

And if what the Der_Meister was saying was so obvious, then why do so many intermediate players swing harder than they need to, rush and end up being late because they are overswinging and not set for the next ball.

Because they watch too many YouTube highlights from the professional tournaments and try to hit jaw dropping shots instead of maximizing chances for the victory.
I think that it is common sense, that if one's consistency is not enough, they have to slow things down. But if you slow things down, you don't feel like you're Ma Long anymore, that's the issue

 

[NextLevel]

Because they watch too many YouTube highlights from the professional tournaments and try to hit jaw dropping shots instead of maximizing chances for the victory.
I think that it is common sense, that if one's consistency is not enough, they have to slow things down. But if you slow things down, you don't feel like you're Ma Long anymore, that's the issue

That's because you think you can see Ma Long, but what makes Ma Long Ma Long is mostly what you cannot see. It's the iceberg illusion again. You only see the part above water and are oblivious to the huge mass beneath.

 

[Shuki]

This. And i find it fascinating that when you're lower level you think you're good or capable of being good. For me the better and better I get the more flaws I find in my game. Even when doing drills or hitting FANTASTIC shots i find myself thinking "oh but if i did this it would have been even better".

 

[Ilia Minkin]

That's because you think you can see Ma Long, but what makes Ma Long Ma Long is mostly what you cannot see. It's the iceberg illusion again. You only see the part above water and are oblivious to the huge mass beneath.

If you're talking about me personally, I don't imagine that I'm Ma Long. I imagine that I'm Xu Xin

 

[NextLevel]

If you're talking about me personally, I don't imagine that I'm Ma Long. I imagine that I'm Xu Xin

Nah, not you personally. But it is okay to be Wang Hao as well. They are all good players. We just like the World Champion and say he is the best ever when he wins . If Xu Xin had won the last WTTC, he would be the man of the moment as well.

 

[Der_Echte]

Wow. I got credited for being cpt obvious. ....

Maybe that happen occasionally in writting... but live in person... Mr. T see he pity the fool...

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

That's because you think you can see Ma Long, but what makes Ma Long Ma Long is mostly what you cannot see. It's the iceberg illusion again. You only see the part above water and are oblivious to the huge mass beneath.

Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

For me swinging big was ingrained into my body from the fact that I played baseball when I was a kid. When you play baseball you do, or you can swing big.

It was really hard to get my body to learn a complete stroke with a full followthrough that was not a big stroke. Compact and complete was hard to learn as a baseball swing was what was wired bit my body as a child.

I actually had to completely rebuild my forehand. Changed it from the ground up. It took about two years to get the change in technique into my body fully. But now, my forehand, in many ways is pretty good. I still have more work to do because my left hand does some funny things if I overswing.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

 

[Ilia Minkin]

In support of NextLevel's post about keeping the ball in play and "embracing the rally":


If you can put so much spin on the ball that, when your opponent gets his racket on the ball, his shot is a few feet too high for the table, your shots are improving. And that is a worthwhile goal to strive for.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

Okay

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Okay

View attachment 8679

That is actually what Dave Fernandez's coach told him to work on when Dave was rising towards 2600.

The coach actually made him play training matches where if the ball didn't shoot long of the opponents racket Dave lost the point. And the coach kept saying "make him hit the ceiling man!" To hear this old Chinese guy with a Jamacan accent saying things like this was pretty entertaining.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

 

[NextLevel]

IT's harder to play this way in the big ball era though - 40mm and 40+mm balls reduced the efficacy of heavy spin strategies.

 

[SpinWins]

In support of NextLevel's post about keeping the ball in play and "embracing the rally":

I think it may have been the 1993 WTTC. In an interview after losing to Jean-Michel Saive, Waldner said that he probably should have been more patient, trying to keep the ball in play more and waiting for better openings to end the point and that he was rushing too much.

That is game strategy from a legend.

As far as opening loops, one thing I notice, if I am playing against someone my level and I get to open with my FH, even if I hit it right to my opponent, the ball rarely comes back. It has too much spin for someone my level or even a half level up. That being said, the ability to place the balls to either wing or the switching point is very useful. And my openings are returned much more easily by higher level players once they realize the amount of spin on the first few.

