The Inverse — A reversed frypan🍳 backhand

[plunder]

The Inverse — A reversed frying pan🍳 as an unconventional (additional) backhand

Erdas example. The video creator himself titled his opponent's backhand "the unconventional backhand", and after watching the full video, you'll know who is who: the bald player (Erdas, the so-called "BH expert") is the one with the unconventional backhand, which i find fun and highly effective. It's also not so uncommon in club and league play, if you look closely at certain players' BH techniques. Erdas demonstrates the basic form of the shot:

Here another video with Erdas, absolutely exemplary his execution of it:

Shaw example. Here is another example of someone playing backhands based on this general "inverted" technique. The boy relies heavily on it for all kinds of situations:

Koch example. In this video, the man with the glasses plays an Inverse whenever he can. His looks rather tame, with little power or spin:

Degros example. The following player (black GEWO shirt, from 01:07 on) plays a superior quality bh, borderlining the inverted technique and switching between a regular, hard bh-loop and his Inverse:

On the German forum with a detailed critical discussion, there is one decent player who advocates the use of such a backhand as an alternative. 'Unorthodox', 'alternative', 'unconventional' are all fitting adjectives, agreed. Do you ever play your backhand like this, or have you seen anyone else play it like this? It's a versatile shot, since subtle variations of it can be employed in every rally of a match! 🥳

This way of stroking can be varied to allow the player to:

• receive a serve ("an inverse receive", as seen in the Erdas)
• pseudo-open up through a no-spin loop ("an inverse lupfer")
• open up through looping ("an inverse loop" = a looped inverse, as seen in the Shaw)
• counter (= flat hard drive) ("an inverse drive", as seen in the Erdas)
• punch ("an inverse punch", as seen in #5)
• block ("an inverse block", as seen in the Erdas)
• pseudo-smash, as powerful as a punch but with a wider arm swing ("an inverse smash", as seen in the Koch)

As the racket head is pointing downwards in its starting position (i.e. held reversely), and it is a backhand shot (Spanish: el revés), and it is unorthodox/alternative/unconventional, the proposed artificial name for the shot be "The Revalt" (from el revés alternativo). However, a more imaginative catchier name would be "The Reversed (frying) Pan🍳" or simply "The Inverse⤵️":

A: (playing subtle variations 🥘)​

B: "hey buddy what funny kind of backhand is dat??"​

A: "that was my inverse! you ...erh... likey?"​

B: "?? 🤷‍♂️"​

A: "it's my alternative backhand, a reversed frying pan shot if you will. u got one too, no?"​

B: "no, but I'm intrigued. gonna buy me one soon, thx!"​

Anyway, this ground (if not textbook) stroke is an imho funtastique addition to the repertoire. And the most important addition to my repertoire. Super fun🤩 to practice with a returnboard, or a robot (against topspin, backspin, or no-spin), and eventually employ in matches.

What do you think?

 

[tzifos]

Long pips players, usually OX (or with very thin sponge) do this hit when the ball has backspin.

 

[pong99]

Looks like a player who has used LP/anti and switched back to inverted. It's effective for his game. If he could wait until the last second and do a chiquita, it would really throw off his opponent.

He's halfway there to a Anders Lind/Simon Gauzy raise the elbow backhand sideswipe.

 

[blahness]

It's basically the Truls Moregardh fake (ie no spin) BH opening "loop", except applied everywhere lol. The guy could make it even better if he used more body and less arm.

I also use this extensively against LP/anti players, they cant do anything against it because it is floaty with no spin, there is nothing much to reverse and I can do this all day long until they give me a juicy opportunity.

If you mix it up with a real spinny opening loop the opponent will go crazy trying to adjust to your variations.

 

[plunder]

He's halfway there to a Anders Lind/Simon Gauzy raise the elbow backhand sideswipe.

Agreed, a strawberry flick🍓 is very much related to the Inverse, especially if the strawberry is pronouncedly flicked and hadn't so much emphasis on sidespinning the ball. "Inverse" would be the general term, and certain strawberry flick executions (Anders Lind's bh slice would be a bit far-fetched imho) could be regarded as a special case.

strawberry flick =~ basically an inverse with special characteristics: executed over/near the table, at the fh side of the table, producing sidespin or no-spin, aimed at punchiness at advanced level.

This strawberry video shows essential shoulder/arm/wrist movements which are typical of most inverse shots:

Does the following qualify as a flicked strawberry? He calls it The Paintdealer lol. Anyway, it would qualify as an Inverse:

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Since "Inverse" is a general term, for the inverse it doesn't matter when/where in space you hit the ball with your downwards-pointing racket, i.e. at the right side, left side, or in front, of your body. You just position your vertical forearm (or vertical racket) regardless. Personally, i prefer to execute all inverse shots in front of my body; i doht feel comfortable executing any strawberries, so in my mind i keep my Inverse variations separate from the explicit strawberry.

 

[plunder]

Here is another

Koch example. In this video, the man with the glasses plays an Inverse whenever he can. His looks rather tame, with little power or spin:

Here is just another vid with Koch. With his bh, he either does a spinny harmless push, not putting his opponent under pressure, or an inverse block. Upon cerves to his bh, he sometimes answers with an inverse receive, nice:

In this match, he didn't get a chance to unleash his inverse smash. And i wonder if he possesses a (clear) inverse drive, and a (clear) inverse loop (or is fully aware of an inverse lupfer). Prolly he isn't really aware at all that all these variants exist — he simply knows from experience that most (actually all!) shots to his bh can be answered by holding his racket inverted (=playing an inverse) —, because one variant blends into the other. But to the writer, it's a very helpful concept to differentiate (at least in mind) between the variants, while they're all basically the same stroke/shot/technique: an inverse.

When technique-practicing a shot, it helps to have clarity in mind. Especially since one variant does blend into the other!

Koch could/should be more active or aggressive with his inverse: maybe by positioning himself half a step back and then, insteading of playing all those safe tame inverse blocks, playing a (clear) inverse drive, i.e. hitting the ball harder. And instead of playing bh pushes, throwing in an inverse lupfer (=no-spin) or an inverse loop (=spinny); either is harmless tbh but it's an okay method to open up the rally because it reduces the risk of playing an air shot (with a standard bh loop).