Video Footage Safe Thread

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Thank you @Tony's Table Tennis and @Der_Echte for your help! Adding spin and being more loose sounds like good advice. I will also try to let the ball come more into my striking zone.

@Tony's Table Tennis Judging from the footage, how should I go about adding more spin? I agree my spin is kind of low, but it stems from the issue that adding more spin often leads to me tensing up / forcing the shot.

Again, thank you for your help

I will do a voice over when I have the chance later

 

[doppelmoral]

I will do a voice over when I have the chance later

that would be awesome, many thanks!

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

at the current pace you're doing good ie not many mistakes; the rally continues
its a good thing to find the right max speed at which you are consistent

but from here there are so many things you can experiment: for example try to get the ball a little bit earlier so you are the one dictating the pace; now you are playing at the same pace than your partner.

or try to have a more forward stroke both in FH and BH. its going too much upwards. if your bat angle is more closed it will be natural to go more forward

also to put extra spin you need more arm speed. so if you try to hit the ball at the same distance from you; it means you have to wait an extra fraction of second before starting your swing

you can also work on shortening your stroke. it would develop your arm speed and help your recovery

or you could focus on using more power from your legs or body etc....or on be more relaxed and use more wrist etc

if you just repeat the same exercise at the same pace at every session in the same way its not useful at all;
except maybe for 5 minutes to warm up

 

[Jslick89]

I did trying to shorten up my strokes, also not to reach for the ball in backhand and trying to bend and engaging legs more, so now my form looks like this:

But I feel it takes a loot more time to get better at this

forehand looking beastly bro. i also suffer from reaching too far forward on my backhand. I've been trying to practice down the line shots with my backhand as that forces me to wait a split second longer to hit the ball.

Also. whos dog? what a little white poof.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

My opponent is too fast and too spinny for me.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

My opponent is too fast and too spinny for me.

It wasn't being too fast and spinny, it was that you did the same thing with his serve every time (push long) which allowed him to comfortably third ball every time because he knew exactly what was coming, and you couldn't create the same advantage with your serve.

Edit: Didn't realize what thread I'm in and I'm not on the list of posters here

 

[NextLevel]

My opponent is too fast and too spinny for me.

He is a better player yes, but I don't see it as being about speed or spin, though you played him and know how you felt. You seem to have played pretty well or close to your top level even without your rocket launcher and you know this or you wouldn't post the game. But the two times you killed the ball with your forehand, maybe because you don't have a rocket launcher anymore, he brought the ball back comfortably which is what I kept telling you is that a level comes where you have to play multiple shots because people will bring the ball back if you are relying on power without placement and other things.

Without knowing a player it is hard to make them play worse but the same way he tried to make you move, you needed to get him out of the backhand corner to the wide forehand and then make him move back after getting him out. That's the standard strategy against an opposite handed player and he did it better than you even if we get the level difference out of the way.

Your strokes still aren't clean but in general, you didn't beat yourself with obviously bad plays or trying too hard so you did a good job.

 

[Germanytabletennis]

Dear Community ,this is a best of balls video about a 10 years old boy, Nico Hughie from Germany. He is playing the German ranking tournament DTTB Top 32 Boys 11 in June 2025 , Thüringen against some of the best german boys in his age. He got the 9. Place and won against Nr. 2 of Germany. I like his playing style playing topspin with forehand and backhand. In my eyes there are some spectacular rallys in this video, especially in the last match. However he is probably not the new Timo Boll, but in my eyes he has some good skills, even though he is smaller than the most boys in his age. What do you think ?
Best regards from Germany

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

He is a better player yes, but I don't see it as being about speed or spin, though you played him and know how you felt. You seem to have played pretty well or close to your top level even without your rocket launcher and you know this or you wouldn't post the game. But the two times you killed the ball with your forehand, maybe because you don't have a rocket launcher anymore, he brought the ball back comfortably which is what I kept telling you is that a level comes where you have to play multiple shots because people will bring the ball back if you are relying on power without placement and other things.

Without knowing a player it is hard to make them play worse but the same way he tried to make you move, you needed to get him out of the backhand corner to the wide forehand and then make him move back after getting him out. That's the standard strategy against an opposite handed player and he did it better than you even if we get the level difference out of the way.

Your strokes still aren't clean but in general, you didn't beat yourself with obviously bad plays or trying too hard so you did a good job.

I'm in tears, this is ever the closest NL will say: Hi Gozo,

 

[SleepyMaster]

forehand looking beastly bro. i also suffer from reaching too far forward on my backhand. I've been trying to practice down the line shots with my backhand as that forces me to wait a split second longer to hit the ball.

Also. whos dog? what a little white poof.

