OOAK Table Tennis Forum

How do you deal with it when you aren't able to get enough warmup time?

Usually by losing my first two matches.

No, actually I just play more conservative to start. I might serve only backspin/ no-spin to keep things simple for myself. And I would go for placement and consistency over power (more than always I mean). Because it only takes a few points where you hit 4+ loops in one rally and you are warmed up.

And if I really am cold and can't play right, I might try to be more passive and push and block more, to see if my opponent can actually beat me. That's not fun, but better than beating myself. That's my standard B game if I'm playing like garbage on a day.

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

Yoko Ono

I hardly ever pivot any more, but here are two from last night. Not sure where they came from, certainly wasn't planned.https://youtu.be/6701gjFQG_g

Since I wasn't constantly obsessing over it my serve recovery reverted to crap normal and I was late on both of these, about six frames after top of bounce. I also slide my left foot out both times instead of bringing the right around first. I always slide my left foot out to move to my wide bh, never side-step. Maybe that's good, idk.

What definitely is not good is that I commit all my weight on fhs before picking up the depth and direction. Lots of times I needed to step over, but it's too late by the time I realize it. That will be ~ 100x harder to fix than serve recovery, so I'll get to that later or not at all. Definitely my level is capped as long as I do it though. The sequence is wrong. I'm turning my shoulders and foot and planting all my weight on the right foot, and I'm not in the right place to play the ball.

And it's frustrating, after I was so happy to see a handful of semi-right recoveries on Saturday, to know I played 17 sets last night and every single time did it wrong. Oh well, it's a hard-knock life.

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

Yoko Ono

That's the thing: saying that because you didn't warm up you are going to play like garbage is the wrong approach. Using the match to warm up, trying to serve and block better, using spin over pace until your timing kicks in - that's the right approach.

Whether ziv is at the level yet where he can actually do this is another story. I used to have the good and bad days in bunches until I learned to loop. But after I learned to loop especially on the forehand side, the bad days just became fewer and fewer. I just got moody about other things.

_________________
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

The definition of a bad day ratchets upward with your improvement. I had this conversation with Brett in 2016. He said nobody ever really feels like they are so much better than before. Everybody else just startd to seem really terrible.

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

Yoko Ono

So true, when I see people I was the same level as a year ago playing, I can't believe how bad they look. Ditto on the other side too, can't believe how ordinary some people look who a year ago I thought looked amazing. The guys 10 levels above look exactly the same then and now...

So I watched the match a few times, BRS. I think he mostly started playing to keep the ball on the backhand side and forced you to use your backhand to beat him and it was up to you to force him to give you a forehand, which you did a couple of times, but which you uncharacteristically failed to win the points on. Whether it was because the score made you lose focus or that he relaxed and started playing better because he had given up on the game but wanted to just play better points, I am not sure. The other thing, from a purely tactical perspective, is whether it pays to be so straightforward playing a guy who is only going to counter hit and block. I think you sometimes let the score bait you into trying to get a quick point rather than patiently trying to fight it out. The one time you looped really slowly by accident he looked completely lost.

Since the pips haven't changed the aggression with which you play on your backhand, I don't think they are the issue. But the general question of whether you should play with more spin on your backhand is still there. You do terribly when you get a no spin ball and I don't think it is an accident. I think he floated a lot more pushes as the match went on and that your technique didnt adjust to suit them. Against him I think more pip shots to the forehand would really have helped as they were getting you the forehands you wanted.

But maybe it was a meltdown but I don't think so in any way. I didn't see you missing shots you usually make and vice versa. What I saw was someone determined to pin you on the middle and on the backhand and you being unable to escape that pattern consistently where in the first game and earlier points he was willing to risk playing to your forehand and couldn't win that way and gave up on doing it.

He also started to realize that the more balls he brought back the better chances he had. This is very critical. Usually players start to give up on longer rallies when they don't feel they can win them. They start going for more earlier, I think he got you into that mode as well.

