OOAK Table Tennis Forum


A truly International Table Tennis Community for both Defensive and Offensive styles!
OOAK Forum Links About OOAK Table Tennis Forum OOAK Forum Memory
It is currently 28 Mar 2024, 17:43


Don't want to see any advertising? Become a member and login, and you'll never see an ad again!



All times are UTC + 9:30 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 27 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: 24 Jul 2015, 06:33 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
Aggressive TT Strategy – Earlier Shots Matter More

Since the style I play is controlled offensive with some blocking/counterhitting on defense, most of this post will discuss the game strategy of an offensive player. Some of the points will apply to other styles, some will not.
No matter what your style is, ball control and shot quality come into play. The reason why we train in TT is primarily to become better and better at making quality shots on balls that we find difficult to make quality shots against. Shot quality can be measured by spin, speed, their combination (power), placement and over many points, consistency.
You win a point when your opponent fails to make a return either because he missed your shot completely or he returned your shot long or into the net. As a player gets better, most of his important shots are a result of being posed a tricky question by the opponent’s shots and not just a careless error. Since opponents will not often want to give us easy opportunities to win points, we need plays/patterns in our arsenal to make them give us what we want.
The most important principle of offensive play is to introduce your weapons early in the point in the hope of getting the advantage early. An advantage is generally the ability to play a first good topspin attack or to play a point winning stroke. The reason we try to do this is that we assume that our opponent is also an attacker and if we do not introduce our weapons, he will. However, since we don’t always control the point from the outset (we do not serve first), we need some weapons to prevent our opponent from attacking first. Finally we need some defensive/counterattacking weapons so that our opponent will not win easily with (soft) attacks
Recently, I have coached matches and noticed that some things that I assumed were general knowledge were not. I would watch a player loop the ball and get a blocked return that sat up in the middle of the table. The player would then reloop that ball and get another block return. And eventually the player would loop a ball long. Even worse, a player would serve, get a long push to his forehand, and then push the ball back because of a fear of missing the loop vs. backspin. This would happen on many points. While this general approach might work against players who are not aggressive or players who struggle with consistent play, this approach usually guarantees that a player will remain at the 1600-1800 levels for a very long time especially if they learned to play seriously as an adult. The reason why these players play that way is that consistency tends to win at the U1500 levels. That said, the U1500 level players who transition best into higher level play are the aggressive attackers (usually coached juniors) who play the proper way but improve their shot quality.

An aggressive player needs to be looking for opportunities to play aggressive shots. When a block comes, an aggressive player is trying to either end the point or play a shot that the opponent will struggle even more to return. An aggressive player is not playing for a rally – he is playing shots to pose problems to his opponents in a variety of ways. He is playing loop drives or smashes on predictable balls. He is looping for the corners and not the center of the table. He pushes short or pushes wide in order to make his opponents struggle to attack him.
An aggressive power player who attacks almost every ball will often have a few misses when playing players of his level. But such a player will accept that as being part of his game style.
He accepts the misses as part of being the proper way of playing. Do note that he is usually missing because his opponents are generating balls that pose him problems. When playing opponents below his level, the shots are less problematic so his accuracy rate goes up. Moreover, if the aggressive player has played this way for a while, he actually had to practice against those lower level shots to get to his current level and therefore developed weapons for attacking them.

Moreover, an aggressive player may be missing as he figures out what the quality of his opponent’s ball is – once he gets tuned to the ball quality and reads the opponent better, or finds ways to adjust those opportunities to his strike zone, those misses become makes if the opponent continues to present the attacker with the same opportunities.
Since the earlier a stroke is, the more important the stroke is for your TT success, let’s look at some of the goals that an aggressive player should have when playing his first 5 TT strokes in a point. The most important thing to note here is that these are mostly INSTINCTS, not strokes. If you lack the strokes to implement this, you should still be implementing a form of these instincts and be developing your strokes to support them. If you develop the right instincts, a coach only has to fix your strokes. If you develop the wrong instincts, then you have to fix your instincts and your strokes. To be fair, instincts and strokes are not completely independent – it is clear that people take weaker shots to keep the ball on the table rather than good shots and risk missing. However, this is the easiest way to keep your level low if you are seriously improving your shots in practice, as the weaker strokes will stay in your game even if you have developed good offensive strokes. If you are missing a shot that your instincts tell you that you should be making, speak to your coach or look at the footwork and stroke and the sequence of shots that leads up to it and see what is missing. Then rebuild the shot so that it works in matches. Not taking the right shot will only make your weaker stroke better and keep you from playing table tennis at a higher level. In general, playing a lesser or more controlled version of the right stroke is better than playing a consistent version of the wrong stroke as the former is easier to build upon than the latter.

