OOAK Table Tennis Forum

The thick sponge allows the ball to sink into it, while thinner sponge does not. While people point out that the impact lasts for milliseconds, the deformation of the rubber and recovery thereof amplifies the spin generated by a tangential impact.



See around 3:02. The kind of stroke you want can be seen at 2:53.

Iskandar

Great video and thick rubber for top spin reasoning does make sense.
It must be softer rubber then, to allow ball to sink in....
729 FX I am hitting with is hard rubber I understand... read it somewhere...

Much appreciate those hints!!!!

And of course, vast majority of my errors comes from my technique, namely quite often I am not closing the racket face, instinctively, keeping it perpendicular to the ground at the moment of impact, like in big tennis.
This needs work.

Thanks!!!

Pulled out my local sport shop purchased $20 Donic Shildkrot pre-made racket to compare.
The rubber on it can impact very little spin.
If I let the ball of the same height, the ball bounce is twice less on Shildkrot compared to Defplay with 729 FX.

My guess would be that such difference in this case has nothing to do with the racket, it's all rubber.
I am nor sure what the thickness of the sponge on Shildkrot is, it's covered by tape.
But the rubber itself feels less springy when pushed by fingers than 729 FX

It works the same way for hard rubber. In fact hard rubber has more potential for spin than soft rubber because you can hit the ball harder before the rubber bottoms out. The pros use harder rubber, some say they use harder versions of rubbers than are available to the general public.

If you're buying the $20 pre-made bats at the local sports store, don't. Those things are garbage, heavy and slow, even if they do have brand names such as Stiga and Schildkrot, or even Butterfly and are named after famous players like Waldner or Appelgren. The rubbers are third-rate, and worse than the $5 sheets you can buy directly from China. The blades are worse - there was an online review that took one apart and there was a big knot in the wood under the face ply. Better to get Chinese pre-mades - quite a few of those are decent, if they're from recognized brands - 729, DHS, Yinhe, Sanwei, Palio, etc. And they can cost as low as $10.

For what it's worth, in my opinion, the blade actually counts for more than the rubber. Differences between rubbers are usually quite subtle, differences between even blades of the same speed can be quite dramatic in terms of how they feel and how they play.

Iskandar

I do not recommend playing defensive equipment for offensive game style.
Your technique would suffer. Just look how Shchetinin attacks on youtube.

Something like Butterfly Korbel is a better foundation of a two-sided topspin attacker.

Thanks for the tips.
They are much appreciated.
Strange thing happened this Saturday... my TE came back with the vengeance.
I had a really good couple of hours hit, mostly practicing my topspin backhand....
I have also been climbing and pruning my trees the rest of the day....

I can't believe table tennis can aggravate TE... there is no shock after all....regardless I need to give it a break now.
As they say the longer you delay REST, the longer it will take to recover.

It's pretty easy to get 'tennis elbow' in TT, mostly if you tend to hit with wrong technique (e.g. all arm on FH). Same on BH, if your motion is off, it can put stress on your elbow - happened to me a few times. Pips solved that issue

_________________
USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Tennis elbow thread:

viewtopic.php?f=68&p=369351

I had it once when I played Squash in high school, but haven't had it since. It's usually the shoulder that hurts, I've been icing it after playing - that, and changing how I play, has almost eliminated the problem.

If you ever attend an international tournament, watch the Japanese womens' team - once a match is over, out comes the ice and some Saran Wrap.. they apply it to the playing shoulder and leave it in place for maybe 10 minutes. I don't think the men do it. I wonder if this might not work for the elbow as well.

Iskandar

I'm all with you. When the symptoms arise, DO let the arm rest for a couple of weeks. Put your rackets, pruning shears and chalk pouch in the closet, and focus on mild stretching and unforced movement.

I fear that my advice may have contributed to your current situation. "Narrow the circle" (shorter stroke movement) may inadvertently have made you reduce movement altogether. If you first take away body movement, you are in trouble. (Cf. also the post from pgpg.) A coach on site, who can spot those mistakes early, is of course the best source of advice (but wait until the pain goes away).
I do apologize if I have contributed to your trouble. I will try to do better.