Thanks, bro. Im more forehand oriented player. But i can be much better at backhand too - its just a matter of pratice. Im on that level now, were progress became so slow it even hard to highlight it sometimes and i need a years and years and years for my consistency... Anyway i didnt meet a guy with less expirience than me, that was able to get a win on me, even the opposite i get wins over most players that has much more expirience than me, even if they they backhand oriented - whatever i just serve and try to loop. Simple as that.

And the dogo is my coach pet, he is loving him so much, taking him to the training hall to avoid him being alone at home - even his wife gets jelous sometimes, this is how he loves this little guy. But the dog is super cute, smart, friendly and fluffy like a little cloud

 

[Novarac23]

Hello friends! It’s me again. Been working very hard on that FH footwork (and footwork in general). Here’s the recent video:

For the first exercise (FH wide FH middle), while the first 2/3 FHs were rough after that it felt pretty good. This is one of the first times I was actually able to do this drill, previously it was all just a mess and I couldn’t move. Weight transfer felt there, I was using the momentum of the weight transfer to move etc.

For the second exercises FH was not super great the first few shots, I did not follow through properly and weight transfer is sometimes poor but I swear I have days when its looking good 🙂 Main thing here is that I’m actually moving my feet to get in the correct position (give this is random).

Would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[Novarac23]

Hey folks, Here's a full match I played two days ago against a ch penhold guy that's ~1800 USATT. Very tricky serves (as you'll see by my bad returns). Things I did well:

• My helper hand was in the right spot (aka in front of me) ~70% of the time. This was the main thing I wanted to do in this match even if everything else was super bad so I'm happy with it. I feel like the only way to get better at matchplay sometimes is just to tell yourself to focus on that one thing and be ok with not worrying about other stuff
• Some decent loops and some decent footwork.,
• Also wanted to make sure I'm not leaning forward too much. Coach in portugal mentioned this and he's right sometimes I'm just way too forward and this time it did not look that bad. Was also mindful of this and kept telling myself (alongside the helper hand so that helped)

Things I could do better:

• My FH loops (not including half long ones) still have me move my right foot sometimes as I'm looping. This does not happen really that much in practice anymore but I think this has to be a "focus" during a match just like my helper hand was during this one.,
• After serve recieve and sometimes during a rally my right foot would be in front of my left which is not great (I know Jorgic and high level folks do this but I've been told multiple times at my level I need to ideally nothave this),
• Get better at returning weird side top serves. Honestly folks well above my level struggle with his serves and I just need to get better and more confident.,
• Too stiff on the FH and paddle angle too closed on backspin

Would love to hear your thoughts!

(edited)

 

[NextLevel]

Hey folks, Here's a full match I played two days ago against a ch penhold guy that's ~1800 USATT. Very tricky serves (as you'll see by my bad returns). Things I did well:

• My helper hand was in the right spot (aka in front of me) ~70% of the time. This was the main thing I wanted to do in this match even if everything else was super bad so I'm happy with it. I feel like the only way to get better at matchplay sometimes is just to tell yourself to focus on that one thing and be ok with not worrying about other stuff
• Some decent loops and some decent footwork.,
• Also wanted to make sure I'm not leaning forward too much. Coach in portugal mentioned this and he's right sometimes I'm just way too forward and this time it did not look that bad. Was also mindful of this and kept telling myself (alongside the helper hand so that helped)

Things I could do better:

• My FH loops (not including half long ones) still have me move my right foot sometimes as I'm looping. This does not happen really that much in practice anymore but I think this has to be a "focus" during a match just like my helper hand was during this one.,
• After serve recieve and sometimes during a rally my right foot would be in front of my left which is not great (I know Jorgic and high level folks do this but I've been told multiple times at my level I need to ideally nothave this),
• Get better at returning weird side top serves. Honestly folks well above my level struggle with his serves and I just need to get better and more confident.,
• Too stiff on the FH and paddle angle too closed on backspin

Would love to hear your thoughts!

(edited)

The biggest thing about struggling with returning serves is to first of all determine if you are struggling with long serves. If you are, then you have to practice looping long serves almost all the time, there is no reliable way to push long serves without popping them up and/or giving the opponent an opportunity (that is a separate issue from whether he converts or attacks or not, but if he doesn't, you always have that option even if you never practice it, but the proper return is to be able to at least topspin the serve and get into a rally and this takes practice). From the match, I don't see any particular struggles that won't resolve as you get more experience and use your judgement and hand speed better, connecting mind and body and growing the neural pathways to handle new situations is unfortunately part of the sport. It won't be as good as a spritely 10 year old, but it won't be as bad as 70 year old either.

Get the discipline to spin the ball once it comes long and figure out how to adjust over time. It is the biggest thing that holds players back in my experience, too many people get into pushing battles because they don't have the discipline to play the first topspin when the opportunity presents itself, though for you, you did a reasonable job IMHo, the problem was that you were consistently surprised by the first block and this should not happen, you should recover into a position where you can continue the attack.

