Singaporean here. Have been playing since 7. Now 14 going 15. It’s true that the table tennis culture in Singapore is plain sad, and mostly better players are in their mid to late 30s and older. Penhold, especially 1 sided Chen seems very common here especially among seniors. I have a group of friends in my school with the interest of table tennis too, but when we asked the teachers if we can sign up for NSG, national school games, we were told that we weren’t good enough. I consider myself an okay player, and my forehand can be quite devastating, as a forehand dominant jpen player.
Apparently, we need to have a coach who recommends us to go for NSG, and since none of us have coach, we are basically done.
One of my friends I regularly play with was a player for his primary schools table tennis school team, but our current secondary school does not have a table tennis team anymore.
In Singapore for racket sports, there is much more support for badminton compared to other racket sports.
I’m also sad with The techniques of the players in Singapore now of days. They seem to have quite ok form, but are not very adaptive, especially to players like me who don’t have training, (just floor table tennis against the wall). I have played against 3 players so far who are in their schools table tennis team, all of them 2 years older than me. once you figure them out they are to easy to beat. Serves very predictable, and even spinny serves are not well hidden and usually not low enough. Placement not good, and give me too many opportunity to get my forehand in the game. In fact, I had more trouble against the old uncles with surprisingly good ball control, long pimps or antispin. Plus, once I can get an edge by being more attack, as jpen, they will almost 100% lose the point. not the best lobs, and blocks, can’t handle speed.
This may not be 100% accurate, but all the players I have played came from quite well known schools. I was wondering how I would have faired if I can be in NSG.
They also seem to be scared of open rallies which involves forehand from mid distance, and prefer backhand to backhand, and get forehands off the bounce, which do not always mean best return quality, even with the speed, which is easy to bleed off.
Last of all, related to placement comes footwork. Most I’ve seen and played stand pretty still in my opinion-too firm and not swift on the ball of the feet. Maybe its just for me as jpen wanting to get best forehands, but they can’t handle wide shots which they fall victim to by poor placement.
as a half Malaysian, I have seen my friends back in east Malaysia fair much better when they play, better form technique and footwork, and overall better gameplay. They get the point to be able to handle unorthodox players, (anti, long pimps, short pimps and especially choppers). When it comes to forehand, they extend their arms with what I deem a proper swing, arms stretched, but still compact.
