OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Sorry, yes, I meant to write Barracuda BS The new FH rubber felt good, my Vega Pro got delivered today along with my Ross Leidy custom blade, so I will be able to try to rubbers side by side tomorrow morning at training.




I think you mean Mark Z, I haven't played him in this competition but I have played him in the past and we have great matches, a very consistent player. Last time we played he got me 3-1 and the time before that I think I got him 3-1. I think he has gone back to China for the rest of this season so I won't get another chance to play him in this season.

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

Last night was my turn to miss out on Singles in our A grade match (4 person teams and we rotate a week off), so I only played a couple of doubles. Overall I was very happy with how I played, there wasn't too much to note and I wont bother going into a full match report, we won both doubles and the team won 9-2. I am feeling much more confident in my shots with my new equipment, my looping is solid, I'm getting more spin, and the all round feel is great.

I still have a couple sheets of Hexer HD on the way, so I plan to try my blade with Hexer HD on one side and Vega Pro on the other, that way I can make use of all the sheets I bought and not waste any Although, in the end I'll just go with what feels best, and I'm really liking Vega Pro on both sides.

Tonight I play in our clubs internal competition, and I suspect I will be playing one of the players just below me on the ladder this week, it should be a good test of my new equipment, I'm just hoping I have adjusted well enough to it to not be making silly errors.

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

I put a sheet of Hexer HD on my Gergely yesterday and will give it a try tonight. Will be interesting to see how it goes against a real person. Feels ok on the robot. Hexer+ feels almost as fast and is lighter. So I'm more interested if there is any appreciable spin increase which might make the HD worth it, otherwise I'll stick to Hexer+. But I'll be interested to read your thoughts Dan.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

It has been a while since my last blog post, coming into the end of last year I was quite busy, and then when I had a break I was too busy relaxing and not thinking about Table Tennis It has now been 2 weeks since I have played at all, and I wont be back at training for another week, I have decided to take a good break over Christmas and New Years to clear my head and then make a good start to my training with full focus. I decided to do this as coming into the end of last year I made plans to increase my training and it didn't quite happen as much as I would have liked as I was swamped with other things.

While I am here I thought I would quickly sum up my results in the 2 competitions I was playing. The internal competition at my club came to an end on the 15th of December, I think my team might have finished equal 1st (I didn't get a good look at team standings), and individually I finished on 25 wins and 2 losses, with a percentage of 92.6%. This put me equally on top of ladder and shared the prize for the top player. I am fairly happy with this result, there weren't too many challenging matches, and the 2 I lost I just wasn't in good enough form to make anything of the matches.

This also brought about the half way mark of the A grade competition I am playing in. I have currently won 62.5% of my matches. Being my first season in this competition it has taken some adjustments to some different playing styles and conditions, and ideally I would have liked to have brought my wins up a bit higher, but a few bad weeks have dropped me back. Hopefully I will be able to improve on this in the second half of the season which commences again towards the end of January.

I have also finally settle on my equipment, which is my custom Ross Leidy blade, with Hexer HD on forehand and Xiom Vega Pro on backhand. I played with this for the last two weeks of 2011, and I am very happy with how these rubbers perform for me. It is a relief to be able to go into the new year without worrying about what equipment I will use and still be changing around.

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

Last night was my first training session for this year. Took a little bit to get my feel back after 3 weeks off, but once I got going it felt good. I came in a bit sore from my Gym session the day before which slowed me down a bit as well until I got properly warmed up.

Now that the clubs Summer competition has finished our coach has started to focus more on proper training and doing drills, rather than people playing games all the time. It is exactly what I need, before Christmas I was lacking motivation to do proper drills and I was only occasionally working on specific areas of my game, most of the time I was just practising match play, which isn't going to help me improve to the standard that I would like. Plenty of footwork drills as well as some technical advice from my coach should be just what I need to keep improving.

There is about 3.5 months until the main winter competition starts this year, in this time I will be trying for at least 3 training sessions a week, and then my one A grade match on top of this. At the same time I will be trying for at least 2 gym sessions a week to keep my fitness up. Hopefully in this time I can improve enough to make the move up to the top grade (if there is a spare spot for me). But I will be happy to play another season in the same grade as last year and continue improving there, I think I have enough drive to achieve much better results. It is also about a month until the open tournaments start for the year, so I am planning to compete in those as some good match preparation for the winter season.

I might as well try to get some extra discussion sparked, it would be great to hear what your favourite training methods and drills are, as well as any other tips you have? Might give me some different ideas

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

Another week of training has passed and I feel like I am really getting back into the swing of things. I have had 3 training sessions since my last post, but I find myself wanting to get to more sessions between them, I just need more hours in the day Funnily enough, after my 3 week break I wasn't all that enthused to come back to training, but now that I have got going, it's great.

I am enjoying the drills and focused exercises. Too much of the end of last year was match focused, either in competition or just practise matches, I am very glad to get away from that for a while. I can feel certain areas of my game improving slightly already, and I am thinking a lot more about my technique and how to do things better. It's a great feeling when you have been trying something for a long time and it finally starts to work and deliver great results.

