OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I just finished the Open and man, it was ugly. My performance that is. I lost to three players rated well below me, two of which I was ahead 2-0 with a lead in the third game. Ditto to my higher rated Texas LP friend. I owned the first two games landing almost all my spinny opening loops for winners of a finish. Someone must have been poking the voodoo doll to give me a sudden and long-lasting case of I-suck-and-cant-land-a-shot-to save-my-life-itis. the whole night went like that. Hopefully, I will have one last chance at a tourney in December. If not, I will be low rated for a long time in the desert.

Here are two videos. The first is my Texas LP friend game 3. The second, a 2000+ rated guy from TWU where I could only smile at being outclassed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxZ3drJmQJg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4kMBzHVq7Q

EDIT: Order of posts corrected...

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

The 1st is a 2000+ rated(Der E put them in wrong order). Aldis is a very good player. Seen him play a month ago. Observation: You won point when you were in mid-distance and played your attacking game. He was uncomfortable with your BH.
You had no chance playing short game with him.
Next time you playing again, push him to play mid-distance....he will win but you'll have more fun and get more points.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6tyNTO7 ... ure=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0zkq9Ja3E8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dARovqP9tT0#t=64

Sorry about the mis-order, the last post to youtube became the one on the top and at 0200, I was a little tired to pay much attention to that, my bad. I will correct this. I had real fun playing attacking against Aldis, that is when he let me. We had some nice to watch rallies. He is a unique player. He seems to be like a medium topspin defender. He doesn't hit a monster loop. He simply returns every shot with some topspin and changes/disrupts the timing. He is also consistant, rarely misses and makes some spectacular saves.

I tried to stay true to making all my loops slow loops, and just got my Der_Echte-sucks switch turned on...was unable to turn it off. Against my Texas LP friend, I was landing opener after opener for winners - I was able to make him push, see it to get into a good position, them wham, super spinny slow loop. after 9-7 I was hot garbage for the rest of the match.

What killed me in my losing was several things. First of which was not being able to continue an attack. When I landed a huge spiny slow loop, I was surprised every time it came back and was really off balance/timing to do much to the return. I lost a LOT of points that way. I missed a LOT of easy chances on both wings. Eventually I will get a practice partner in Iraq and work on openers and returns of my loops. What got me the most was my own service and receive game. the higher rated players simply murdered me in this area.

After a performance (lack of one is a better expression) like this, I will hold off talking trash to Speedplay. He can talk it up all day. It should be easy enough to defeat my sorry ass, right? I will simply say to him to either quickly swim his scrawny ass accross the Atlantic to take me down, or enlist in the Australian Army to meet me in Iraq. (There is a small group of Australian Army in the camp where I will go.)

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Don't be so hard on yourself Der_Echte. You landed some good shots there. Sometimes one can learn a lot from loses and play a very good game to boot, as compared to winning matches.

I'm working on my "serve and receive" game myself. That serve he has really looks spinny. I was wondering, did you have a chance of killing it by taking it earlier? I notice the way you return his serve is by pushing most of the time.

I also have the same problem of being caught off position when I thought I had returned a very good "unreturnable ball" and somehow it got returned .... mentally I have to keep reminding myself to get back to the "ready position" to receive the return ball.

Recently I've been reading back issues of "Australian Tennis" as some of the pointers and advices can be so applied to Table Tennis. I know you have to be mentally tough, be physically fit and one has to apply correct technique and the way to consistently do that is to be in the right position (again a reminder as to how important footwork is).

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BTY Timo Boll Spirit
FH: Tibhar Aurus 1.7mm
BH: Tibhar Aurus Soft 1.7mm

Glad to here from you Arlene. What ever I say against myself is deserved. I an getting killed by not being able to continue an attack if the opponent blocks my spiniest openers. I must get a partner to be able to block to practice this. I will continue be in such a situation for some time, unless I meet someone in my future camp ready to do this for me in training. Just as well, the rec centers in the camps usually have a ton of recreational players jamming the lines to play, so training is usually out of the question until midnight. The toughness part isn't an issue, by my issue seems to be training opportunities. I will fix this eventually with the right help from some future partners. When I can meet future partners that serve well, I will also train and increase the service return game. At that match you saw, I had a hard time coping with detecting the contact point an angle of his serves. He had better deception than spin. If I was trained enough, I would definately seek to attack them. Against Aldis, I wasn't worried about him blowing my push return by me, he was making only medium slow topspin returns. His change of pace shots really disrupted my timing. It just shows the need for me to train more and get more experience.

EDIT: Here is a game 1 against Mike where I pretty much made most of my loops and even finished the game attacking his serve. Too bad all the games in my matches didn't exactly go like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YAHeL6aoBA

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Speedplay, you better get your swinning trunks on about now, yes? I leave in two or three months. Maybe you will drive to Provence, France. The wife wants to check that area out real good before I go away again.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter