OOAK Table Tennis Forum

For you defenders out there, I'm curious what most are finding success with when it comes down to the opponent pinning you on the backhand!

Right now, I was working on classic defense so I'd only been pushing repeatedly with the long pips (no twiddling). Now, I am adding in twiddling to push with the inverted for variation but also thinking of specializing on the BH LP attack. Since I was dedicated to training the defensive strokes, I made it clear I would not be attacking the ball -- meaning the other players simply played safe, dinky pushes or bumps over and over. I feel my defensive strokes have gotten to a satisfactory level, in that I was not losing any pure pushing wars. That is, if they wanted to push-push-push with me, I could outlast them until a mistake was made on their end.

However, attacking wise... eventually some of mine might pop up too high and be smashed. Which brings me to the point -- I want to really fire up the offense now (from the backhand side) and keep those dirtbags under pressure! Footwork wise, I feel there are perhaps an embarrassingly high number of occasions where I'm either too slow or think I'm too slow and not confident enough to run around and FH loop. What I generally do there is push to their FH corner so the return cannot be made to my Bh, and then I'm able to loop without having to shuffle much. Though since I play with a pretty high friction LP, I'm thinking that attacking with it PIP-SMACK style might be the best option. Instead of merely pushing it back low and long, give them a hard swat!

What do you guys like to do?

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SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

Probably a backhand flick will test them but use tactics keep the ball away from their favourite shots where possible.

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Setup 1: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango black 1.8mm FH & Tibhar Grass D.TecS acid green OX BH
Setup 2: Setup 2: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango PS black 2.00mm FH & Tibhar Grass D.TecS red OX BH
Setup 3: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango black 1.8mm FH & Spinlord Gigant anti-spin red BH
See the ball, be the ball...

The long-pimps smack is tied for the most satisfying shot in the game for me, but at my low level of development I'm far too inconsistent with it. Especially in a sequence like

1) They push with good backspin to your BH
2) I push with the pips, resulting in a low-spin ball
3) They do a bump/non-wristy push to your BH that is a little high so it seems like you should be able to attack it, but it's still close to a no-spin ball
4) I try to attack the somewhat high no-spin ball with the pips, and either dump it into the net or whack it off the end of the table

I do better attacking with the pips against balls the are high and short but have a good amount of backspin. I do best when I step around and FH attack with the inverted, even if the ball isn't super high. But of course if that attack isn't a kill-shot I open myself up for a block that I have little chance against.

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Seeking joy and fitness in recreational modern defense.
My blog: "Two rubbers, one racket"
Kill the game against long Pimps with Coach Li!

Currently experimenting with short pips:
VKMO+ Gambler Volt-T + TSP Spectol Blue (1.5)
Joola CWX + Nittaku Hurricane III Pro Turbo Orange + Spinlord Gepard (1.8 )

I guess you have to scout your opponent. How is his footstep ? how fast is he react to the ball? , what is his favorite shot ? From these answers you have to shoose your shots. The one you can do of course !!! Hi, Hi Like I said in an other forum, I do have 2 different racket to play against the different type of player.

Too bad you don't play with short pips... then you could just BH or days lol. Or maybe you could twiddle?

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Blade: Victas Koji Matsushita Offensive FL
FH: Victas VS > 401 2.0
BH: Victas Spectol S1 1.5

Rating: Recreational Player

If your opponents can continue to loop four or five times against your chops, you're either not generating enough spin on your chops, or not disguising the spin enough, or your playing players way way outside your class. Similarly, if you're not getting a slower, higher, or mid-table-bouncing ball. That said, if they're mixing in a push or bump, every two or three shots, what I sometimes do is immediately twiddle and push with my inverted, twiddle back and recover - you may well get a ball you can attack, because they're unlikely to recover and give a big topspin to a heavy dig. The alternative is a pimples bump/flick against the backspin, skidding down the line - this is often just a winner.

In terms of attacking options, when you get the chance, I very rarely attempt a pimples hit - I am not consistent enough at this, so it's a very risky option. I might try it if I had a big lead. Instead I'll either twiddle and attack with BH (down the line is a good option, because there's a good chance you will get a cross court block / counter, which you can hit down the other line with your FH. I assess the likelihood of this as fairly high because of the surprise factor and speed of the BH twiddle, combined with with movement and weight transfer needed to reach the shot.

If I do go around the corner, I try to remember the three golden targets - down the line, into the crossover, or fading away short and wide. Straight into the FH will just get you blocked/punched down the line for an easy winner (loser).

I train all these options every week in various exercises, to drill the movements and patterns.

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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!

What I'm referring to is the players who don't want to loop or attack. So the points go: I push... they push... I push... they push... I push... x5 until they try to slap the ball for a winner or miss it when trying.

They play dead balls and hope I will eventually knock one up too high.

What I started doing was hammering home the OX LP backhand hit. It was working great! I could basically play only BH hitting with the OX LP and win, doing essentially no chopping at all. I use a fairly grippy LP so I can do the mini sort of top spins with pretty good control.

My issue was the wrist... anytime I do backhand attacks now the tendinitis starts to flare up again. Less so with OX LP since I can hit more forward and don't have to utilize a huge wrist flicking motion, as you would with an inverted banana flick for instance. Ideally I could stick with the LP OX and just wack them off the table as I was -- but I'm not sure it's worth the overuse risk, as even today the wrist is popping and the tendons are sore to the touch. So my options would be a bit more limited and it leaves my BH being a weak point (offensively), unless I swapped to SP on the backhand and relied on spin variations. I'm hoping I won't have to twiddle or learn it very much, as I think given the practice times and all that it would only make me more inconsistent overall.

Just curious if anyone has any ideas... what I can think of is:

- SP on backhand for spin variations and smacking high balls (not rolling the low ones, only pushing those)
- Stick with LP OX and work on footwork so I can run around to the FH loop more often
- Swap to a very low friction LP OX and mix in forward bump shots that don't require the wrist flick (though that doesn't help a ton against dead ones)

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SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...