OOAK Table Tennis Forum

makes sense. his pressure of banana made me really tight and i couldn't really keep the serve short. so i just started serving a little quicker to avoid the banana. dude caught me by serve. usually 2100 guys dont destroy me like that

Set two was a lot better. You mostly took away his flick somehow, even though you served mostly into his bh still. You got to make more attacks and he can't block you.

The fh receive kill around 7:00 was a beautiful thing.

I thought you were going to win, but he got the last few points on some errors from you. The one serve you missed earlier was kind of important too. But still, it feels like you are figuring him out and can win the next set. Let's see.

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Oh well, replay of set one.

You were pretty tense the whole time. Probably like you said, getting your serves attacked so hard fron the start, everybody hates that.

I think you could beat him if you could just take away that flick, and be a little more careful with your serve and receive.

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I should have made him flip from the fh side so at least his bh would be open

It's really hard to win a match when you are under constant attack. You need to arrange your game so you get to use your strength, which is your topspin game. It all comes back to serve and return.

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Right. And then you could have planned to loop a lot of those flips too. And then served some long to the backhand to catch him out. And then eventually served a couple short and wide to the backhand after he thought they were all going to the forehand.

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https://youtu.be/Yyph_FQJbmo?t=416

This approach would have changed the match. That point right there.

That was the best shot by far. I did that because he show boated near the end of game 1. That was “Put Respect on my Name!” Shot. I knew I was the worse player but the gesture he made earlier in the match near the end of game 1 made me feel disrespected.

Don't know if Heming is still interacting with this forum, but congratulations on him making the World Top 100 ranking (at #100).

Did he serve more long to the fh though?

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

Yoko Ono

Maybe because the guy is not 2100?

He won the U2200 at Princeton this weekend. Also beat a 2295(Manaav) in the u2400 though I think he lost badly to Santiago. This guy belonged in group 1.

Of course you should take the pointers on playing proper TT seriously. But this guy is probably legitimately out of your range in a physical TT match though you could tag him on your best day.

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"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Just saw the pointers on attacking long serves. Attacking serves in general makes a world of difference against attacking players who primarily serve long keep with sidespin. Sometimes it just becomes your only chance. You have to take it seriously especially if you don't have great pushing skills.

Serving to the short forehand with a reverse sidespin serve is something you have to do vs. every opponent as well. No exceptions. It is one of the advantages of the lefty pendulum.

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"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I've been really busy recently (0-2 times of table tennis per week instead of the usual 3-5 times per week last year). I feel like I'm stuck at the skills of a ~1800 player and may not be able to improve above that for a long time. Initially I was hoping to get to a ~2000 level by the end of last year, which was a goal I set myself a year to achieve. I was probably like 1800 then too, though thinking back, maybe I was more like 1600 to 1700. Last month I lost to a few people who have only been playing a little over a year too

Anyway, I decided to do something different. Maybe practicing something I never do would help me push past the wall that has been in front of me for about a year now.

So... I decided to practice the banana flick. I can probably count the amount of times I've practiced it on my hands in the last few years. It was actually a lot of fun, but when I watched the video, it all looked off. I have a few ideas to try, but I'm hoping a different set of eyes might help too?

What do you guys think?

Sorry about not cutting out the down time, but if you press the right arrow after every miss on youtube to skip 5 seconds, it's about perfect for the next ball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpwoEWPWqh0

Two separate thoughts --

About your flick, get your elbow pointed at the sky. Your forearm is horizontal so you are doing a normal bh flick. For a banana your forearm should be close to vertical.

About getting stuck at 1800ish. How many of your opponents consistently serve short? I think at that level flicks and over the table play have limited relevance, because 90% of the time the ball comes long.

If you just enjoy learning the flick then that's great. But if what you really want is to reach the next level of competition, I don't think this practice will get you there. Serving short at will is more important. Making safe but effective attacks vs long serves too. Those both get you making the first attack most of the time. From there improving the general quality, consistency and placement of your topspins is what differentiates 1800 from 2000. A 2000 player misses few balls where they got the play they wanted. And once they get someone blocking they can generally make three or four loops to different spots.

Once you hit that level, the next band of opponents you will want to reach do play a lot over the table. And the flick will become essential for you to move up again. But doing things "out of order" may slow down your progress.

Again, it all depends on what you really want from your TT.

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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

One thing about consistency that I have failed on in my own practice is wanting to consider a skill done when I can do it 80% of the time in a drill. But in match play the success rate might be 50%, and in a tournament down 9 - 10, it could be 30%, or maybe I wouldn't even attempt it because confidence is lacking under the pressure, and rightfully so.

Samson Dubina has posted about the stages of learning a new skill, and I read that and then sort of ignored it. But really until you can play a shot on match point with a high success rate, you don't really own that shot.

So in reference to your 2000ish goal, maybe go back to some of your match video and check your percentages executing basic shots. Serves, fh and bh loops, pushes, blocks - are you on 80% or better when the shot is there and makeable?

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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