What are tactics for men to play women?

[Gtsnake]

There's a girl in my club that is really good. Probably around 1900. She beats all the other women in the area and can beat most men too. If you play her game which is close to the table and quick short rallies she will out play you due to her quickness. If a man can get her to play back they can usually win the point by over powering her.

My question is what should the tactics be to play a very high skilled female by a male player. In general female players don't have as much power farther back and can't keep up with high powered, heavy topspin looping rallies. How can I get set up to get into a power ralley? I can't simply back up without a good opening shot or else she will just hit a sharp angle and put it away.

 

[jk1980]

Depending on your serve skills and her skills in opening up against it i would advise you to find out if she is worse opening up with the forehand or backhand. Then serve long heavy backspin for her to open up. Due to the heavy backspin she should only be able to play a relatively tame non threatening loop that you then can counter loop with much power and with a closed bat angle. She will probably block the ball over and out of the table, either because of the spin or the pure power you put into the shot.

 

[Ghostzen]

Spin to win would be a suggestion unless she's way better than you.

 

[WingTT]

The margin of difference between men's and women's games have narrowed due to the plastic ball which favors the closer to the table game and where there is less spin and the speed dissipates quicker. You'll have to play smarter and apply power where it would put the ball where it is hard to return as you will probably get blocked down or countered if you simply use power without thought.

 

[blahness]

Extreme spin + spin/placement variations with both pushes and loops usually wins the games against quick countering players. But if they can still counter those then they're just better players and there's nothing you can do other than levelling up.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

my friend who's quite better than me, almost never loses to girls (that we encounter), of course its a question of skills but here are 2 things that work very well for him and gives him a very strong advantage:

- his opening loop is loaded with a lot of spin and very long. usually girls are not used to this amount of spin and have a lot of problem to deal with it

- he is very good at fishing and lobbing. girls have trouble smashing. they lack power. and Japanese girls aren't tall, when the ball is high, its really difficult for them...

many girls here play (at our level) play with pips.

LP makes it really easy to him because their ball is slow he's got a lot of time to prepare for his topspin.

SP style usually they try to play with speed, and not so much spin. if you can avoid falling into their game, then its easy. On your serve: serve long with backspin to get a topspin you can counter or a long push you can open. on their serve: often they will serve long and fast. if so, take a little distance from the table, take the ball with a later timing in the descending phase and brush it, instead of taking it early because then you would play at the rhythm dictated by your opponent.

 

[NextLevel]

There's a girl in my club that is really good. Probably around 1900. She beats all the other women in the area and can beat most men too. If you play her game which is close to the table and quick short rallies she will out play you due to her quickness. If a man can get her to play back they can usually win the point by over powering her.

My question is what should the tactics be to play a very high skilled female by a male player. In general female players don't have as much power farther back and can't keep up with high powered, heavy topspin looping rallies. How can I get set up to get into a power ralley? I can't simply back up without a good opening shot or else she will just hit a sharp angle and put it away.

When men and women play at the same level, it is usually a battle of speed vs power/spin. What you do not want is to be stuck playing medium quality balls which can be used to block you around or to give your opponent balls that are easy to smash/hit, since this is the preferred stroke of most high level women player. You need to ensure that when you go all out, you are doing maximum damage with the quality you put on the ball. Just don't play faster than you can sustain and load up the rotation on the ball to give yourself time. Keep the ball either extremely low and deep or extremely short or extremely deep.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

If her level is way higher than yours.... then I can't help you.

What is crucial is your opening attack (i'm not sure how good you are with that).
If your opening attack can push her into a block mode, you will have a chance to out power her.

If your attack is weak, she can counter attack you, and you could then be pushed out and loose with angle shots.

I would say, if you attack one side, and she blocks, make sure you following attack is heavier and stronger. Then the same for the next. 2 or 3 into the same direction, with maybe some minor change in direction, depending where her body is (ie 1-out FH, 2-into body, 3-out FH),

Generally, mens can beat womens by power/speed/spin

If if you are good enough, let her attack you, and you can counter back stronger than her attack

 

[Der_Echte]

S-P-I-N

it is a 4 letter word starting with S. They hate it when you give it to them real heavy.

 

[brokenball]

The main goal is to keep the ball on the table but keep it low. Spin helps because the ball jumps out low and fast after the bounce. The spin must be enough so when the ball hits the table it jumps forward. Basically the gives up some rotational energy ( spin) for translational energy ( speed )

 

[Dr Evil]

How can I get set up to get into a power ralley? I can't simply back up without a good opening shot or else she will just hit a sharp angle and put it away.

Don't give her any angles. Long fast serve, step back, slow heavy loops right at her until she pivots or you push her away from the table or you get an easy one. Flip or long push her serve, step back, etc. Works against juniors, too.

