What drills to do to reach solid 1500 USATT?

[FrenchFrog33]

What are the drills that I need to focus on to be a solid 1500 USATT level player?

 

[SlowPower]

You cant tell.
Some wont need any drills to reach it, others will never reach at all...

 

[FrenchFrog33]

I really want to reach 1500 as a short term goal. As an offensive player, what should I focus on?
Thank you.

 

[NextLevel]

What are the drills that I need to focus on to be a solid 1500 USATT level player?

Improving is more about developing ways that are adequate to win points vs the level of opposition you need to beat. There are quite a few reasonable ways to improve up to 1500, most of them are not about quality drills. Serve and third ball attack behind your key serves should be the main practice and working out responses to various returns so you can take the initiative behind your serve. This is usually enough to raise your play at all levels as long as the returns are of the quality or a bit higher than the ones you typically face and you can get your attack rate to about 80%+.

 

[zeio]

Pushing and blocking.

 

[TensorBackhand]

What are the drills that I need to focus on to be a solid 1500 USATT level player?

Honestly its really easy. Practice push, serve, and receive. There's really not much else you need to be 1500. You should don't need to loop at all to get to 1500.

Of course you may need some basic fh and bh drive, but its a lower priority. You won't use it much in a game.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

how are you training at the moment?

 

[TensorBackhand]

What are the drills that I need to focus on to be a solid 1500 USATT level player?

If I were you, practice playing games with a partner but make a rule where nobody is allowed to loop. Just push the whole time and try to win the game just with your push.

Just with this you can beat many 1500 players.

To get to 1700, you will then need to develop a consistent FH loop.

 

[FrenchFrog33]

how are you training at the moment?

Random power pong drills, ie.. service receive, serving, fh, bh.

 

[Jslick89]

If I were you, practice playing games with a partner but make a rule where nobody is allowed to loop. Just push the whole time and try to win the game just with your push.

Just with this you can beat many 1500 players.

To get to 1700, you will then need to develop a consistent FH loop.

I worry that pushing excellently might allow someone to become 1500 USATT but it would slow down their growth in the long run.

I know I have been practicing my FH loops since I was rated 1100. Sure I threw away a lot of points but now my FH loop is a deadly weapon that often players like 1900 or 2000 lol.

OP- speaking from my own experience in progressing to 1700 at the club level is what i recommend:

-seconding the others are giving to practice serve and serve return (seriously practice your serves every day....fast long and 2 bounce short serves) (practice returning short serves short...and looping long serves)

-FH-BH transition drills...... so any variation of drills that have forehand, backhand, and middle shots on the table.

-loop an incoming underspin ball, then immediately follow up with a counter on an incoming topspin ball (your power pong robot should be able to do this)

finally from a tactical standpoint- you need to understand the reason you lose points. and then work on turning those match situations into points you are winning. If people exploit a weak backhand, you need to improve your backhand blocking to where they aren't going for it every point. or if you know your forehand is your best shot, how are you using your serves to set you up for your forehand shots.

 

[Dr Evil]

I really want to reach 1500 as a short term goal. As an offensive player, what should I focus on?
Thank you.

Focus on consistency and placement. (1) Looping all long serves. (2) Long pushing over the table. Aggressive, not passive. (3) Serving to get long receives, 3rd ball looping.

 

[NextLevel]

The thing is that it isn't really "drills". It is doing things that win points and figuring out how to stop the things that people use to win points against you. While I agree with @Jslick89 that how you develop your game might make it harder to get better, the truth is that as long as you build weapons that win points, there are many ways to get to 1500. If most of your opposition are younger, a lot ofnit will be based on being able to block and rally flat and in ways that keep the opponent pressured by your placement. But in the end, it is always informant to be able to serve something (maybe a sidespin or topspin serve that looks like backspin) and put the return away. It is also good to have something that you can depend on to remain consistent when all else fails (either backhand or forehand). But all of this is determined by looking at how you play vs the players you are trying ro beat. Not by some general drills. General drills are important to improve your ball feeling but they don't really help when you have to deal with a specific point in a match. But since you always serve and you always return serve, those things translate to your playing level much faster.

