Chopper88 wrote:
I have a chance to feel the spin from Jonny's "loop" I can tell you it's has about the same spin as inverted rubber.
A special and valuable experience!
But you may have missed my point, or I may have made it insufficiently clear: the spin on the ball that Huang returns will be and must be heavy, but using SP he cannot make (all of) it himself, and therefore has to adapt his tactics accordingly.
I think it is like this (I hope this won't be boring).
When an incoming ball having backspin is returned with an upward stroke, the direction of the incoming rotation (up) is the same as the direction of the stroke (up). If the rotation is not changed (by adding spin or taking it away, grazing the ball) or compensated (by adapting the blade's angle), on contact with the rubber the upward action of the ball will (because of the friction) evoke a downward action of the rubber: the ball will travel downward. The spin that will still be on it (now topspin) will push it downward as well. The player has, therefore, to compensate for this and lift the ball.
If the rubber makes little friction with the ball, like anti or LP, much of the rotation will continue and stay on the ball when it is returned, regardless of the action of the player. As friction is low, the ball will travel hardly downward, so the player has to lift the ball only a little. Opening the bat a bit will be enough, but the angle has to be correct, as the angle is much the largest factor influencing the return path of the ball. Friction, needed to make or change spin, is a far smaller factor. If the grazing action that will produce friction with LP as well is fast, the upward/forward rotation of the ball can be increased a bit. However, never enough by itself to lift the ball; the angle of the bat is decisive. Heavy incoming backspin will be, therefore, returned as heavy outgoing topspin, mostly regardless of the capacity of the rubber to make spin - as long as the action of the blade has the same direction as the rotation of the ball.
An SP rubber makes much more friction, but (generally) not quite enough to take away all of the incoming rotation on the ball. In fact, this is its desired quality. There will be enough friction for a heavy backspin ball to travel downward quite fast on contact, so it will have to be lifted. Some of the rotation on the ball will continue, as the friction does not by itself stop it; this means that adding spin to the ball is relatively easy, for the rubber does not have to match in speed the rotation on the ball - as long as it is pretty fast, grazing will add spin and prevent the ball from moving downward on contact with the rubber. But the added spin will not suffice; the angle of the bat has to compensate part of the downward direction as well. This is why lifting backspin balls using SP is relatively easy as far as power and speed are concerned, but still demands precise angling of the blade. The outgoing spin on the ball may be a bit less than the incoming spin (if most of the compensation comes from angling the blade, and grazing is relative slow), but can also be a bit more (if grazing is fast) and therefore be very heavy. Actually, the main problem for the player using SP is the outgoing speed: because friction is still relatively low, the blade has to be open, and as a result contact with the ball will be solid, so it is hard to lift the ball and add little forward speed. It is also hard to pull the ball up high. As a rule, returning backspin balls a player will produce medium to high speed balls that have a low arc. This means that balls can only touch down in a limited part of the other half of the table, viz. closer to the baseline than to the net. Typically, SP attackers will, if they make a mistake, overshoot the table (not land the ball in the net, as inverted players will). Classic SP tactics against a chopper consist therefore in placing the ball in roughly the same place a number of times, varying its speed somewhat, and then change placement to the other side, increasing speed, to mess up the timing of the chopper and make him miss or return weakly. If the SP is very grippy, you can also vary the spin, but not by a lot. All in all, the SP rubber will make the attacker rather safe against (the backspin of) a chopper, but limiting his placement it will also allow him only limited attack, so matches may take quite a while...
An inverted rubber produces very high friction and an incoming heavy backspin ball will on contact really race downward. Lifting the ball, the player has to make sure his handspeed matches very closely the rotation of the ball; if the handspeed (grazing speed) is slower, he will stop part of the spin of the ball and it will go down. If he more or less matches the speed of the rotation, spin will be continued and he will return as much spin as he got. He can add to that by increasing the handspeed. This takes a lot of power, and hence the basic strategy of a chopper against an inverted attacker is to wear him out (that strategy will work less well against an SP attacker, and not at all against LP). As almost all of the lifting is done by the friction (and grazing speed) of the rubber, the blade's angle is far less important. Lifting backspin balls with inverted takes a lot of power, but less precision. Placement is easier as well: the ball can be pulled up in high arcs, because of the friction, and so almost any part of the table is available for placement. But even a little lack of power will make lifting insufficient and the ball will end up in the net. With inverted, more spin can be added to the incoming spin (to trouble the chopper), but this takes heaps of power. As a lot of power is already needed for lifting, adding power to the outgoing speed is hard as well. So, it is far more easy and safe to change only the placement, left to right, short to long, to move the chopper around and invite mistakes. Typically, adding power is only used against the weak balls that will result from the mistakes.
So, Huang will return heavy topspin, but he will not actually make it, for he will mostly use the incoming spin on the ball. Chinese standard tactics for choppers warn against this and prescribe putting pressure on the corners of the table (to mess up the attacker's timing), as well as counter-attack (to take away the spin the attacker is using), as a remedy. This is what Ding Song does.
Few of Huangs returns go into the net, but he overshoots the table several times; this is normal for a SP attacker, as placement is difficult and he has to take risks.
It is also normal for a match between a good SP attacker and a good defender to be close and take long - fortunately, for it is a pleasure to watch!