 

[Gtsnake]

Thanks for all the coaching guys. I got a lot of good input. I agree that heavy spin will give me a big advantage since she doesn't like to play back. So it would be very difficult for her to keep it on the table. I will try to keep spinning heavy but I do remember when I've tried it before she was able to counter some heavy spins by punching back. However she wasn't very consistent because she was too close. As long as I can spin it deep it was difficult for her.

 

[mightymouse]

S-P-I-N

it is a 4 letter word starting with S. They hate it when you give it to them real heavy.

Heavy spin (slow heavy loop) used to be very effective in 38 mm ball era. You need to be careful because of the amount of spin generated.

However, with the 40+ plastic ball, it can be easily smashed down (without any respect to the spin) because the spin quality is not as good as the one in the old days.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that you can't create heavy spin with current ball, but the spin of 38 mm ball is very nasty.

So currently, it is more effective to mix spin with speed (from my personal view). In the world TT scene, I think Harimoto demonstrates this very well. He can just smack the ball regardless the spin given by the opponent.

 

[OldUser]

Be a Chad and use testosterone man... stop whining...

Kidding of course hahaha

Spin, as everyone said: the girl I've helped coaching to get to the french cadets national always struggles with my supercharged spinny slow opening loops, be it BH or FH. They need rhythm and flat balls, break that rhythm and you'll win.

Now that being said, 1900 USATT is a nice achievement for a girl, it is somewhere in the 1400 FFTT and here in France girls with that rating usually play women national leagues, tier 4/5, and they are ranked in the national top 1000 girls. When they play men leagues, they are down to regional leagues, tier 8/9.

 

[cytivrat]

Besides all things that were said above, I've noticed one thing, maybe it is problem of a local table tennis school not working on movements enough and might not work for other opponents. But when I play with girls that can win against me, they all have three points on a table: 1) where they usually get balls in right-to-right drills, 2) point where they get balls in left-to-left drills 3) center. So they play extremely well from left and right. Not that good from center, but still have some algorithm to deal with those balls. However when I place balls like between left and center, but close to left (or sometimes between right and center) they make the most mistakes. It looks like they deside to treat it as their usual left (right) point and not to make small movement for those 10-20 cm and just perform their usual stroke. They are young, they have energy, they have time, they have speed to move there, they just don't. This often results in a mistake or weaker shot which gives more time for the next stroke

 

[Gtsnake]

Spin, as everyone said: the girl I've helped coaching to get to the french cadets national always struggles with my supercharged spinny slow opening loops, be it BH or FH. They need rhythm and flat balls, break that rhythm and you'll win.

That's exactly right. She loves rhythm and short, quick rallies. I'm quick too but if I get into a quick rally with her I usually can't keep up. My only fallback is to back up to get a longer wind up and power loop. At that point I just over power her.

 

[vvk1]

I would caution against over-generalization - "we're big strong men, we can overpower female players", lol.

The whole point of table tennis is whether your opponent is male or female, old or young, very athletic or not is not the whole story by far. And at amateur levels the actual TT skills of the player on the other side of the table determine the outcome of the match in far greater proportion than their athleticism or sex.

If the OP is serious about getting advice on how to beat this specific opponent, then nothing beats a real match video.

 

[Gtsnake]

I understand your point but I'm pretty sure 90% of male TT players can over power their female counter parts. At least all the ones I've seen.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

actually i train regularly with 2 girls. I've struggling a lot against them and only recently i've turned tables and have the better record against them although i could argue i was the better player as i could beat some male players against they had absolutely no chance, but somehow i was falling in their game.

today i played against one of them, half-long pips penholder, use regular rubber on the other side for blocking.
i applied the tactic I described above. slow the game. late timing. spin the ball. she's not used to this. when the ball is easy, go for a strong topspin or kill. also was focused on executing well the combo long push / BH opening loop.
the few times she attacked i was getting a lot of balls back with a counter because i was already half step behind with more time and she doesn't hit very hard + her rubber is slow !

it must be frustrating for her because she used to win, but now even though i dropped G1 today, it always depended on me. the strategy and tactics is good and the execution is getting better at every match.

her game is limited, she's relying a lot on using my ball speed, to block or counter, I'm not giving the kind of balls she wants. she cannot make good topspin. When you're not familiar with this kind of player, yes it can be difficult, because everything is different. theres not so many guys playing like this style too.
but if you know how to play them and you have a good arsenal, there are (many) solutions.

The other girl plays with an inverted setup, and play fast attacking TT close to the table, good at counter and flat hits. She's definitely better at fast rallies, but if i manage to play half a step away from the table and put more quality and spin in the ball then i win more rallies. she's struggling at blocking when there's too much spin. if i can survive serve/receive it becomes my game.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I understand your point but I'm pretty sure 90% of male TT players can over power their female counter parts. At least all the ones I've seen.

its all relative to the male players level and female level players.

If you are only rated 1600 and the females are 2400, my money is on the female with more speed, power and spin.
Even if the male player could have a 2000 top spin loop, the 2400 should still be able to counter with ease.

I agree, can't generalize, but womens also play "male" table tennis nowadays and would use a lot more FH than before.