 

[Novarac23]

The biggest thing about struggling with returning serves is to first of all determine if you are struggling with long serves. If you are, then you have to practice looping long serves almost all the time, there is no reliable way to push long serves without popping them up and/or giving the opponent an opportunity (that is a separate issue from whether he converts or attacks or not, but if he doesn't, you always have that option even if you never practice it, but the proper return is to be able to at least topspin the serve and get into a rally and this takes practice). From the match, I don't see any particular struggles that won't resolve as you get more experience and use your judgement and hand speed better, connecting mind and body and growing the neural pathways to handle new situations is unfortunately part of the sport. It won't be as good as a spritely 10 year old, but it won't be as bad as 70 year old either.

Get the discipline to spin the ball once it comes long and figure out how to adjust over time. It is the biggest thing that holds players back in my experience, too many people get into pushing battles because they don't have the discipline to play the first topspin when the opportunity presents itself, though for you, you did a reasonable job IMHo, the problem was that you were consistently surprised by the first block and this should not happen, you should recover into a position where you can continue the attack.

Yeah great points! Agreed on all of them! Thank you for the feedback as always!

 

[NextLevel]

Yeah great points! Agreed on all of them! Thank you for the feedback as always!

Not at all. On the recovery after the first topspin, sometimes it helps to play the first topspin as id you want the opponent to block or counter so you can finish them off or move them around with the followup topspin. Some players never play finishing shots but that is not the top player mentality though it has its defenders. But below a certain level, opening topspins can be used ro get a block that permits more aggression. It is part of sometimes seeing table tennis more as a dance than as a battle. In dancing, your partner enables you, in battle, your opponent destroys you. A good point in TT has both elements, you can't play a great point unless your opponent gives you what you need to play great shots. So dont always try to finish off the opponent, try to get them to give you things that enable you to execute your ideas not necessarily to make them unable to hit/return the ball whatsoever.

 

[Novarac23]

Not at all. On the recovery after the first topspin, sometimes it helps to play the first topspin as id you want the opponent to block or counter so you can finish them off or move them around with the followup topspin. Some players never play finishing shots but that is not the top player mentality though it has its defenders. But below a certain level, opening topspins can be used ro get a block that permits more aggression. It is part of sometimes seeing table tennis more as a dance than as a battle. In dancing, your partner enables you, in battle, your opponent destroys you. A good point in TT has both elements, you can't play a great point unless your opponent gives you what you need to play great shots. So dont always try to finish off the opponent, try to get them to give you things that enable you to execute your ideas not necessarily to make them unable to hit/return the ball whatsoever.

Yeah good point. I feel like a slow spinny loop (which I think I had one during the match) enables you to counter / do another FH topspin at my level majority of the times because oponent will just block it back (of course sometimes they counter but at my level that does not happen super often).

I need to do more of those slow spinny open ups

 

[jk1980]

i think the failure to loop everything long is of course something that would hinder somebody from making the next step in quality, but i would not have thought that it is still an issue with >1600 USATT rated players or is that rating only what you suspect the opponent to be ?

Since i am not allowed to "Judge" in here, i would add some own footage for the discussion and it is really something that bothers me from time to time in matches and makes me lose trust in either my ability, grippiness of rubber in humid conditions or stamina.

I had a league match day in a gym that was quite hot and moist. Even though it happens only perhaps two or three times a match, inside the match it makes me uncomfortable because my main "tactic" is indeed to loop the long push receive of the opponent after my serve.

Sometimes it just happens that i fail to create enough grip with the ball and it flies into the net.
I have added a video with a few of these situations where i can not pinpoint what happened in that exact instance, when in similar situations seemingly with the same move the ball goes over the net properly.

I am the guy in the red/black shirt.

No you might say "hey, you did not learn the topspin technique well enough" and even though my topspin movement in games looks very different than if i practice the right technique, it is sound enough to reliably loop most underspin balls.

As proof of my ability to usually loop the ball over the net reliably here is a snippet of just one game i had against the opponents "strongest" player which really was just a little over 1100TTR but i would not take anything away from him because his game was basically being a lefty serve to the wide forehand with a no spin ball (with a kinda backspin movement) and then smash the high return.
You might get the impression that my opponent can not block at all, but i assure you when they were warming up he reliably blocked the loops of their youngster over and over again.
In this game basically i did wrong what Novarac also did, which is instead of looping that serve i tried to push or chop it. The later worked in around 50% of the times, but of course instantly looping it would have been better.
The opponent was having trouble to block my short opening loops and then tried to smash them at times. It worked perhaps 3 times, but usually the smash would go out.
I won that match in the fifth, but with proper discipline and tactic i probably could have won in three sets:

So TLDR;
what is the difference from the failed to loop the ball over the net compared to the other examples you see where it simply works?

