OOAK Table Tennis Forum

That looks like significant progress compared to 12 months ago! Will be interesting to see some matchplay.

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Useful training session last night. Only four came - me, YV (very strong junior, left hander, also coached by Adam), TP (strong junior, just breaking into top division), JW (#6 U13 girl).

I actually have to face TP in my league match tonight, which will be fun! He's a lovely player - really excellent touch and spin reading. If he put in the work he could be absolutely top class, IMO.

TP and I trained first. I had to black to random places with by LP BH for him. He handles it very well, and I could only cause problems by disguised and/or clever placement.

Then I had to play into his BH, FH drive from FH and middle, then push, TP would push back, and I'd have to topspin his push, hit the next shot, and then back to push. It was a tricky exercise, and I found the fourth shot tricky - getting low and rotating quickly enough.

Next I trained with JW, who has rather an attitude about her. She was very reluctant to train with me. Adam asked me to chop for her, BH only and then introduce FH. Turns out that against my BH chop, she wasn't so effective. I'd say 60% of the rallies ended with her making a mistake. Then she didn't exactly "introduce" FH to my FH, she did *only* FH to my FH, and I struggled to chop. On the times I got it right, it was very pleasing, but I often hit it high or long, or didn't get into position quickly enough. JW has a fierce and powerful FH and didn't hold back, and I struggled. This definitely needs improvement.

Finally I trainined with YV. First exercise was my short serve, YV opening up to my BH, two blocks and free. This went pretty well. Second exercise was YV short serve, dig into my BH, topspin from BH corner, then wide to FH and drive. This was a very useful exercise, as it required me to work again on my topspin vs push, which I did better. When I got across to play the FH drive, it was very effective indeed. I'm getting the hang of the FH now, and it's actually just as penetrating if not more, in ways. Also encouraging was my service return with FH. Long pushes or flicks both came along, and my spin reading wasn't too bad.

The other practice I got was smashing against JW lobs. Actually more often than not I placed the ball very carefully and hit the following ball, or switched to LP and hit with them. I also found I could "fade" with the inverted, and play the ball short and wide and spinning away.

Played two practice matches against YV and TP. Lost both closely, and played well.

I should be able to record my match tonight, as it's a home match and we have only one table and plenty of space.

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

I've not checked the footage yet, but I think I managed to video all three matches tonight. I won 2/3, losing to TP (the chap I practised with last night).

I'll edit and upload when I can.


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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!

Predictably enough I managed to mess up the recording of the second and third matches, but I did get the first, which was against their best player, against whom I lost. That's probably the most instructional anyway - the others were really a case of my game plan working - hitting shots after an LP block/push. One or two nice chops, but really nothing that worth seeing.

This is more interesting. Looking at the video I think I played pretty badly. My BH was too passive (ie not doing much with the ball) and on a number of occasions I didn't get low enough or spin enough on my FH. Movement was ok.

Anyway - here's the footage - edited to remove down time between points, so you get all three games in about 3 mins total. Look forward to comments and thoughts:

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

Thanks for posting that LC. Always MUCH better to post your losses than your wins. Sometimes I win games purely on serve and those games show nothing at all other than my opponent's inability to read spin. The games I lose highlight flaws and that's what we need to work on to improve.

So from what I can see in your game, the positive parts are:

• Definite noticeable improvement on forehand
• You're really agile and you're moving much better than I've seen previously
• Your posture is hugely improved, you *look* a lot more like a table tennis player
• Your serves (albeit still a touch high on the pendulum) look really decent
• You get into position to play your forehand from your backhand corner really quite well and really quite easily, plus you seemingly have the confidence to do it on a regular basis - which a lot of players, myself included - lack

The areas I'd highlight for development are (in descending order of "seriousness", if that makes sense):