_________________
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

Interesting perspective. He prefers to play bh-bh with everybody, judging by his later matches. I think it's the uncharacteristic fh misses that I attribute to losing concentration. But that was in my head, so it won't show on the video.

The bh is still work in progress. I do a sort of middle length stroke for every shot. It needs to be a lot shorter to hit, and longer to spin. That would be better to work on in drills, where landing on the table isn't top priority and it's less stressful to experiment.

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

Yoko Ono

For this particular opponent, I would consider letting my heavy backspin serve drift a little longer into his forehand and see what he does. You may know what happens ready but I think it is worth seeing. He lives for topspin, even his pushes are designed less to have backspin and more to make sure he has time to get into the point.

I could see you reliving the lost opportunity later in the match. But other than not miss, I don't see what you could have done differently. I think people tend to consider losing big leads choking but I don't see it that way. For me to consider it choking, you have to show that there were shots you should have made and you always made but failed to make. I didnt see any straightforward ones. He got lucky even with the misguided 9-2 long serve and got a deep return barely on the table. He stuck on the point q couple of times when you played good forehands and saved the points. I think that when he floated some shots to your middle goi probably played some I'll advised backhands but I suspect the real issue was that you didnt read the spin or the ball dipped late and you weren't ready. But speed is one of your strengths and I think in this case you are playing a faster player on his terms. If you didnt have the big lead, there was little to distinguish the beginning of the match and the end of the second set.

You should be trying to make this a forehand matchup and you seemed to let it become a backhand matchup.

_________________
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

http://www.tabletenniscoaching.com/taxonomy/term/1220

Seems his MO is even online. Lol.

_________________
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

I really like NL's post on that match. Thanks.

I watched just some of the match but the number of forehand returns by BRS was just too low for me.

Personally I would have pivoted and hit forehands against that serve. At a certain point I'd like to just take a crack at them instead of being forced into my weaker side on every single return.

The guy blocks extremely well. You likely will have to work a bit harder than that.

_________________
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

Will he block a forehand? Maybe. Is the forehand a stronger shot for our hero? Yes.

I'm not sure what more work than pivot and hit a forehand would need to be done in order to change the pattern of return of serve.

My point: your comment makes no point at all.

I think it is safer to play a more deliberate shot, even slower since the opponent is not generating a lot of power, with the backhand into the opponent's forehand. I am also okay with BRS pivoting but the speed of topspin serves usually means that his loop will be fast and that makes It harder to react to blocks.

Not going to get into whether my comment makes no point at all. It is one thing to change the dynamics of a point but another to do it and make sure that you are winning on the terms you have laid out. Your solution may work but whether BRS thinks it will work or has the ability to do it is up to him. He has said himself he is trying not to pivot as much which may explain what happened as opposed to a lack of ability or a higher level of difficulty, the latter I think would make the pivot not as easily effective. The old man tends to serve short/half long side top.

Maybe we should have had BRS just call every serve low toss illegal and be done with it...

_________________
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

Which is funny, because as I was leaving after he watched me lose a great 15-13 in the fifth battle with another 200ish cpen blocker type, he said I served too much straight backspin to the middle. I should mix it up more, try to win some free points on serve. In critical points he said, 90% chance he knew that's what I would serve.

Which I accepted. I respect his experience and his skill, so it would be foolish to disregard his advice.
But I still thought "I do that on purpose. At game or match point I don't want to serve hoping for an error, and if it comes back I have to scramble. I'd rather live or die with my best thing, which is fh opening vs backspin."

So it's funny to see him used as the example in a Hodges blog about exactly that.

I also, partly from playing Charlene, try to evaluate pretty quickly if my opponent is going to be fooled by any of my serves. If they know how to return everything I've got, and they will give me the first attack because they are natural counterpunchers, I'll just serve whatever gives me the best feeling on that first attack. Why mix it up to no purpose?

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

Yoko Ono