I can not make it out and it is immensely frustrating if i begin to doubt my main weapon inside a match.

 

[NextLevel]

i think the failure to loop everything long is of course something that would hinder somebody from making the next step in quality, but i would not have thought that it is still an issue with >1600 USATT rated players or is that rating only what you suspect the opponent to be ?

Even amongst players who attack the long ball, the issue is sometimes judging and preparing for the (half) long ball, they give their opponent too much credit and don't prepare to attack loose balls that come half long even if their opponent is trying to keep them short. Sometimes, I lose points in matches waiting for my opponent's ball to come long but they are not more than one per match usually if any, I prefer to lose those points than to push balls that I can open on, the pressure of opening on loose balls demoralizes some opponents and forces them to look for a serve they can keep short, but consciously trying to keep a serve short results in serve quality issues.

The kids know how to push and let you open so they can counter, me I am not good at that, if @Novarac23 wants to go in that direction, he can do that as well. That said he has a good spinny opener, it is better for him to build upon his strengths for now rather than to focus too much on expanding weaknesses, though also, when you are training, you never know where your strengths and weaknesses will end up. Regardless, the biggest issue I see is trying to win the point rather than feeling comfortable outlasting the opponent. He has a good enough topspin that he can can place the ball on the table to good positions with decent quality and make the opponent play good shots to beat him. This is not good enough at TTR 1800, but it is very strong and good and even TTR1300-1600 depending on how well you do it.

 

[Novarac23]

i think the failure to loop everything long is of course something that would hinder somebody from making the next step in quality, but i would not have thought that it is still an issue with >1600 USATT rated players or is that rating only what you suspect the opponent to be ?

Since i am not allowed to "Judge" in here, i would add some own footage for the discussion and it is really something that bothers me from time to time in matches and makes me lose trust in either my ability, grippiness of rubber in humid conditions or stamina.

I had a league match day in a gym that was quite hot and moist. Even though it happens only perhaps two or three times a match, inside the match it makes me uncomfortable because my main "tactic" is indeed to loop the long push receive of the opponent after my serve.

Sometimes it just happens that i fail to create enough grip with the ball and it flies into the net.
I have added a video with a few of these situations where i can not pinpoint what happened in that exact instance, when in similar situations seemingly with the same move the ball goes over the net properly.

I am the guy in the red/black shirt.

No you might say "hey, you did not learn the topspin technique well enough" and even though my topspin movement in games looks very different than if i practice the right technique, it is sound enough to reliably loop most underspin balls.

As proof of my ability to usually loop the ball over the net reliably here is a snippet of just one game i had against the opponents "strongest" player which really was just a little over 1100TTR but i would not take anything away from him because his game was basically being a lefty serve to the wide forehand with a no spin ball (with a kinda backspin movement) and then smash the high return.
You might get the impression that my opponent can not block at all, but i assure you when they were warming up he reliably blocked the loops of their youngster over and over again.
In this game basically i did wrong what Novarac also did, which is instead of looping that serve i tried to push or chop it. The later worked in around 50% of the times, but of course instantly looping it would have been better.
The opponent was having trouble to block my short opening loops and then tried to smash them at times. It worked perhaps 3 times, but usually the smash would go out.
I won that match in the fifth, but with proper discipline and tactic i probably could have won in three sets:

So TLDR;
what is the difference from the failed to loop the ball over the net compared to the other examples you see where it simply works?

I can not make it out and it is immensely frustrating if i begin to doubt my main weapon inside a match.

So for me the difference between performing a correct loop vs a bad one comes down to a lot of things, but it's body position relative to the ball & how tense I actually am. And yeah agreed with both of y'all points.

I attended a camp today and one main thing I learned is really to reset after that slow spinny loop. Meaning reset the body quickly so you can go either FH or BH next. Otherwise I just get stuck smacking the ball. So that's going to be something I practice more because unfortunately 9/10 when I do an open up and the oponent returns the ball I'm not nowhere close in the right spot body wise. This is a lot easier said then done of course but open ups happen a lot in my game so I need be ready for that next ball. This does not happen as much in my BH open ups because my racket is already in front naturally and I'm in somewhat neutral position after the stroke.

 

[NakiMaki]

Just wanted some external feedback on technique and playing. Right now i think i need to work on:
- Service recieve
- Better balance when playing shots
- Don't get into too bad positions
- Don't cover too much of the table with backhand
- Focus on having support and balance from left arm
- Dare counter attack on low quality attacks
I feel like i let my opponents attack too much, but I'm having a hard time finding the space for a forehand. I suspect it might be because of my leg position when playing.


For reference the players in this video are around 2100-2200TTR Denmark. Around top 300-200. And my level is 1600TTR.

Here is the video of me playing. Any feedback is fine. (Im in black with black hair)