• Your forehand still needs work in terms of consistency. I'm sure you know this, and this is an "easy" fix in the sense that you just need to keep working on it
• Your footwork (note - not your speed of movement or your agility or anything, that's all excellent) could do with some work. Try to bounce more. When you're looping especially, it's really important that you loop with a solid base then bounce (flexed knees) to the next shot. Staying low and using your knees in this way allows you to realise your power
• Your backhand is... an issue for me. You played very few active strokes. You "blocked", like a frictionless anti block, on most incoming balls. Not an active chop-block and zero attacking strokes. Once you moved away from the table, this changed somewhat - you moved to a chopping stroke which, although it needs refining (a bit more arm speed/commitment to the shot), is an actual shot
• Your shot choice on forehand is something I think you need to think about (which somewhat leads into my next point). You played a few shots that I'd consider a "loop" in that match but you mostly played drives. As you progress, and you play against better players who can spin a ball well, that drive shot is going to cause you many, many errors. If you want to play that as your main attacking outlet, it has to be better - you need to be lower, you need to be taking the ball off the bounce and you need to use SPs on your forehand. You just don't see top players playing drive strokes with inverted rubber because it's such a high error percentage shot*
• Your gameplan is my biggest concern. I know we've discussed this earlier in the thread and I was fairly well shot down for my opinion but I don't really understand what style of game you're trying to play. OBVIOUSLY you don't have to play like any other player, you can absolutely be unique, but from my perspective in that game I feel like you're lacking an overarching strategy. I'll come on to this a bit more further down

* you can see a little bit of this in your video. 2m44s you serve some topspin, opponent adds a bit more topspin, you try to drive and get nowhere near the table

Sorry that looks like more negative than positive - you just don't need to say much about things that work and are going well

Style-wise, what are your thoughts? What kind of player would you classify yourself? I'm a bit obsessed with classification and it's totally stupid because it means *nothing* but I like to use it as a base for thinking about what a player's gameplan might be. If you have a gameplan, you know which shots you need and you know what type of incoming shots to expect. Without that, it makes focusing your practice harder.

To me you look like a push-blocker with the passive LP blocks and the forehand drives. But then you confuse that a little bit by backing off to chop with the pimples. You'll never see Pushblocker (as in OOAK's resident push-blocking legend, not the style) drop back to chop unless he's in trouble. If you're away from the table, you can't drive. If you're away from the table chopping with a spongeless LP, you're not really threatening your opponent.

So in my view, you either need to be staying close to the table and learning to aggressively chop-block heavier loops, or you need to focus more on the "modern defence" style of game.

Personally, with your agility and fitness, I think you're wasted staying close to the table - but that's got nothing to do with me. Which style do you prefer playing?

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My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
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[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

Great feedback, thanks, Dunc.



Yeah, and of course I'm still getting used to a new rubber. A few too many wrong shots (drives that should be loops) and too thick contact. The TSP isn't super-easy to brush with.



Thanks, yes I can definitely work on bouncing more.



Yes. Seeing the video is quite horrific. Most of my BH shots were very passive. Neither an active chop/block, nor a well guided push, nor an attack.



So the game plan that we've worked out is around topspinning the first ball and hitting the second. I shouldn't be driving a push/chop, and I did do that sometimes. The drive after topspin or drive against float/block (from an LP shot) is my main weapon.



Right - which is why I was using SP. But my observation was that actually I wasn't really playing SP shots, so I might as well use inverted. That gives me more spin on serves, and he chance to play a slower topspin. But, this might not be consistent with the game plan, so it does raise a question, you're right.



In this game I was amazed at how little energy I showed. One of my principles is to impose myself on the game. I never did that. TP doesn't do much - he just gets the ball back with plenty of spin. I could have attacked much more, but I kinda did nothing. The contrast against the weaker players is noteworthy, but we're looking at the loss here, and that's more important I think.

Look at this guy (light blue shirt):



Look at how he plays. He aggressively chop-blocks and attacks ferociously with his FH. That's the closest example I can find of the style I am trying to adapt, but of course I don't really chop block at all. Note he uses inverted on his FH.



I don't know if I have a classification, but I do have a game plan. I call it modern defender, but in practice (certainly at my current level) I don't do much defending. The gameplan is very straightforward and consistent:

- Use LP to slow the game, and breal rhythm, move the player out of position
- Attack hard and fast on the FH
- Against a push or chop, counter with topspin
- Come in hard to hit the reply
- Generally stay close to the table - defend from zone 1 (block/push), drop back if pushed back, but try to get back close if possible



I kinda agree. Certainly with the first point.



I've said on many occassions that the style I admire most is (as was very recently discussed) the Ukrainian school of defence. Chop on both sides with a mixture of inverted and sponged LP, but attack with either when there's a chance. However, I'm not a very good chopper (esp. on fh), I don't handle sponged LP well, my loop is poor, I twiddle poorly, and my sense of placement to chop is poor, so allround that's a non-starter.