Serve

An aggressive player is looking to get a weak return to attack or a predictable ball to use to set up his point. An aggressive looper will usually serve variations of short backspin and short no spin in other to get relatively slow returns that he can attack or get his opponent to push into the net. He may disguise the backspin with a little sidespin. He serves short because a long serves gives the opponent the opportunity to attack with a full stroke. Therefore, serving long is mostly a surprise and should be deep and fast to prevent the opponent from attacking aggressively.
He will serve topspins as a variation in order to keep opponents honest, to restrict the options of good pushers and to get easy pop-ups when he can as it is easier to powerfully attack high weak balls than low weak balls. While it might seem like he is trying to win points on his serve, his main priority is that his serve does not get attacked – he is okay with a passive return from his opponent or a predictable return. What he truly dislikes is an aggressive return that leaves him unable to attack or continue the rally with a stroke in his play book.

Return

The aggressive player is looking to return the ball in a way that is either an attack or a control stroke that prevents the opponent from attacking. Therefore, short serves are returned with well placed deep pushes, well placed flicks or short pushes. Long serves are always looped. An aggressive player will avoid playing shots that facilitate his opponent’s attacks unless he believes that the attacks are not strong enough to get through him and that he can counterattack them confidently. An aggressive opponent will continue to look for the locations on the table relative to his opponent’s current position where he can cause trouble for his opponent by putting the ball there. An aggressive player will note what kinds of returns are causing the opponent problems and what kinds are not.
Aggressive returning puts pressure on your opponent’s serve game, so it is valuable to be able to attack serves offensively if they drift long or are not disguised enough to slow you down. Causing an opponent to think consciously about the quality of his serves will make him miss more of them as most people serve unconsciously and make mistakes when forced to make conscious changes.

Third ball

Third ball attacks are the hall mark of a true offensive player. An offensive player’s energy levels are at the highest immediately after the serve and in anticipation of the third ball. This is the first and earliest chance to end the point if the opponent makes a passive or weak return, and the probabilities the opponent will do this off a decent serve he is unfamiliar with are fairly high. Moreover, an opponent might play a good return but this return might still be controllable given the right level of alertness so the third ball attacker realizes this this is the stroke that may make or break his serve. Finally, if the opponent plays an extremely poor but tricky receive, the attacker must position himself to handle it. This is one of the common mistakes made by lower level attackers – they often assume the weakness of the return relieves them of the responsibility to approach it properly with good movement. The other common mistake here is to not begin moving the instant the ball begins to pop off the opponent’s racket – allowing the ball to bounce on your side before moving loses time and makes handling the ball harder.
Many third ball attackers get free points off their serves not because of the serve itself, but because of what the attacker does to passive returns. A barrage of aggressive third ball attacks forces the receiver to improve the quality of his return or lose the point.
For most third ball attackers, the most important strokes are the loop drive and the slow-controlled loop. These are utilized when the opponent can’t return the ball short or with sufficient aggression to restrain the attack. Most third ball attackers will loop drive their easy or practiced opportunities and will slow loop trickier balls, the slow loops having more spin and margin in order to remain consistent. Some will loop with sidespin to drive their opponent wide to either the forehand or the backhand to make the return weaker and set up an easy next shot. The slow topspin on third ball followed by a strong 5th ball shot vs a block or passive return is sometimes called the 5th ball strategy.
What if the receiver plays the ball short? Then the stroke is usually a flick, a short push, or a long push to either the wide forehand or wide backhand or fast to the elbow. Of course, other than the long push, such options are usually the hallmark of an advanced player. But the point of this article is to say what the instincts a player should be building are if they want to play the offensive style.
What a player should not be doing is simply pushing back slow long receives to the middle of the table or floating the ball across the net. While this may work against a player who cannot attack such balls, it can be habit forming and instinct ruining.

