OOAK Table Tennis Forum

My team mate has a problem. Well two, I suppose, but one of which he can't easily fix. The first one is that he has a very busy work and family schedule, so can't get regular practice time in, so finds it very hard to work on improving the weak areas of his game. The main problem he has, which loses him a lot of points, is service return. Against players who can generate a reasonable amount of spin on the serve, he will hit the ball long, into the net, off the table to either side, or pop up for an easy kill. Yes - he needs to fix that weakness, by practicing against good players with spinny serves. I refer you to the first problem.

In terms of his general game, he likes to play on his backhand, has a good consistent push, and wins a lot of points with a backhand angled hit / smash. He has a huge forehand hit, which, when he plays it at the right time, is very effective. The other shot he plays is a slow spinny lob / loop on his FH. Personally I think it's not terribly effective, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of his general style.

ATM he uses PF4 on his BH and Geospin Tacky on his FH on a Donic Waldner Senso Carbon blade. I was pondering giving him some antispin to try on his BH - the idea being as follows:

- Should shore up his service return against spinny serves, and against lesser players (who nonetheless generate spin on the serve) might gain some free points.
- Should be able to still use his effective BH pushes (probably 50% of his game)
- Should still be able to use for his BH angled hits
- Won't make any difference to his FH

I've never used antispin before, but from following some recent discussions, I wondered if it might be worth a try for him? What do you think? And what would be a good one to try, if he were keen?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Just bumping this thread... I'll see my team mate at the tournament, tomorrow night, and then he'll be entering the summer league, which would be good place to experiment with a different rubber. Thoughts?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I'm not a pro but I tried Transformer Anti, Yasaka Anti-Power, Butterfly Super Anti and 729 804

I find the frictionless anti like transformer nice for returning spiny serves but being able to control it for the rest need as much practice time, personally I gave up on that anti. Butterfly anti is really slow like most anti and you need to take care of your racket angle which is very different than a regular soft. Yasaka Anti is probably the easiest one for a real anti and the 804 is more like a less spiny soft and it's not slow.

So I think when you use a real anti it takes some training too but for someone who needs only less sensitive rubber the 804 or the Yasaka are nice.

Also maybe short pips could be an option if I understand well the way he plays

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Yinhe T-10+
729 Super FX 2.15mm
Transformer Anti 1.5mm

Have him try Super Anti. Very slick. Servers get their own spin back reversed. Have him learn to hit any backspin, especially serves. (when you hit backspin, it turns into your topspin)

I use Super Anti and the more spin coming in, the better it works.
It is pretty slow. Learn to drop shot.

Some people will tell you anti is a crutch. Don't listen. Learn to use it properly and it is a deadly weapon especially against loopers and good servers.

Maybe medium pips like the Palio WP 1013 would be better, if he likes to generate spin on his pushes. Better for hitting as well.

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Without opponent, no match.