OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Having just umpired on finals day at the 2014 Australian Junior Championships, I will make a few comments about what I saw from "the best seat in the house".

It would appear that many Australian juniors (and / or their coaches) have no good ideas of what to do when either the opponent's A game is better than their A game, or when playing their A game plays right into the opponent's hands.

Exhibit A: U/15 Boys semi final. One player was obviously more physically mature than the other. Both had similar orthodox top spin games. The more physically mature player had way too much power for his opponent and tended to win top spin duels. However, when the ball had no pace and was not coming on to him, he missed a lot of his shots. Unfortunately most rallies went to top spin duels and guess who won? I had a word to the less physically mature player's coach after the match and mentioned my observations. He admitted that he did try to get his player to slow the game down a bit, but his player was not able or willing to change his game.

Exhibit B: A U/15 Girls semi final. One player attempted the same shot off a particular opposition serve that did not go in once. Did the player attempt different returns? No. I don't know whether the coach said anything about this, either.

Exhibit C: U/15 Girls final. One player was a chopper, the other orthodox top spin. The orthodox top spinner kept on going for smashes as if there was no back spin on the ball, and did not continue the loop, push, loop, push that was keeping them in the point. From where I sat, I thought that there was back spin on the ball, so I didn't think it was the looper misreading a chopped return for being a float return.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

I suspect there is not just one explanation for this.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

It's worth pointing out that this is why better junior programs (you know, where winning matters) should be emphasizing training faster attack styles/techniques whenever possible for the player. Given two about equal players, one better in aspects more important earlier in the point like serve/returns and the other in aspects like topspin rally, the former will have the advantage of controlling how the point goes.

Even if you're a better player it can be hard if the opponent can better impose their game on you than vice versa. From the other side of the table results tend to be more predictable/steady if you're able to dictate how the point progresses.

During an important match itself very few people have the ability to improvise any significant new skill and any sort of coaching from others or yourself is more to keep collected (even if it's to keep your mind off winning/losing and focus on the specifics of the point) and not lose anything from practice. Sometimes that practice just isn't enough and there isn't much to be done about it.