Third ball attackers have many shot options because any offensive shot has many placement opportunities.
A final and often underestimated aspect of third ball is that it is often directly linked to the serve even beyond such obvious statements as serve backspin to get a backspin return and then loop it. Serves may also be used to get returns to where you like them, or to move the opponent or challenge his footwork. Serving to the forehand will usually produce returns back to the fore forehand and serving to the backhand will usually produce returns back to the backhand. If you draw an opponent over to the forehand side, he may be slow to recover to the backhand and vice versa. An attacker can even serve short to the forehand and push(!) wide to the backhand against many players with positive results.

Fourth Ball

Fourth ball play is another key to higher level table tennis. The importance of the third ball attack has made the ability to return the third ball a big aspect of table tennis. Let’s assume that the opponent has made a quality third ball topspin (loop or loop drive). Then the main options here for an attack are to block, punch-block/smash or countertopspin (defenders can chop here as well).
Against a slow third ball loop, the attack is actually waiting for a block so that he can attack an easier 5th ball. So against a slow loop, the usual options are to block low and short/wide if possible (very difficult vs. heavy topspin) or to punch block/countertopspin with authority. Some players block deep and step back to give themselves room to countertopspin/defend the next ball which may work depending on the quality of the 5th attack. The ideal instinct here is an aggressive countertopspin of some sort or a tricky block to slow the opponent down.
Against hard third ball topspins, the block is the usual weapon as it uses the pace of the opponent. Opponents with good anticipation and mobility may also step back and fish/lob early.

Fifth Ball

The fifth ball depends on the 3rd and 4th ball. The biggest mistake I see amongst players below 1800 I coach in matches is the inability to quickly anticipate and play a strong shot vs. slow or high 4th ball blocks on the 5th ball. Some of them do not do it because they want to remain consistent. The key way to think about this is to realize that people usually play better when you don’t put pressure on them and that your shots should always be trying to put pressure of some form on your opponent. Just as importantly for those with long term goals, the inability to think about positively posing problems on the 5th ball will cap your game. Remember, if the instinct is right, all that has to be fixed are the strokes and shot selection options.

Strong shots include well placed heavy slow topspins, loop drives, smashes or even sidespins to difficult places (wide or into the body, all depending on the context).

The Rally

Okay, so you and your opponent had defied the odds and gone beyond the first 5 shots of the point. You are now in the rally. The rally is the one place where you can decide to win with consistency or with superior shot making (usually a combination of both). Given the way TT works, it is important to have good rally skills, but it is far more important to realize and focus on the shots that come before this as the earlier will usually define the match. Most rallies begin with a player having the advantage coming out of the first 5 shots, though that advantage may shift depending on who the better rally player is. You could argue that a defensive player is really a player who plays for the rally so he can win with consistency, though that is not the common definition. To summarize,
an offensive player needs rallying skills, but those skills should not be treated as replacements for trying to get an advantage in the first 5 shots of the point if the player wants to get better.

Conclusion

This is a high level view of what kind of shot selection an aggressive player should be doing. The reason modern offensive players loop is that it the loop/topspin is the most controllable and versatile shot in the playbook. Most/all of your returns of long shots should be topspins.
Each player is unique and some players may have special shots or plays that they can use. Do remember that to continue to get better, these special shots or plays must be able to put pressure on better players. As long as your instincts are correct, continue to work on your plays and strokes. As those get better, your level will rise automatically. If your primary concern is putting the ball on the table, even if you can run down and block/retrieve every ball, your progress will be limited by the difficulty of playing that way - it is always easier to win by doing things that create problems for the opponent.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Last edited by NextLevel on 28 Jul 2015, 08:21, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 


Don't want to see this advertisement? Become a member and login, and you'll never see an ad again!

