OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Just had another tournament in Schaumburg, IL on Saturday. The format was a Giant Round Robin with 9 people in each group.

I ended up in Class C (third from the top), so I knew I'd be in for a tough day. It as a 9 person giant round robin. Our group was really close in terms of rating, with the top person at 1799 and the bottom person at 1720. I was the #6 seed at 1725. The seeds below me were ranked 1721, 1721 and 1720. So, as you can imagine, our group took a LONG time, as most matches went 5.

The good news is, I ended up doing pretty well. I went 5-3, and took home third place! The winner of the group was a Polish girl in her early 20s who said she made the finals of the U-2000 at the last South Bend tourney, so her rating will jump way up from that once that's processed. She was the #9 seed in our group and won the whole group. She beat me 3-0.

The guy that took second was the #7 seed in our group. He was from Kansas and had a really bizarre style. He played with anti on one side and really spinny rubber on the other. He never attacked with the forehand, just hitting inside-out cut shots with the anti from his forehand and twiddling. He had nasty serves too. I couldn't believe how he baffled most people with the anti. I played him as the last match of the day. At that point the girl was 7-1 and he was 6-1, and he'd beaten her. I beat him relatively easily 3-1, my pips destroyed his spinny serves and hit through his anti game. That gave the girl first, him second and I moved up into third. So, the three winners of the group were the #9, #7 and #6 seeds.

One of my losses was a tough one. I won the first two games really close, then he came back and won the last 3. Typically he plays a lot of offense, but I had him playing a lot of defense. He was great at backing up and lobbing. The problem for me with his lobs was that we were on one of the back corner tables where the wind currents from the vent system come through, and he put a lot of sidespin on his lobs anyway, so I had a hard time figuring out what the ball was going to do after it bounced.

I had some really good wins on the day. My first match was against an Asian guy who had beaten me pretty badly the last time I played him a few months ago. This time, I just destroyed him 3-0. I came out serving with the long pips and he never got into his game. I played another Asian guy later, a short pips penhold hitter who beat me 3-2 the last two times I'd played him. This time, I was more in control of the match, although he still made it tough. I won the first and third games, he won the second and fourth. In the fifth, it was tight and then I found a serve/attack combination that was getting me the point every time. I'd serve a sidespin serve wide to is backhand, which he'd put in the middle of the table for me. On the third ball, I powered a forehand loop to his backhand. It got me the point every time. He was up on me 8-6, then I got 5 of the last 6 points of the game, most of them on that combination, to take the fifth game 11-9.

I had another great 5 game win over the top seed, who was also from Kansas. He was a younger kid with a powerful forehand and great defense. I missed a couple of easy hits with my pips in the first game and he won 11-8. In game 2, I was just awful. I couldn't do a thing right and lost 11-1. He was up midway through the third game as well, when I finally started getting my pips hits in. I rallied to win game 3 12-10. Game 4 was back and forth, and again went to deuce. I kept getting the ad, and he kept fighting me off. Once he got a net to keep the game alive, once he got an edge when I'd hit a clean winner. I finally got the win at 15-13, then went on to win game 5 11-9.

My other win came against an older (I think) Russian guy who played with 755 long pips. I've seen him down in Schaumburg most of the times I've been there. I only played him once, a couple of years ago, and he'd handled me pretty easily. He had his pips in OX and all he did with them was chop and block. He had a good forehand attack, but he never really got it off more than once or twice on me. He mostly just sits back and chops and blocks with the pips. The first game was close, 11-9. The second game I got up 10-3, then relaxed and almost blew it. He got it to 10-9 before I clipped the net to get the win 11-9. In the third game, my pips hits were just destroying him and I won easily, I'm pretty sure it was 11-3.

I'm very happy with how I played and seem to be progressing. Next is to keep working on consistency and being able to attack anything that I want with my forehand, and keep using it more, so that I can hopefully keep moving up. I really feel like I'm finding the style and combinations that work the best for me; I just need to keep working on becoming more consistent in executing them.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Congrad on a successful tournament. The seeding were tight, all within a few points apart.

I agree that consistency is very important and that is what I am working on. However, I also found out that when you hit with an intend, that is, to finish the point, your consistency went up. Just playing safe won't do for me, besides, the people who practice and play with me are all blockers and good hitters, I get destroyed if I play safe shots.

BTW, did you use any of your lp killing machine in this tournament?

You're right about being aggressive to finish off the points. In that one match that I lost 3-2, once I missed a couple of smashes, I became really tentative, and that probably did me in.

The long pips worked VERY well against most people. What I've found is that, instead of holding off on using the long pips to serve with, it worked well to start out serving with them right away. Especially deep, fast ones into the body. It really threw a lot of people off their rhythm right away, and even during normal rallies it seemed like it made them tentative to attack for the most part.

I still really love having the 1.0 sponge on them. I seem to be able to chop with good control, and when I hit with the pips, it was almost always a winner, either from hitting the ball past them down the line to their forehand, or because when they go to counter the shot, they don't adjust to it being a hit with long pips and miss into the net.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Just a little advice on 2 of your 3 losses. I have played Jason and Jacek. Jacek was the guy I was playing when my shoulder finally went out. He can be very tough. He plays very well against LP. When he starts to lob you try to let it bounce to see which way it goes then try to smash to his BH deep. He mostly would try to out chop me when we played. But his FH has gotten alot better.
With Jason, he has a very weak BH. Keep it as deep to the BH as you can. His FH is very powerful and can get by you in a hurry. He also has some trouble with his transition from BH block to FH hit. If you let him get on a roll (using his FH all the time) you will have trouble with him. Do a few chops deep to his BH then make him move by blocking one down his FH line. He will be looking to step around one early so try to keep them as deep to the BH as you can.
Good luck next time you play them and tell Jacek (yasick) I said hello and I will be back.

_________________
Equipment:
Victas Koji Matsushita, Yasaka Rakza 7 2.0, TSP P1r Curl 1.5-1.7

USATT Rating: 1869

MOLON LABE!!!

Thanks for the advice Joe, I just might need it today! I'm heading down to the Schaumburg tournament that's going on today in about an hour, playing in the U-2150 and U-1900, and looking at the list of entries, they're both there. I will definitely keep these items in mind and will let you know how it goes.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Good report dwruck, go at 'em tiger growwwwlllll...

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Heh heh heh, thanks for the encouragement guys. I'm about to post the results now. They're a bit mixed, I didn't kick as much butt as I'd hoped, but I continue to learn, and that's always a good thing.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5