The style I've developed with Adam I enjoy very much. I just didn't play that way in the match we just watched. I guess there's a case for saying I really should stick to SP, and that the observation that I don't play SP-enough shots should be fixed by playing more SP shot, and that the ability to play a slow spinny shot is not really a requirement for my style.

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

Go back and look at the last match video you posted. This is so much better, and this was poor by your standard now.

I wonder if your focus on starting with the lp to get an easy ball led you to pass up some chances to immediately attack with your fh. In set 2 particularly it seemed like he was playing pattycake to the middle of the table and you could have turned on those and crushed fhs.

Also I wasn't sure what your serves were intended to do. Most LP players I face serve with heavy spin to get a spinny ball back on their pips. Maybe with SP you can't get so much spin so you just put the ball in play? There might be an opportunity to make more use of the inverted there.

And I think if you develop your fh loop and use it at every opportunity it would put a lot more pressure on this type of opponent. He seemed to feel very safe by the end, and you never want that. I don't disagree with dunc's comment on your bh, but i think fh loop would change more losses to wins faster, if you stay with inverted.

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

Yoko Ono

I had to read this twice to check you weren't saying that the previous match video (I think from ~April against ED, which I lost) was better! I looked back at that video, and concluded that wasn't what you meant!




Definitely.



This was one of Adam's comments when he looked at the video. Have a plan with the serve, and follow it. The simplest possible plan: serve where it's going to be hardest for the person to get to. Typically short to FH. Beyond that - serve short if you want to attack the 3rd ball, serve long if you want to defend their first shot. Don't mix them up - it's stupid to serve short and then do a weedy LP push to their push. If they push, loop. Similarly, if you serve long, expect a block or hit/drive/loop back. Be prepared to chop or guide that back, don't expect to be able to attack that ball easily.



Absolutely. Agree completely.

So Dunc and I had a chat this afternoon, and I decided to try this evening to do two things: firstly, be much much more aggressive with my LP blocks - like the guy in the video. And secondly, attack with the inverted as an inverted - ie loop the ball rather than trying to hit it. To that end, I stuck a rubber with more sponge onto my FH - I happened to have some Hurricane 8 avaiable, so tried that.

I had a knock with my team mate DL, who's a top div 2 / bottom div 1 player now. It took just a few mins for me to adjust to the rubber (I've used DHS FH rubbers a lot, so the memory is there), and once i got the hang of it, DL was like: Dude, wtf is this? You're getting lot of spin on your FH shots. I was concentrating on spinning the ball, and trying to remember my good technique drilling from last year. We played a practice match, and I lost 14-12 in the fifth!

Onto a 1-2-1 with Adam, and we looked at the video of the match. Adam's view was basically that I didn't look like I had a game plan. I was just a participant. No coherent strategy, no linking serves into play. Not enough thinking about where to place the ball. And overall, way way too little energy and dynamism. I think part of that might be that I've been working on trying to stay level headed, but agreed with his analysis.

Then we did some drills, allowing for the H8. Adam's point immediately was: ok you're using a proper inverted rubber now. Don't try to hit the ball like with SP, and don't stay so close to the table. Play your shot, spin the ball, let the rubber help you. I did that, and played some really excellent shots.

Next we looked at the Israeli dude, and agreed there was some good stuff there.

We did a bunch of drills with aggressive pushing and pivoting to attack with FH topspin. Went well.

Finished off with some smashing practice. The H8 felt great for this - the ball flew off, but still had spin. Nicest smashing rubber I've used for ages.

Then played a few handicap games with a lower league player, and won quite easily.

Tomorrow I have a tough match against a team of mostly top division players. I'll be playing with our strongest regular player, and my friend who plays a level or two above me - Senior British League (ranked UK #252). Should be a lot of fun.

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

This is going to be interesting.

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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

Thanks for posting the videos. Dunc and BRS have talked about your tactics and I agree to a certain extent.

You have talked in your blog about being more aggressive and attacking the third or fifth ball regardless in your practise and that seems to have carried over in to your latest match. And in doing so you do make some forehand mistakes. However, watching your last pattern practive video your forehand was consistent. The difference I think is in practice you know where the ball is going and and you know what spin and depth the feed will be (you could do more irregular practice patterns too). In your match video, it's not so much the need for a better forehand that I see, its the need to set up the forehand better, your shot before the forehand. You don't do enough with that set up shot to force the return you want and instead you have to compromise your forehand to try and force the issue.