PostPosted: 24 Jul 2015, 07:52 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
So, to cut a long story short, always be aggressive against the passive and easy ball. Your ability to make more and more returns from your opponent attackable is what determines your level as an attacker. It takes practice but if you train that way and don't play that way, especially on serve, return and third ball, you are wasting your time.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 24 Jul 2015, 16:45 
Online
Dark Knight
Dark Knight
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2006, 12:34
Posts: 33337
Location: Adelaide, AU
Has thanked: 2741 times
Been thanked: 1548 times
Blade: Trinity Carbon
FH: Victas VS > 401
BH: Dr N Troublemaker OX
Very nice summary NextLevel :up: :up: :up:

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 24 Jul 2015, 18:35 
Offline
Super User

Joined: 17 Feb 2015, 08:29
Posts: 537
Has thanked: 0 time
Been thanked: 63 times
Blade: Butterfly Defence II
FH: Tibhar Evolution MX-P 2.2
BH: TSP Curl P1r 0.5mm
thanks nice post :)
even if im defender it helps a lot (sometimes im too passive and not attacking easy balls)

_________________
Butterfly Defence II / Victas Curl P1V 0.5mm / Tibhar Evolution MX-P 2.0mm -185g


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 25 Jul 2015, 09:46 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
Thanks, guys. A bit of a brain dump, but will revise and make a more user friendly version. It's probably a 5-6 part article with suggestions for each stroke.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 25 Jul 2015, 22:49 
Offline
Super User
User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2009, 11:18
Posts: 287
Location: Michigan, USA
Has thanked: 0 time
Been thanked: 41 times
My coach has a little "serious" joke that may fit your concepts. He likes to say "Your first shot should be your best quality shot.... and each one after that should be better."
The trouble is that a typical player will think "better" means hitting harder. When coach says "better" he means higher quality spin and higher quality placement.

Related : Once I made a routine passive return of a ball that was very well positioned for a full attack shot while a professional player was watching. He just said "When you get that kind of ball You got to go !

_________________
OSP Ultimate cpen
Acuda S1 Turbo
Hallmark Phoenix ox


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 28 Jul 2015, 08:23 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
fleetwood999 wrote:
My coach has a little "serious" joke that may fit your concepts. He likes to say "Your first shot should be your best quality shot.... and each one after that should be better."
The trouble is that a typical player will think "better" means hitting harder. When coach says "better" he means higher quality spin and higher quality placement.

Related : Once I made a routine passive return of a ball that was very well positioned for a full attack shot while a professional player was watching. He just said "When you get that kind of ball You got to go !


Yes. I fully agree. The big issue, IMO, is whether you made the passive return because you thought it was the best shot or whether you made it because you were scared of missing the proper shot.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 28 Jul 2015, 23:56 
Offline
OOAK Super User
OOAK Super User

Joined: 08 Apr 2015, 11:50
Posts: 1515
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 188 times
I should start by saying I agree with everything in your post. Except for this.
"it is always easier to win by doing things that create problems for the opponent."

Unless you count simply keeping the ball on the table as a thing that creates problems, it is not always easier to win, at USATT ~1650 level. You sugarcoated this a bit, IMO. The truth is a player will lose some matches he or she could have won while developing the proper instincts. Maybe this is only true for an uncoached adult learner and not a coached junior, but I doubt it. Anyone will have off matches or days where going for higher-quality shots just won't work out.

Letting your opponent beat himself is a guarantee of stagnation for a non-defender, that is true. But accepting some unnecessary losses is part of changing these instincts too, got to be honest about that.

IMO, there is a transition from passive shots, to "safe" aggressive shots, to quality aggressive shots. Trying to skip direct from passive to quality will result in a lot of misses, and that pain can be hard to take. It's one thing if between games you have a coach telling you that you are playing the right way and relax and go for it, and another thing entirely being on your own and only knowing that you are losing a match you should be winning.