I have several young players in the club whom I repeatedly advise to "use the body", "stroke starts from the sole", "bend your knees", etc., so they don't drop into the RSI trap. Within minutes they are back at their bad habits. I am talking about maybe the 3-4 most talented in our club who can beat most other kids around, and don't recognize that they need to improve their technique. They probably notice the immediate setback when changing their playing, and don't recognize that it will lead to future improvement, so they don't listen. "You can lead the horse to water ..."

i play at a decent standard with the defplay.
i have reduced the headsize and i use short pimples.
i am attacking more with the f/h now.
i use anti on the backhand.
i have 3 defplays and i have also customised the handle on 1 of them(made it thinner.
playing with a big head is bad for me as i cant get the forehand pimples in .

TE is my own doing... my body really... weak tendons...
I was surprised to find here "bend your knees" statements... Thought it's big tennis thing.
I could quite often pick up a squash person on the tennis court... due to jerky wristy shots they are trying to make.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with my FH or BH techniques... equally strong on both... have been complimented many times... playing for my town
TE came back after 10 years... I tried a new string setup and took it to comp... couldn't stop due to commitment... but after 5 sets I had to default the last two... it was more than 6 months ago
Very vicious case this time.
resting now as you said
Cheers

I have eventually arrived to conclusion that Defplay shouldn't be used to learn or to play offensive style of tennis.
I have moved the very same rubbers (729 Super FX) I had on Defplay to some normal size Donic racket and things have started to gradually improve.
I can now topspin flick the ball and loop, with very high percentage on my FH.
So my boys are getting quite desperate now and hitting youtube for clues...
Even my BH loop is going places, a bit rusty on low backspin balls but for a bit higher, long and short, can top spin drive with reasonable percentage.
So that is it for me, Defplay with 729 super FX is no good to learn offensive tennis.
Some of you, super talented folks, can play with mobile phones, of course, but for us, mere mortals, a suitable equipment is a must have.
Cheers

I thought I'd chime in here, because I made the transition to table tennis from tennis a couple of years ago, also due to injuries (knee). I grew up playing tennis, was a coach for a while, and the strokes were obviously so ingrained in me.

I started by trying to play "tennis on the table". Federer one handed backhands, and whippy forehands. Obviously, that didn't go well.

The forehand was easier to develop as I think a lot of the principals from tennis help. Kinetic Chain, etc. But my forehands also initially went long, even with the correct swing path. And I think it was he bat angle causing the problems. In tennis, even with an extreme grip, you tend to open the racquet face at contact. In tt, if you do that, watch the ball exit the stadium. It took me a long time to trust that (unlike tennis) the rubber will still project the ball forehand if you hit with closed racquet face.

The backhand is a whole other story. The tt backhand is just SO different from a tennis backhand. I've had to totally "unlearn" my natural swing and try to rebuild it. Still can't reliably hit a series of backhand loops, especially off backspin.

I thought I was a good table tennis player. Then I played some "real" table tennis players, in a proper competition, and realised I had a long way to go. Tennis will hold you in good stead. But boy, it's a different sport.

So after all that, my advice would be. Join a competition with real, rated, players. And have some lessons from a real coach.
As far as equipment goes? I would get an "all blade" with Mark 5 in 1.9 on both sides.......then completely forget your equipment and focus on technique.

Hope that helps.

You are spot on.
They are two very different sports.
You can re-use some of the FH skills, not so much on BH particularly if you had two handed BH in lawn tennis.

Angle of the rackets face... spot on... can be and mostly must be closed in TT... crazy concept in lawn tennis

All blade with mark V... way to go in my opinion too.

Another challenge that adds to the racket face one is handling incoming spin.

In TT, there is much higher percentage of total kinetic energy that the ball possess is in-build into the spin of the ball.
Sure Nadal loads lots of the energy into the spin as well, however that percentage pales in comparison in how much is loaded in TT.

So when that balls just TOUCHES, not even hits your racket face, it explodes/transitions into straight speed of unpredictable direction.

The way to deal with it for a beginner - AVOID STICKY RUBBERS like hell, IMHO.

I think we are going through EXACTLY the same process.

Good luck!