OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Just have an unhappy experience in competition games recently.

Normally, before the games, I will have some warm up forehand and backhand strokes with the opponent, no matter what the skill level of the opponent. I think this is normal practice, and show with respect.

However, I met one opponent much stronger than me, at the warm up time, s/he aims to kill, I cannot keep the ball in the practice rhythm, I serve, s/he hits, I cannot return, went to pick up the ball, again and again,

I feel disrespected, and think this is wrong, totally have no sportsmanship!

What do you think?

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The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。

Sorry about your experience. I'm afraid it's not uncommon, especially in the lower levels. It's certainly not ok, in my view. You have two options:

1) understand that the further you progress in the game the more likely you are to find people who understand the purpose of the warmup period, and will treat you with respect. Keep working at your game, and soon you'll leave these people behind.

2) say something about it: just don't play a shot if they don't hit the bell to you, don't get the balk, and say: would you mind if we used the warmup to get a feel for the bell, table, lighting, etc, to to get a bit of rhythm going. I'm happy to block for you if you want to play some harder shots, if you're willing to do the same for me. Save the blistering forehands for when they actually count?

Good luck - it can be frustrating, but only if you let it be.

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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!

In my experience, there are two types of warm up - one where both players understand what is meant to happen, and the other is as you describe. Yes, it is frustrating, however I don't know of any way to combat the problem. I've tried explaining that I need a proper warm up, but almost always the other person simply disregards that in favour of doing their own thing.

Perhaps the closest I've come to a solution is simply to halt the warm up and insist the game start. That way, neither player gains any benefit, but at least you're starting on a level playing field.

There exists a category of players who are talented players with severe attitude and psychological problems.

Even if you ask for the practice touch, since you are such a low-level player, they will not acknowledge or even consider your request.

I have the habit of not talking too much at the table to the opponent. I simply state what I want from the rally, if they want to comply, I will in the future practice with them. Else "sorry I am busy practicing with my serves" ... or "you are too much high-level for me"... etc.

In competitions you can easily identify such players. They are the most loud-mouth and vain skilled idiots.

At the club I am probably the lowest skill guy due to my CPH So still I continue to try to develop while the kids just zoom past me

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Try saying "If you insist on not giving me a proper warm up, I insist on warming up with someone else." Worth a shot. Ideally though, you should arrive early at the venue to get your warm ups in.

To be honest, the two minutes allotted for FH/FH and BH/BH warm ups don't really do much, for me anyway. I get loose quicker, power looping with someone who's a decent blocker. It also gives me a sense of how much spin my opponent can handle and when I'm blocking for him/her, a sense of how much spin my opponent's loops have.

Yes I agree with others, that's pretty poor form.

I have come across a few people though, that were not even aware that the 2mins before a game is meant to be a warm up, so they treat is simply as practice or fun. It's too hard to tell for us if this was the case here, but you never know.

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I think the only thing I can do is to keep practicing and seek my revenge on table, I have to up lift my skill level to beat s/him.

Sportsmanship is more important, but I can only see many are just focus on winning.

_________________
The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。

I have seen numerous occasions like this.

There is no way you can change their attitude. They will continue to look down at you as long as they can beat you.

But don't be as low as them. Coach newbies. Continue to be friendly to lower level players. Continue to respect those that are stronger.

Most importantly, train hard. One day the arrogant ones will feel shocked and change their tone. That happened to me. It will happen to you.

Passionate about TT

What would the Buddha do?

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I had that happen. I just started smashing the balls right out of the court. Took 3 balls and he got the clue.

Reminds me of something The Troll of Usenet used to have on his website. He played with long pips, his idea of a warmup was to deliberately spray balls everywhere. Why? So that the opponent wouldn't get used to his pips.

Iskandar

I have a match tomorrow, in which one of my opponents, last time we played, continued deliberatel to hit the ball away from me as soon as we went to BH, because he specifically wanted to practice vs my LP. In warmups I typically twiddle to block or drive BH to BH as that's generally what opponents want. If he'd just said: would you mind playing some LP shots please, I'm sure I'd have been fine with it, but instead of communicating that desire, he just hits the ball wide to my FH. After about four times I asked him what he was doing, and he said he wanted to see how my LP behaved. Why are people so difficult! In a recent match something similar happened. Again, for a similar reason. My opponent had reasoned I was deliberately trying to 'hide' my LP from him. Not at all - I just assume that people want to play a regular drive/loop/block.

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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!

We have 60 to 80 players in our club competition depending on the season and its only when I play the number 1 in our club that there is a proper warm up done, everyone else, and I mean EVERYONE else simply just plays points.

Just the way it is, unless you think its deliberate, I wouldn't read too much into it.

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It's only that way because it's tolerated. Obviously at some stage, players learn how to warm up properly, because otherwise we'd see people 'playing points' for 2 mins in the warm up at the national championships. At some point, evidently, someone says: look, mate, this is a warm up. This is the point of the warm up. It's different from 'a knock', and it's not 'the game'. It has a widely agreed structure and purpose, and is followed by all decent players, everywhere in the world. This transition happens somewhere, because, as I pointed out, when I played in the bottom division, the warm up was 'playing points', but now I play in the top division, every warm up is the same (with the exceptions stated above, when people actively want to play vs my pimples). There's no constitution for the divisions - it's just picked up, because it's the done thing. So, there's no reason why that transition couldn't happen earlier, starting with whoever has a warmup with someone who doesn't know how to warm up properly, simply saying: hang on a sec... I'm not being awkward, but would you mind just playing the ball directly to my FH, and I'll do the same for you?

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Players warming up their ball kill skills in the warm up is common. One of my best mates does it and it annoys me, but when he does I stop just hitting the ball in play to start a warm-up. So I start with serving practice (usually an underspin serve works well) that results in more of a point play rally, but at least you get some hitting in, not just a killshot past you.

Last night I played a gun teen who was just hitting killshots past me in the warm-up. I just said...I'd like a hit to warm-up if you don't mind. He then complied. I then went on to beat him in 5 sets

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