None of that is an argument for not playing aggressively. But as an intermediate just landing a decent topspin usually puts you in control of the point, so going for a sideline and missing, or going for too much on a high fifth ball, actually reinforces passive instincts. You can only win each point once, there's no bonus.

This also assumes you are playing another looper. I think you stated that. But in cases where the opponent wants to go back and defend it's better to loop safely and wait for your best chance to attack an easy one, IMO. If you know the opponent isn't going to pressure you, why pressure yourself? But it's hard to be patient like that.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 29 Jul 2015, 03:19 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
BRS wrote:
I should start by saying I agree with everything in your post. Except for this.
"it is always easier to win by doing things that create problems for the opponent."

Unless you count simply keeping the ball on the table as a thing that creates problems, it is not always easier to win, at USATT ~1650 level. You sugarcoated this a bit, IMO. The truth is a player will lose some matches he or she could have won while developing the proper instincts. Maybe this is only true for an uncoached adult learner and not a coached junior, but I doubt it. Anyone will have off matches or days where going for higher-quality shots just won't work out.

Letting your opponent beat himself is a guarantee of stagnation for a non-defender, that is true. But accepting some unnecessary losses is part of changing these instincts too, got to be honest about that.

IMO, there is a transition from passive shots, to "safe" aggressive shots, to quality aggressive shots. Trying to skip direct from passive to quality will result in a lot of misses, and that pain can be hard to take. It's one thing if between games you have a coach telling you that you are playing the right way and relax and go for it, and another thing entirely being on your own and only knowing that you are losing a match you should be winning.

None of that is an argument for not playing aggressively. But as an intermediate just landing a decent topspin usually puts you in control of the point, so going for a sideline and missing, or going for too much on a high fifth ball, actually reinforces passive instincts. You can only win each point once, there's no bonus.

This also assumes you are playing another looper. I think you stated that. But in cases where the opponent wants to go back and defend it's better to loop safely and wait for your best chance to attack an easy one, IMO. If you know the opponent isn't going to pressure you, why pressure yourself? But it's hard to be patient like that.



BRS,

Thanks for the kind words - as for the disagreement, I think it is largely insubstantial.

Maybe the biggest point is that I consider safe topspins to be fine as long as they are taken when you have balls that are tricky to judge. That's the whole point of building them. Tricky to judge is an individual assessment and changes with practice.

It is easier to beat opponents by posing them problems. It's not sugarcoating. It's virtually a truism. Accepting losses when playing this way is about developing shot consistency, and is not about whether posing problems for your opponent is the easiest way to win. Usually, most of these things would be drilled to a good level in practice drills, and then carried over to matches. But if you don't do practice drills, then your practice matches become dual purpose. And unfortunately, we confuse practice matches with tournament matches sometimes. And then if we practice improperly, we get tense during tournament matches rather than just executing what we practiced with slight modifications for environmental changes and the opponent's quality of ball.

The players you beat just by keeping the ball on the table, more often than not, are players you play on a regular basis and whose limitations you know. Yes, you can beat them by doing things that are not aggressive, but you can also beat them if you put a simple, spinny topspin on the table to wherever they block and then attack the next ball aggressively and consistently. As fleetwoodmac pointed out, aggressively doesn't mean hard - it just means a quality shot. I tend to use power and I have my fair share of misses, but it is not the only way or the best way - and power often has to be aided by placement when you have opponents who can step back and bring back the ball if you are too off balance. I find placement more important than power in my game generally.

One problem is possible that you are not comfortable with the footwork and stroke demands to do both shots 3rd ball and 5th ball shots consistently, so you sometimes overcompensate or undercompensate, or you don't have the serve quality to get the balls you can attack. That is fine. But missing shots is not posing the opponent problems.

