So my first week with a heavy practice schedule is finished and I have been able to play at least a little bit every day. I feel like I have been able to play quite well and have taken at least some steps forward. I am in school 6 hours a day on monday-wednesday, so those days can be a little stressfull, but manageable. I apologize if the text kind of comes out incoherent and rambly, I am just writing down the first thoughts in my head. I am a little unfamiliar with the proper terms in english, so bear with me.
Monday On mondays, I have started playing with some of the older members of the club, their rankings range from top 200 in sweden to class 4 and 5 players. These sessions mostly consist of playing matches, you find a partner, warm up, then play a best of 3. After that, you rotate and play a match with someone else. These are people that I haven't really practiced with before, but I have met them and seen them play and I know most of them quite well. The atmosphere during these sessions is great as well. I played around 7 or 8 matches in total I think. What I noticed most about my play was that I really need to get better at attacking backspin balls. I have almost always returned backspin balls with my long pips before, but now that I try to attack more, I find it hard to lift the ball over the net in some situations. So that is one thing to work on.
I also often get into situations where I could finish a point with an attack, but I hesitate before playing my stroke, which means I miss and lose the point. Either that or I get a high floating ball and just step back and I chop it anyway, giving my opponent a way back into the rally when I should have finished it.
Another thing to work on is returning very spinny serves. This is mostly a problem when I return with my inverted side, since I'm used to taking these with the long pips, but it would be very good if I could just attack long serves with my forehand. I feel like I need to try and be more in control of the flow during points. I have noticed that the more spin the opponent puts on the ball, the more I hesitate when returning it, I think I need to be more decisive when returning serves in general.
I did play well during the monday practice though, I managed to win most of my matches, and even won against a player that almost went undefeated in my league last season. Very happy about that.
Tuesday Tuesday is "regular" practice. Two or three people here also play on mondays, otherwise there is mostly junior players during these times. These sessions are more structured, since we have a coach and we do practice drills. I practiced looping against backspin a lot, since I felt like that was something important I had to improve. Forehand chopping is another thing I tried to focus on, I think I am quite consistent at placing my chops on the table, but I need to get better at placing them deep on the table. A lot of the time, my forehand chop might land close to the net and the opponent can just smash it in wherever they like. The match play during the end of this session was quite bad from my side. I managed to lose 0-3 vs someone that I should be beating. I also have him as an opponent in the league game next tuesday, since we have two teams from our club in the same division.
Wednesday This wednesday, I played at home with my mother. She used to be a really good player, but stopped playing 20 years ago. To be honest, she is still really good, even though she is a little out of practice. If she started playing regularly, she could probably win against most people in my league. The most annoying part about playing with her was definitely her serves. She would do what looked like the same stroke all the time, but the placement of the ball could be anywhere on the table. I have not played against many people who could change the placement of their serves like that. We didn't really do any drills, we just played points. I still felt like I got a lot out of it though, especially since we don't have much space in the garage, so I had to stay close to the table and was forced to attack more.
Thursday Since I am free on thursdays, I stayed at home and practiced some with the robot we have. I played about an hour, working on my forehand looping and chopping a little bit.
In the evening I went to the club to practice with the same group as during tuesdays. Once again working on looping vs backspin and getting my chops more consistenly to land deep on the table. There was an older player there that day who helped me a lot with my backhand strokes actually. She told me that my thumb was too high up when I hit the ball. So I lowered it a little bit and I feel like my chops got ten times more consistent! It was such an amazing difference actually! Where do you guys have your thumb during backhand strokes? It may have been part psychological, but it worked! I lost again to the same player that I lost to last tuesday, so maybe it didn't make that much of a difference anyway...
Friday On friday, I don't have anyone to play with, so I used the robot we have at home. It doesn't manage to put a lot of spin on the ball, so I think that it's better to use it for working on just consistently putting the ball on the table. I practiced chopping and looping alternatively, and tried doing some footwork excercises. I played two one-hour sessions.
Saturday On saturday, I was a referee for a match that our division 3 team played. They are a bit better than I am, but I feel like the gap is not enormous. They are much better at serving and placing the ball where they want it, and they have a better understanding of the game I think. But if you just look at the actual rallies between them, I feel like I could at least hold my own against some of them. The problem is that their serves have so much spin and they know just where they went to place it before they even get ready for the serve. I probably wouldn't beat them even if I could make a decent return of their serve, but I wouldn't be completely lost I think.
Sunday Trying to rest a little, do some homework, and finish writing this blog today!
Closing thoughts I feel like I am more motivated than I have ever been about table tennis before. I have been able to play a lot more this week than I usually do, and I always look forward to the next session as soon as I stop for the day. I need to work more on being consistent with my chopping, placing every ball deep on the table and not too high. I need to practice looping against backspin. I also need to get better at attacking in general, since I plan to do a lot more of it in the future. The league starts on tuesday, we are playing another team from our own club, so that will be quite fun I hope. I am not really going into this match with an intention of winning every match I play. In the league overall, judging by last years performance, I am one of the better players so I should be able to win more than half of my matches at least. I am going to try for a 60% win ratio. I will be playing at least 28 games, we have 14 matches and I will always play at least 2 singles.
I am still using long pips, but plan on changing to short pips during the next two week break in the league so that I can practice a little with them. Hopefully that works nicely.
My next tournament is at the start of november, so I will write about that when the time comes. I will post an analysis of the league game on tuesday. I might also do random posts talking about any topic that got into my head once in while.
_________________ "It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done" - Terry Pratchett
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