Struggling against fast tempo

[Fluff]

Hi there,

I've been playing playing table tennis for around 10 years now, with 1 training session and 1 match day every week.

I'm an intermediate player, I use a shakehand grip with 2 inverted rubbers (Dignics 80, and glayzer 09C) and I sit around the top 25-30% in my country. The things I'm good at are :

- Short to short play
- Push placement
- Backhand counter-punch
- Forehand opening loop (my main tool for winning points)
- Serves : mostly ghost, various pendulum and backhand serves placed short, long, in the opponent elbow as well as forehand and backhand side/corner.
- Touch shots and defense (though I don't use it much in matches)

Things I'm bad at :

- Forehand driving and over the table loops
- Counter-loops
- Blocks
- Serve returns, especially side and top spins serves. Mostly those coming to my middle and forehand
- Forehand smashing
- Recovery, especially after my serve and after my opening loop
- Open rallies
- Backhand to forehand transitions
- Anything counter-initiative related

How I construct most of my points :

When I have the serve I often serve short forehand pendulum and pure backspin serves, I mostly follow them up with an opening loop, a short touch, a sidespin push or a deep push taken on the bounce depending on how the other player responds. On serve returns I'll push or touch short 90% of the time.

But here's the issue, I'm completely lost whenever the opponent uses an aggressive return. I can't react at all to flips, loops and fast deep pushes to my forehand. Any fast tempo return puts me on the backfoot, I'd always be late to the ball, miss-hitting, rushing or completely whiffing the ball. I do know it's a recovery issue because it's very similar to the recovery issue I have after my opening loops. I just don't know if it's an anticipation, ball-watching, recovery, footwork or stance issue.

So I ask, have you or someone you know struggled with this ? If you have, what drills, tips or technique helped you deal with this ?

 

[Archo]

Well, you're surely much better than I am, so I can't give you any advice either way, but you didn't mention your distance to the table when those mistakes happen. Maybe it's worth taking a look at; but don't ask me for what to fix.

 

[Fluff]

Well, you're surely much better than I am, so I can't give you any advice either way, but you didn't mention your distance to the table when those mistakes happen. Maybe it's worth taking a look at; but don't ask me for what to fix.

My coach often tells me that I'm too quick to drop off the table after my opening loop but from my perspective I'm always late on the ball so it feels like I'm too close.
My coach is probably right, so it seems like I'm too far but my reaction time causes me to still get jammed by the ball.
My comfort zone is ~1 arm lenght to 1 meter away from the table, and I tend take a hop back after my first attack.

 

[sebi]

My coach often tells me that I'm too quick to drop off the table after my opening loop but from my perspective I'm always late on the ball so it feels like I'm too close.
My coach is probably right, so it seems like I'm too far but my reaction time causes me to still get jammed by the ball.
My comfort zone is ~1 arm lenght to 1 meter away from the table, and I tend take a hop back after my first attack.

Just throwing stuff out. Do you just watch the ball and react or are you able to watch your opponent and see where he will play.
Maybe you react and don't think about the perzentage where the Ball most likely goes.
Can you play in a way to force a return or do you play/serve so your opponent can play whereever he wants.

I am probably not even close to your level but those are ponits that help me.

 

[Fluff]

Just throwing stuff out. Do you just watch the ball and react or are you able to watch your opponent and see where he will play.
Maybe you react and don't think about the perzentage where the Ball most likely goes.
Can you play in a way to force a return or do you play/serve so your opponent can play whereever he wants.

i often have to think about my own technique during my matches so it doesn't fall apart, thus I tend to not anticipate or watch what the opponent will do and trust the autopilot. I do know however how to follow up most of my serves and returns and the most likely place the ball will return. Until now, 90% of my opponents returned more passively so I had time to react and respond. The issue is that I'm not used to these fast returns. Thanks for the pointers

 

[Ultravisitor]

From the limited information I can say this:
Play drills that focus on those elements you struggle with. For example: you serve short, op flick with BH to your fh, you attack the receive. Train those game paths, till you are more confident in matches.

 

[jonol]

Since you have a training session each week

- practice block vs a consistent looper (my favourite is variation is doing it parallel FH loop vs BH block, and you score a point when someone breaks the parallel or misses)
- practice serving and having someone open and then you play a compact counter from close to table and play out the rally
- some multiball with the focus of staying close to table, aiming to take the ball at its peak on every shot. Focus on moving left-right and not back and playing the best compact shot you can with the time you have. You want it the drill to feel as difficult or more difficult than match situations where the opponent plays fast and you feel cramped, so that you can get used to making quality from short strokes and awkward placement

 

[Haito]

A thing that helped me (but did not completely solve the issue), at least to the best of my understanding, is setting robot to high speed and practicing random, full table drills. That seemed to improve my response timing in general. When I am playing against bang-bang players, I often tend to stay further away from the table.