OOAK Table Tennis Forum

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Tactics Enthusiast

Thanks a lot to all four of you for watching and advising. I just don't see any conflict between picking up on technique and tactics at the same time. If I wait until my technique is perfect before thinking about tactics, when will I start? I mean, I'm 50 years old, come on.

At the same time, I'm well aware no tactics will make me beat JT. His serve and receive, movement, and overall shot quality are way better. Some fairly important advantages. But fastmover's point about not always going at his fh when I have him back lobbing is still good, and I didn't even consider that despite losing a couple of points to his fh counterattack from far back. Maybe that helps me later against someone more within my reach.

And I'm really impressed with Russ' post too. Yes, that was my first match and I wasn't ready for set one. On the receives, he executes the serving short to the fh and long to the bh pattern as well as anyone I have played. I'm probably standing too close to receive the long serves because I'm so worried about getting in for the short ones. Attacking the middle is actually a thought that crossed my mind during the match. JT favors his BH and he will lean to use it on balls to the middle. But I just kind of let it be a fleeting thought and didn't do anything to make it happen. And I always go down the line with my bh, it's way too predictable and that's a problem. I'm not sure if it's a mental block, or I'm a little late on the swing. Maybe I know it isn't a consistent shot so I'm semi-consciously going for a winner on the first ball, that sounds likely to me too.

As far as if I had gotten lucky at the end and won, I'm not going to lie. I would have felt great. Intellectually I would still know that I play at my level and he plays at his, and a few lucky balls or one good match doesn't matter. But it feels great to win against better players so I would have enjoyed it for about an hour, until I lost to a bad player later that day.

NL, that's just how I am. I know I play better now than before. And I'm happy. But I don't feel like I'm a good player and I still want to improve. I'm doing a lot of simple stuff wrong. To me it's encouraging that after seven years of pretty much single-minded focus on TT, I still have some basic things to fix that would raise my level a lot.

Brett, I agree with everything you say. I have been really happy lately with the level of players who are having some trouble with my serve. I remember during the third set of this match there was a series of missed returns by both of us, and I thought "I cannot believe my serve is keeping me alive here." I need to work more on using a good body motion and still keeping it short. Being away from home for five months I haven't had a table to practice on, just matches.

And thanks for not sugar-coating all my bh misses. If something sucks just tell me it sucks, I already know. When my bh is working even much stronger players can't deal with it. But there is no safety or consistency to it, so it's only for a few points or one set. It would be tempting to give myself an out by saying SP are inherently high-risk, I'm going to miss a lot. And that may be true, but bad technique is still costing me a ton of points. Mima Ito isn't missing those open ups, why should I? For one thing I need the swing to hinge on my elbow and not only my wrist. But it may take until July when I have ~100 hours of training at B75 to really work on it. For some reason people don't love warming up or drilling with me when I attack them with the pips.

And at the Potomac club several weeks back a guy unsolicited told me exactly what you said about the fh block. That is easy to work on as much as I want, everyone loves to loop fh - fh. And I have been trying to remember to do it in warm-ups, but it obviously isn't there in matches yet.

The technique that doesn't show on the video is mental. I was really pleased with myself about how I handled most of this match. The first set I got crushed, but I just thought, Okay, he's warmed up and I'm not, now I'll play better. The second set I lost in deuce, and I thought Okay, I did play better, make one more shot and I win the game. During the third set I had the thoughts about serving and I pulled it out at 9. Then in the fourth I was down 9-5 and 10-6 and 11-10, but I saved five match points to win that set. I have gotten much better at blocking out the score and playing solid TT when I'm down. JT raised his intensity in the 5th and got ahead 4-0. I pulled it back to 6-6, and at that moment I thought, Captain Obvious, I must be on a 6-2 run. That's when my mental game broke down. I started thinking about winning, people were watching, etc. Not that I would have won if I kept my focus, he is still much better than me. But I would have taken better swings those last few points. That is a constant problem for me when I am close to an upset, and I'd really like to fix it. I need to drill in that between-point routine.

So bh vs backspin + bh punch + fh block + receiving short serves to my fh + between point visualization = 2200. I'm practically there already. And not a tactic in the bunch.

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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

Just a clarification: when I was talking about the placement, I was talking about those few points when BRS was playing against fishes and lobs with his FH. My comment did not apply to any other point in the match, and I did not mean that BRS could have won with better tactics or whatever.

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Tactics Enthusiast

You got it! It's that easy.

Clearly you have to play clever. You just need consistent shots to be able to do it.

I personally had my first ever loss in Bangkok tonight in the Washed Up TT Series. I rate my opponent somewhere between 2400-2500. You should see how many excuses I have and the bad stuff that was going through my head! My end was dark, the ball was half wet, he got all the luck, he was playing the match of his life, I'm tired, I'm not fit enough to play so many matches, I thought he was going to be terrible and underrated him etc etc etc.