Another issue is that you need to judge the risk relative to your stroke quality. A safe shot is a quality shot - it is a requirement when the good 3rd ball opportunity is not there. At every level, the definition of safe and quality changes and gets higher and higher so you always have to refine your strokes and placement etc. In general, if your topspins are too safe, they get easier to counter. But sometimes, what you consider a safe topspin might be hard to counter for the opponent. The key thing to note is whether the opponent usually block the first topspin or the opponent counters the first topspin aggressively. If the former, you have time to set up your attacks and wait for the right ball to be decisive with. IF the latter, then you may have to do more with the third ball.

Judging the quality of the opponent's return takes time as well. That is why good serving to limit the opponent's ball manipulation options and to give you a better idea of what the opponent has done to the ball is helpful. So is being able to judge what is on the ball by how the ball looks/flies.

Changing a playing style requires you to change certain things, and change takes time. Learning requires certain things to become subconscious so that other things can be consciously adapted to. This process is never ending and is why you need to start this earlier or be forced to rebuild your game at a higher level. Playing more conservatively is easier to learn as you build in more defense and opponents will naturally put you under pressure. But playing weakly/defensively not under pressure is hard to change when the opponent is putting you under pressure. IT is hard to beat better players with defense.

In fact, it is quite possible to play a good game and lose to a good player who is technically worse than you, but played in the zone for the match. On Sunday, I saw a kid that I have never lost to beat one of my club mates who beats me most of the time in 3 straight sets - the ratings gap was almost 270 pts. In fact, the kid who lost would probably never lose to me if he wasn't my training partner. After the match, I asked what happened and my training partner and coach both said the same thing - my training partner took his shots and the kid counterlooped extremely well. My club mate had no other bad losses that day and he beat some extremely good players pretty decisively. Could he have beaten the kid he lost to by playing differently? I think so. But what does that prove? Maybe that he needs to be able to switch up his game or that he needs to get better at doing what he currently does. But my point is that losing is always on the menu options when you play GOOD players, and I define good players as players who can either consistently make or return good topspins.

For me, the more difficult issue, and I have to address this later, has to deal with strategic pushing and blocking (or even fishing). All are very important. They just aren't want a player should build his game in the first 3 shots around if they want to get better quickly. Even controlled topspins at some point get into trouble if they aren't located properly. In the end, improving is about continually making your shot quality better while playing in a way that poses opponents problems. The whole point of being aggressive early is that it allows you to draw your gun first.

What you will learn later, and I didn't discuss it here, is that even if you want to play a defensive player or a flawed unorthodox player, how you set up the point with serve and first attack, or serve return, is very important in determining how the whole point transpires.

For example, many people make the mistake of serving a person who uses his backhand all over the table to his backhand. Why not serve him to the short forehand and make him uses his backhand short over the table there so his defenses are not set up properly, or serve him long to the forehand to test his attack off long backspin and see if he transitions to defend the table with his backhand properly? Even choppers - sometimes, it makes sense to serve them to bring them over the table so that they are faced with the first ball/attack while retreating from deeper in. It also reduces their ability to put spin on the serve.

So ultimately, this style does require people who are very conservative about their TT and who want to manage their results carefully to practice much more. But those without the ability to practice their attacking repertoire with drills have to think long term. Again, it's painful to rebuild your game later.

It is best to do this kind of rebuilding with videotape so you can look at your misses and reflect on what was misjudged about the ball or what was wrong with your stroke.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 29 Jul 2015, 22:30 
Offline
OOAK Super User
OOAK Super User
User avatar

Joined: 06 Nov 2009, 04:40
Posts: 1640
Location: Texas, USA
Has thanked: 342 times
Been thanked: 104 times
Blade: 729 HS Champion carbon
FH: Razka X max, black
BH: SavigaV LP 1.0 red/green
This is an interesting discussion.

For me I win with the right balance of aggressive and passive shots. Too aggressive and I lose (and I mean lose badly), too passive and I lose as well. It is always a struggle to find that balance and it changes from day to day or even match to match. I am definitely a player who will beat themselves if my opponent goes passive but plays to my weaknesses. I want to learn when to play the aggressive shot and when to be conservative.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 29 Jul 2015, 23:00 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
The thing is that people without honed offensive games and instincts draw the line between an aggressive shot and a conservative shot fairly poorly. If you fix your technique, the possibilites get much larger. But people work on technique that comes up later in the point, rather than getting their technique on the first five shots very sharp.

