OOAK Table Tennis Forum

We have a pretty good hardbat player at our club and he can give people fits with his hardbat. Is there a tried and true way to defeat these player? It seems as though the ball just dies when I try to hit it back, and he can smash right through my inverted rubber chops. Thoughts?

Reminds me of something Larry Hodges wrote years ago (I think on Usenet). If I remember correctly, he said the main weakness of hardbat is returning very heavy topspin. So I'd suggest trying slow brush loops and then killing the high returns. Make use of angles when killing. Whether this will work against your player is another matter - the main problem is slow brush loops (the classic old "loop drive" of yore) are pretty difficult to do consistently for lower rated players. The idea is to generate really, really heavy topspin rather than speed.

Iskandar

You have opportunities on serve and attack. Even though the hardbat is pretty insensitive to spin, they still gotta read it correctly. Their margin for erron on flat shots is pretty tiny unless the ball is high. Change spins and depths and be sudden unpredictable, you will get chances for 3rd ball or a very heavy topspin opener.

A really good BH heavy opener vs the long balls and a good BH flick for the shorter ones helps. You can play a speed game too, but you gotta setup your shot. You will make errors trying to go bang bang with them. You will be off time. Place hte ball and make your setup to open heavy or strong away or crossover.

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