The truth of the matter is, I got outplayed and the guy pressured me til I feel apart. By the last set, I would have lost to almost anyone. It's super easy to become results oriented and forget about your opponent's level on the night.

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ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

He may well have won with better tactics. It's possible.

The problem is, he still would have made a bunch of unforced errors with his backhand and would continue to do so until he understands the reason and works on it.

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Out of how many matches Brett? There is always a small but real chance that eventually you lose to someone 300 points worse than you. That's how the rating system works. If you are 99% to win and play a thousand matches, you are going to lose quite a few!

I'm pretty sure I'll make a trip to Asia at some point, it's a matter of finding time. Will ask then for pointers for sure, thanks!

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

A few weeks worth of matches, fwiw.

There are lots of players here could potential beat me, depending on the usual variables. I'm just not going to beat the national team guys at this stage and perhaps never will. If I was going to take a serious shot at them, I'd have to go to the gym lots and probably play 3 hours per day for a year. You can't just take 12 years off and consistently beat really serious international pros. My Rating Central rating is frozen in time and I can assure you that I'm nothing of the sort. The guy I lost to tonight clearly isn't 300 points below me.

I'm almost experimenting with TT at this stage. I'm just trying to see what type of things impact performance and understand myself a little better. I always say that it's difficult to coach without having personal experience regarding what players really go through. Tonight was certainly a reminder.

I'm also still waiting for a coaching contract in the Neverending Story of delayed contracts. It's hard to really commit to anything when you don't know where you'll be next week. I really wouldn't mind committing to a few years of Washed Up TT, but it's probably not going to happen this time.

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ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

BRS, I remember you mentioned here that you gave up on the pivot. Can you say why? I think if you can pivot a bit more, it will greatly extend your options since your forehand is pretty solid.

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Tactics Enthusiast

He gave up on the pivot as a solution to his backhand issues not as a part of his game.

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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

NL is correct, as usual. I do still pivot, and would do it more in a match I purely want to win vs a practice match.

But for the first time I have a really clear style vision, and it's a women's game style. They pivot, but only opportunistically, it isn't the major part of their game.

So it's true that right now I could win more pivoting a lot because my fh is so much better than my bh. But for long-term development I have to use my bh as much as possible. And if I lose doing it, okay, nobody really cares.

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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 a nice Korean gentleman tell me that my forehand is a "nuclear missile". Thank you LTT99.

I watched your match too Ben, I don't think there's much for me to say than what has already been said. I think you look like a steady player overall, incredible that you started in your 40's(?) and got to a decent level.

I finally started recording my training matches today. You inspired me to upload one of them. So here's a best out of 5 which I also lost 2-3. I have a lot of problems with reading this guys serve. He's only been coming to our club a couple of months. The odd thing is that I had no problems the first couple of times I played him. Then I had a couple of months where I lost badly (I was losing badly to mostly everyone) and that's when I took a short break.

At the moment we're fairly even, from a ranking perspective I should have the advantage.. but when I lose my focus on his serves I have no chance and just mess up over and over again. I struggle especially with his backspin serve which often comes half long.. from watching myself I think I need more LTT93. On several of them my back seems pretty straight. On his sidetopspin serves to my backhand I just prodded the ball several times. I read the spin too late and don't know what to do.

As you can tell I don't really have a backhand in matches. I think I hit one single backhand against backspin and I'm lacking the bowing movement. I'll also be taking notes from that vid of your BH open up against backspin Brett.. I need it.

I recently started trying out the punch serve as I sometimes can get the ball to kick, which I still can't do with the pendulum but this guy has seen it several times now.. it's also not a serve I'm that consistent with, I think I'm lacking the body movement with it atm.

Any comments are appreciated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TxSkGmLILY&t=

Your forehand is levels above mine, hard to comment but you can still your back pointed to the sky more against the deeper backspin balls to increase spin and consistency. LTT99.

I think your serve is illegal. It just gets tossed back more than I would allow in a tournament setting. It's bordering on just tossing the ball back to your blade.

You had trouble reading his serves, the TTedge app and learning the backhand serve yourself would aid you. I could read them but my primary serve looks very similar to your opponent (so much so I will want to watch it again from his POV to see if he's doing anything I could learn from).

Rich,

I admire your courage serving long into someone's forehand and even sometimes successfully surviving the aftermath. But I think pushing to anyone's forehand repeatedly is just bad form unless they have a terrible forehand and this guy doesn't. He is so consistent going down the line that it is obvious your ball quality is right in his wheelhouse. You also need to serve to a few more spots on the table to slow him down.

Since you didn't push any of his serves off the table the problem is that you really don't know how to push quality backspin. Sticking your paddle out there doesn't work beyond a certain level. You have to get low enough to get the ball over the net with a forward stroke.

I am too old and slow, that match was too fast for me to make more comments on... but I think that if you get a better backhand, it will help your forehand... especially for serve return. I felt the match had just one pace but that is probably because I can't play that fast and try to slow people down...

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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