Michael Landers has actually told me that on certain shots my ball quality is way higher than my level.

So, what am I saying with the information about openings with lots of spin. Focusing on the touch and feel to get more spin helps your level improve more than most other things. Certainly more than working on pace without thinking of spin if you are a lower or mid-level player.

If you can put so much spin on the ball that, when your opponent gets his racket on the ball, his shot is a few feet too high for the table, your shots are improving. And that is a worthwhile goal to strive for.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

Are these FHs you are hitting pure topspin or do you hit with side too? I find when I add side to my FH drives that many opponent can not hit the ball back at all.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Are these FHs you are hitting pure topspin or do you hit with side too? I find when I add side to my FH drives that many opponent can not hit the ball back at all.

I can do either. But the topspin is what is pulling the ball too high. The sidespin would pull the ball wide. But I do change the amount. And usually, if my FH is opening from the BH side it is either straight top or, once in a while inside out side. I have been getting better at that. And the farther into the FH side I am pulled the more of a hook I seem to put on the ball. I do have a tendency to hook the ball though.

But I think the point I was making is, working on getting really large amounts of spin on the ball is valuable in getting a player's level to move up. When I open, I can often see a large arc on the ball after the bounce where the ball is getting pulled down, quickly, shortly after the acceleration of the bounce.

IT's harder to play this way in the big ball era though - 40mm and 40+mm balls reduced the efficacy of heavy spin strategies.

This is true. And, no matter what you do at the higher levels your opponent will be able to counter your spin.

But having a ball quality that makes a player your level struggle with how much spin is on the ball is pretty worth while. I know....I know....you know that. I felt your loops and know that your FH loops were pretty darn hard to track because of the amount of spin. Hahaha. And they had good pace too.

Why didn't I say anything about the BH? Aside from a few surprises, I avoided your BH as much as I could in those matches we played. Hahahahaha.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

 

[Der_Echte]

I use sidespin... or rather corkscrew spin on loops... it is known as a HOOKSHOT. This is an excellent way to get opponent to go wider to FH than he wants so you can follow with a strong shot to BH that is more open than he wants... or you can jam his middle with a medium ball - opponent bends or side shuffles to use FH, then you use the hookshot to go extra wide FH bending away from him... or in a rally, you keep opponent in the middle or in his BH corner, then when he fails to make his lop deep, you have good angle to his wide FH and with the hookshot, and slowing down the loop some, you bend the laws of physics and make the ball bounce at a severe angle you thought was impossible... or you when you are under presure in rally and opponent jams your middle with a fast shot, you slow down, bend to side or quick shuffle, take ball a tad late loose wrist and catch ball on the side some and fling it back a little slower than normal... a safe high percentage shot that gets you out of trouble in that rally situation... I could go on.... Fast shot at opponent or a dead serve to get back predictable ball to suddenly fade away from him to hiz BH corner...

So many uses for sidespin.

 

[NextLevel]

 

[SpinWins]

Very nice video. I hit a fade a lot on fh side.

Carl I agree about spin. When I play lower level player with unorthodox "basement" styles I don't put pressure on myself to win just because I have better technique. Instead I just generate more spin which gives player with less technique a lot of trouble. I can chop heavy short ball and slow loop and just doing that gives me 3-0 win usually. Many player without training can not time out a slow loop or fade and usually make error.

I really like the fade FH to escape being jammed down middle der echte mention. I too set up no spin serve by serving short under and then when I send no spin I get pop up and hit a fade FH to opposite corner. One of my favorite 3rd ball attack.

With this Power wood setup it is so much easier for me "touch the ball" and trust that the result will be a high quality FH with heavy spin. I think this is so important. The Tibhar blade feels so good hit the ball with.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Carl I agree about spin.

In short, SpinWins!

I am glad that setup has helped you up your game the way it has. That is pretty darn cool in my book.

 

[NextLevel]

Instead I just generate more spin which gives player with less technique a lot of trouble.

The funny thing is that you can play this way forever, no matter how good you get. If you doubt me, ask and watch Timo Boll.