I don't have too much else to report on at the moment as matches haven't started yet. Although, I have planned out my tournaments for the year. At the moment I am planning on entering 6 local tournaments and 1 tournament in Melbourne. Are there any other SA players here playing in the Open tournaments? On top of the tournaments there is the main Winter competition which starts at end of April, along with the Winter season in my local area. So there are plenty of matches and competitions to look forward to

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

My comp restarts next Monday and Thursday! Summer season.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

I have the second half of the local summer season, starting on the 1st of Feb as well. I hope to use that as more of a trial period in match play to try out new things from my training.

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

Well it has been 3 months since my last blog post so I figured with my main competition for the year starting this week I would get things moving again. The last few months of training have flown by, and even though I still feel my game improving, I think I have discovered even more areas in which I need to improve.

This year I have made the move up from Division 1 to State League, originally I was set to play Div 1 again, but the team fell through and our SL team needed an extra player, so that's how I ended up in top grade. I knew it was going to be a tough season and I would be fighting for a win in every match, but after playing my first this match it has become more apparent how much more unforgiving State League is compared to Div 1. As I outlined in my first blog post 6 months ago one of my goals was to complete a full season in State League, while premature and not necessary gained solely on playing ability, I am going to try my best to use this season as a learning opportunity and hopefully the tougher matches will force me to lift my game to this standard (or crash and burn back to Division 1 next season )

I'm not going to go into too much depth of a match report, as it takes a fair amount of time and a lot of it is probably irrelevant. I am going to get more to the point of the problems I have identified in my game and hopefully will be looking for comments and tips on how to overcome them. Although, just briefly, we lost our match 8-6, I didn't win any of my singles, and lost quite closely in the doubles.

- Confidence: I have never had much of a problem in this department before, but it might be due to the pressure of moving up to the top grade and being a bit out of my depth. When I am playing significantly stronger players I don't have a problem. I have more of a nothing to lose attitude, I go for my shots (even the more inconsistent ones), even though I am still out classed it is a great game and I play well. But then when I play someone who is around my level I hold back, I am indecisive and not confident in my less consistent shots, and this gives them the opportunity to get the upper hand. I think this mainly happens as I realise we are closely matched and I don't want to throw away any points due to careless/inconsistent shots, which in turn makes me question everything I do. Any tips on how to get around this? Will it just come with time from playing at a higher level?

- Short Game: I think I have got quite slack in this area of my game. In the lower grades I can get away with a loose push or weak top spin and still get back into the point. But I am finding with the move up to State League, if I do these shots I am punished for it and I give them an easy point. Because I haven't had this problem in the lower grades I think I have neglected my short game and focused more on my strengths, while this has helped me improve other parts of my game, I am being let down in the short game and it is giving my opponents the upper hand. It would be great if anyone had any tips or specific drills for practising this, at the moment I am just going to practise serve/return and just general short pushing. I haven't come up with any specific drills to work on this.

I could probably write a list as long as my arm with problems in my game which I know I need improvement on, but I think these two things were primarily what let me down in my match on Tuesday. I am still trying to improve my footwork and put more power into my attacking shots, and these things seem to be getting there slowly. As the weeks of the competition progress I will try to bring up different aspects of my game that come to my attention the most, and I am hoping for some feedback which will help me in my training.

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

Good on you Dan2105!


I have the same problem, so I'm sure it's quite common. For me it's not so much a matter of confidence, but more or less pressure to win a game that I'm expected to win by the team, which gives you team pressure, even though it's often not spoken about in the team. I think this will simply get better every week, so I would not worry about it too much, or it will only get worse.
I think if you focus on enjoying your matches and treat them as learning experience, instead of giving yourself pressure to win one for the team, you'll not only perform better but will get a lot more out of it.

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I'm not sure if it is really the team pressure for me, I feel it is the pressure that I put on myself. As I have had similar things happen in tournaments where I make games against some opponents much tougher than they should be. I guess it is just another mental barrier to overcome from playing at a higher level and having high expectations of myself, and with more experience at this level of play things will get easier.

Focusing on enjoying my matches and treating them as a learning experience is exactly what I do against the top ranked players who I am very unlikely to beat, even after losing to these players I am happy with how I played. If I can play like this all the time I'll be a happy man

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Main: Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit ST | FH: Andro Hexer HD 2.1mm | BH: Donic Bluefire MAX

When you know that the match is going to be tight, a mental trick I do sometimes is to tell myself before the start of the game that I'm going to win, not to worry about the result. The question then is only how you are going to win - you can then convince yourself that you are going to do it by enjoying yourself and playing your shots. Another mantra I use is to tell myself to "trust my training", if in doubt stop thinking and trust your instincts.

Overthinking kills flow, so don't overthink, but shutting your inner voice up is very hard to do, so I like to give myself something else to think about other than the result!

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Tibhar Stratus Power Defence
TSP Curl P4, 0.5 sponge
Stiga Calibra LT Sound
and my chickening out setup..
Donic Waldner Allplay
Stiga Boost TC 2.0 forehand
Stiga Boost TC 1.8 backhand