 

[Jslick89]

The thing is that it isn't really "drills". It is doing things that win points and figuring out how to stop the things that people use to win points against you. While I agree with @Jslick89 that how you develop your game might make it harder to get better, the truth is that as long as you build weapons that win points, there are many ways to get to 1500. If most of your opposition are younger, a lot ofnit will be based on being able to block and rally flat and in ways that keep the opponent pressured by your placement. But in the end, it is always informant to be able to serve something (maybe a sidespin or topspin serve that looks like backspin) and put the return away. It is also good to have something that you can depend on to remain consistent when all else fails (either backhand or forehand). But all of this is determined by looking at how you play vs the players you are trying ro beat. Not by some general drills. General drills are important to improve your ball feeling but they don't really help when you have to deal with a specific point in a match. But since you always serve and you always return serve, those things translate to your playing level much faster.

guess it really depends on your long term goals right? I think at my club, i could push and beat players that are 1600....but I aspire to be 2000+ USATT. So I work on my pushes, but I spend more time working on looping underspin shots coming at me.

100% agree with how you have to look at how the players you want to beat are beating you. That is why the chinese are so good at this game because they have the specific tactics for all of their opponents (isn't that also why people say NK did surprisingly well in the olympics? simply not enough footage on them to know the best tactics.

Now I might be wrong at this, at a certain level, tactics become way more valuable than techniques because everyone can more or less do the all of the techniques when you you get to that high level. maybe that level is 2000? i'm not sure. i'm more like a 1700 rated player if you take my average rating between the two clubs i play at. Maybe that level is 2000?

But to @NextLevel's point, I had an opponent who used to do these hook serves to my wide forehand. i programmed the robot to give me a similar shot and i practiced returning that same ball thousands of times. ever since i eliminated that serve from his game, he hasn't been able to beat me. The fault of this opponent is that he hasn't been able to adapt or adopt a new tactic to beat me.

On the flip side, one of my closer rivals at the club....for a while I was beating him with serving fast and dead into his elbow a lot. I was getting like 90% of those points. But eventually he was able to adapt and i could not use that as a consistent exploit. Then it was a very high toss serve that was winning me a lot of points. and he adapted to that. Now lately its been serves to his short forehand that have been working well. i'm sure he will adapt to that too. That's why me and him are both going up in rating because we are constantly overcoming our weaknesses and devising new tactics against our opponents and beating players that have played this sport longer than us and are higher rated than us (as of now).

So in summary for me:

-always work on consistency if you want long term growth
-fortify your weaknesses and devise tactics to set up your strengths and exploit your opponent's weaknesses.

I believe this "formula" will keep you in constant growth on your TT journey.

 

[NextLevel]

guess it really depends on your long term goals right? I think at my club, i could push and beat players that are 1600....but I aspire to be 2000+ USATT. So I work on my pushes, but I spend more time working on looping underspin shots coming at me.

100% agree with how you have to look at how the players you want to beat are beating you. That is why the chinese are so good at this game because they have the specific tactics for all of their opponents (isn't that also why people say NK did surprisingly well in the olympics? simply not enough footage on them to know the best tactics.

Now I might be wrong at this, at a certain level, tactics become way more valuable than techniques because everyone can more or less do the all of the techniques when you you get to that high level. maybe that level is 2000? i'm not sure. i'm more like a 1700 rated player if you take my average rating between the two clubs i play at. Maybe that level is 2000?

But to @NextLevel's point, I had an opponent who used to do these hook serves to my wide forehand. i programmed the robot to give me a similar shot and i practiced returning that same ball thousands of times. ever since i eliminated that serve from his game, he hasn't been able to beat me. The fault of this opponent is that he hasn't been able to adapt or adopt a new tactic to beat me.