If I was to suggest anything to practice, it would be basically to practice your set up shot, the one before you want to use your forehand. See if you can develop a setup shot which forces the type of return you want. Make it easier for yourself. People I know who use LP's like you will force a pop up ball from and opponent by driving with their LP's. Opponent at your level generally will step back a bit and roll the ball back. That slower return and done from further away gives you more time to move into position and set yourself for the shot - a shot which doesn't have to be hit hard to be a winner. You're surviving with your LP's and trying to club them to death with your forehand as soon as possible. So much pressure on your footwork and forehand. Shot selection and shot set up.

Regarding serves, Phil Petts (videos on OOAK) used to serve very spinny serves with inverted which troubled opponents. Even if they got them back, if they were lose he'd attack if they were short and tight he drive with his pimples forcing a pop up return. He basically fed his LP's what they liked, spin. However my team mate likes to serve with his LP's short and tight to the forehand. It's a float ball which dies quickly and is slow which fools people. Usually it will double or tripple bounce before reaching the end of the table so attacking loopers can't loop, unless they want to smash their bat through the table. Others jab at it and it pops up ready to be attacked. Serving with LP's is an option and can provide an elemente of surprise.

Good luck in your next match.

If you are interested in exploring additional close to the table LP-oriented play styles: have a look at Robert Shahnazari. I saw him in person at the last US Open and his chop-blocks are nasty, gave fits to ~2200 guy from our club, who managed to prevail in the end somehow.



Could not embed YT playlist, so just a random video of his match, you should be able to find more on YouTube.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Interesting match last night. Opponents were all strong division 1 players. My first match (and only third hour!!) with the Hurricane 8, and also nice to have ES in my team, who coached me during my matches. I lost all three, which was expected, but there were positives and learnings:

Positives:

- Serves were generally pretty good, won a few points on serve
- Played some screaming FH winners
- Made a real effort to return serve with inverted - I missed a lot, but psychologically that was important
- Played some active/aggressive chopblocks
- Put together some excellent combinations / rallies
- Played some slow, spinny loops (and won some points with them)

Learnings:

- Although it's painful, I have to persevere with returning serve with inverted. At div 1 level, a FH LP return is just too predictable
- It's going to take a lot of work to force myself to spin the ball rather than twat it
- I need a better FH backspin serve - mine is closer to float and not short enough
- Defensive shots *must* be low over the net, and deep, otherwise they just get blasted past me
- Sometimes getting into a rally is a better strategy than going for ball 3 or 5 attacks, because balls 7 and 9 can be easier to control and more predictable
- Inverted on my FH poses a *lot* of problems to my opponents - they said I was generating a lot of spin, and the combination of a lot of spin with the LP was hard for them

ES won 3, all 3-0, which I expected, but it was interesting to see the difference in class. His serves are a totally different level, and he made winners out of returning balls that would be winners between two division 1 players.

We won our match 6-4 - my other team mate got 2, and she and ES were brilliant in the doubles.

Would I have got a game with SP? Maybe... but I can feel that inverted on my FH is going to give me many more options, and raise the ceiling of where I can get to. I think it's a worthwhile investment to make. I don't think it'll make a massive difference against people I should beat anyway, and based on my performance last night and at training, I should be in with a good chance against other division 2 players. My team's in trouble, so I need to be getting 2 or 3 for the rest of the season, and I feel confident that I can.

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

Maybe the (not inconsiderable) extra weight of the H8, and maybe the longer stroke, but my tendons in my right elbow have flared up like a bastard.

Going to train lightly tomorrow, back on SP.

I suspect I might need to take a transition to inverted more gently.

Big match on Monday, so I really hope I'm ok after tomorrow morning's light session.


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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!

When your elbow heals, get a weighted racket. Build it by using any racket even a pre-made and putting 3 to 4 sheets of inverted rubber on each side. This should protect you from weight variations if you shadow swing with it regularly.

_________________
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

Weighed my setups:

With SP: 143g
With thin inverted: 143g
With H8: 169g

So that's nearly 20% heavier. Which is a big difference to make suddenly.



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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!