The key thing is this - once you can loop with fairly good technique, you can make a variety of shots that you will not make if you do not try them in matches because you consider them too risky. But that feel develops if you actually play in matches, drills and practice aggressively, and you see new possibilities that will expand your mind.

Consider this match and focus on serve, serve return and third ball. How many of these shots would you actually call passive? My opponent here specializes in attacking anything double bounce short but high or half long aggressively. I tend to do well against him because I serve extremely short, move him around and play with heavy spin which makes it harder for him to tee off on the ball. But I have seen him put very good players under pressure with his style because they aren't used to being pressured so early.


_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2015, 00:17 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
I think this article by Han Xiao is relevant:

http://butterflyonline.com/playing-a-qu ... king-game/

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2015, 00:30 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
Also this one from Richard McAfee:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis ... ion-Skills

He makes the point that the higher the quality of the placement of your shot, the easier it is to anticipate where the opponent is likely to return the ball to. That is why balls to the middle are usually so weak, as well as balls without pace - they don't constrain the options of the opponent.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2015, 03:26 
Offline
OOAK Super User
OOAK Super User

Joined: 08 Apr 2015, 11:50
Posts: 1515
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 188 times
Those articles complement each other really well. Han Xiao talks about the importance of placement over power and taking the ball early if you want to play close to the table. And McAfee talks about how to use placement to control where your opponent can return the ball, so you can be in position for that early shot.

It's brilliant. Where it starts to break down is when play starts and you don't have enough control, or your opponent is controlling the action, so you have to react instead of anticipate. But as a theory it's rock solid.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2015, 04:05 
Offline
One-Loop Man
One-Loop Man
User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2011, 10:45
Posts: 3578
Has thanked: 303 times
Been thanked: 305 times
Blade: Joola Vyzaryz Trinity
FH: Golden Tango
BH: Golden Tango
BRS wrote:
Those articles complement each other really well. Han Xiao talks about the importance of placement over power and taking the ball early if you want to play close to the table. And McAfee talks about how to use placement to control where your opponent can return the ball, so you can be in position for that early shot.

It's brilliant. Where it starts to break down is when play starts and you don't have enough control, or your opponent is controlling the action, so you have to react instead of anticipate. But as a theory it's rock solid.


An interesting way to put it, BRS.

Ultimately, TT is a sport that is played, not written about. I completely get that. Strokes matter more than ideas. But a theory doesn't break down when it is applied to situations where it was never supposed to be applied to. That said, even when reacting, you need to over time evolve your defense or your 50-50 shots to include elements of spin, junk and anticipation to protect yourself. And this theory tells you the kind of defensive or rally shots that you should be building into your arsenal - kick blocks, sidespin blocks, wigglies, down the line plays, sidespin fishes etc. If you loop a sidespin ball into the middle of the table, you will see that if the opponent takes it late, they take it wide and usually will return it cross court at lower levels. So if you slow loop when late to the ball

1) slow loop with side spin to the middle of the table - it will usually break wide anyway (this is what I do 95% of the time when late to the ball and people complain about how my shots hit the right sideline)
2) anticipate the ball coming back cross court and
3) anticipate the effect of the sidespin on the opponent's return when playing your next shot.

Opponents who can counterloop sidespin shots comfortably down the line are well beyond the level you comfortably play and have 2300 level rallying games. I know only one player who counterloops my opening shots down the line fairly consistently and he has his fair share of misses.

That said, I will write this week/weekend about some things you can get away with if you are playing this style at lower levels in my experience. The problem of course is that when you start doing things you can get away with, you cap your game for a lower level as things you do become habits and habits are costly/hard to break.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 27 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next


Don't want to see this advertisement? Become a member and login, and you'll never see an ad again!



All times are UTC + 9:30 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Copyright 2018 OOAK Table Tennis Forum. The information on this site cannot be reused without written permission.

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group