On the flip side, one of my closer rivals at the club....for a while I was beating him with serving fast and dead into his elbow a lot. I was getting like 90% of those points. But eventually he was able to adapt and i could not use that as a consistent exploit. Then it was a very high toss serve that was winning me a lot of points. and he adapted to that. Now lately its been serves to his short forehand that have been working well. i'm sure he will adapt to that too. That's why me and him are both going up in rating because we are constantly overcoming our weaknesses and devising new tactics against our opponents and beating players that have played this sport longer than us and are higher rated than us (as of now).

So in summary for me:

-always work on consistency if you want long term growth
-fortify your weaknesses and devise tactics to set up your strengths and exploit your opponent's weaknesses.

I believe this "formula" will keep you in constant growth on your TT journey.

I believe OP is over 60, though the answer I would give him is still the same. I just tried ro make it more relevant. Another possibility (not sure it is available to him) is to find and play a 2000+ level player and coach on a regular basis and try to play longer rallies. Getting more consistent against much better players especially with the blocking game tends to translate well into beating players who attack at your level. But it has to be in the context of a competitive point.

 

[TensorBackhand]

I believe OP is over 60, though the answer I would give him is still the same. I just tried ro make it more relevant. Another possibility (not sure it is available to him) is to find and play a 2000+ level player and coach on a regular basis and try to play longer rallies. Getting more consistent against much better players especially with the blocking game tends to translate well into beating players who attack at your level. But it has to be in the context of a competitive point.

I didn't know he's 60. I have a better way to beat 1500.

Use SP on forehand and LP on BH. I'm not even joking or exaggerating. You will not believe how many 1500's will struggle to perform against LP if they haven't practiced against it.

 

[FrenchFrog33]

I didn't know he's 60. I have a better way to beat 1500.

Use SP on forehand and LP on BH. I'm not even joking or exaggerating. You will not believe how many 1500's will struggle to perform against LP if they haven't practiced against it.

I keep hearing suggestions about using sp and lp. What is the advantage?

 

[TensorBackhand]

I keep hearing suggestions about using sp and lp. What is the advantage?

The advantage of SP on forehand: you can still smash very fast and hard. Your shots will be flatter and have less spin than your opponent is used to. This will sometimes cause them to make errors into the net. Or it will cause them to adjust their stroke more upwards, and they may struggle to do so.

Advantage of LP is that it reverses the spin your opponent gives you. If they hit a topspin to your LP, it will comes back to them as underspin. This is very confusing and tricky to handle. Most 1500's will not be prepared for it, so you can buy a lot of points with this method.

However, you also need a period of adjustment to get used to the new feeling. But your adjustment will come faster because you can practice. They aren't specifically preparing for you.

 

[FrenchFrog33]

The advantage of SP on forehand: you can still smash very fast and hard. Your shots will be flatter and have less spin than your opponent is used to. This will sometimes cause them to make errors into the net. Or it will cause them to adjust their stroke more upwards, and they may struggle to do so.

Advantage of LP is that it reverses the spin your opponent gives you. If they hit a topspin to your LP, it will comes back to them as underspin. This is very confusing and tricky to handle. Most 1500's will not be prepared for it, so you can buy a lot of points with this method.

However, you also need a period of adjustment to get used to the new feeling. But your adjustment will come faster because you can practice. They aren't specifically preparing for you.

What's a cheap set up to try out?

 

[pong99]

What are the drills that I need to focus on to be a solid 1500 USATT level player?

Every few months you post a new thread asking basically the same question.

What have you done with the advise that has previously been given? What's working or not working?

If you have not been able to get better so far, the obvious thing to do is to hire a competent coach to watch you play and develop a plan tailored to your ability, age, and willingness to practice. Getting rando advise here is not an efficient way to improve.

 

[TensorBackhand]

What's a cheap set up to try out?

Yinhe neptune. Any wood blade sanwei or yinhe