OOAK Table Tennis Forum

OMG ! He has changed the blade AND the BH rubber Now many people who followed have to reconsider, as well

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Defense Blade with pimples on one side ...

This has been the most awesome topic ever!
I wish I had been through the same training in my days...
The way you describe your style of playing - it's some 90% the way I play myself.
I love blocking and don't want to give it up - it's just so much fun
And I don't chop much from my FH - I prefer attacking if the ball is long enough.
I wish we could play sometime.

Just a question:
Say if you encountered a player of your own level and very similar style, what would be your tactics?

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1) Blade: Stiga Clipper, Rubbers: Giant Dragon Snowflake 0.5 mm, LKT Rapid Speed max - my current setup.
2) previous Blade: Stiga Allround Carbon, Rubbers: Giant Dragon Meteorite 1 mm, LKT Rapid Speed max

serve only long....push short and power loop to his middle....don't chop, try to change your style to something that i wouldn't want to play against.

if he chops, use your pips to give no spin to his backhand...

if he loops then block short with backspin with your pips...

this gives the opposite of what he wants

Leatherback, are you going back to China? When? For how long? Will you bring a camera

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

By coincidence I also needed that advise, so thx, leatherback.

I encountered such a club mate yesterday and to be honest: it wasn't fun playing. Not because of his style, but because of his attitude. Remember: he's right-handed, I'm left-handed. Arrogant. During warm up he just hits the ball very hard (almost no spin at all) when I returned the balls with my inverted on the backhand. When I twiddled and warmed up my pips, he chopped the first ball and then pushed the follwing one(s) to my forehand. When I asked to warm up my forehand, he gave me balls that were mostly out of reach. He also didn't want me to warm up against his pips too much: maybe I've hit 10 balls to his pips before match start. During the match I chopped one of his topspin attacks and he tried to hit it. It went into the net off course. He said to himself out loud to hit it even harder, which is stupid because it will always end up in the net. I've beaten this guy before when I was not in good shape and I always felt this guy is jealous of me, probably because I have a better technique than him and we are the same style. i'm still under his rating, though.

I wanted to get this out of my system, but I also have a question. When you encounter such players who don't let you warm up decently and they hit balls out of reach, is it appropiate then to also hit balls to him out of his reach? Because I'm planning to do that next time... Maybe the respect will be a bit greater then.

Sorry for hi-jackin Leatherbacks blog a little. Just a quick advice for you Lorre. It sounds like your opponent is trying to get you out of balance before the match has even started. Not a good sportsmenship! But it slso sounds like he succeded a little. You will always have to face guys like this and you need to finmd a way to deal with it. Getting back on him is a good way but do it as a good sportsman, don't use his way of doing it, that will only take away your own focus (just what he wants). And perhaps you will get a bad rep. Let him warm up but don't reveal your best shots. If he won't let you warm up talk to his team captain or somthing like that but after the match. Never let go of the focus before and during the match.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Thx DA. To be clear: it was just a "friendly" match in a club atmosphere, not a real one. When I get back to him, it will be with a smile like I always play TT. It's just: I need to warm up before I can play my game, i.e. I need to feel the ball. That's what this guy didn't let me experience with his "warm up" and it was too visible he did it on purpose. He also saw me train the last couple of months like a maniac against another pip player (who I controlled when looping to his pips) and maybe that's why he did it? BTW he's the team captain of his team (not mine, but the one above mine) and an important member of the club. Happily I had a great hit afterwards with one of the youngsters. That kid can't stop talking when he's near a TT table... He also complemented me afterwards being a very good practice partner (a compliment I already received several times in the past).

i should be perhaps in september....but not for a bit...i plan to go for another 4 month session in the next 2 years!

i just make sure to warm up with a good partner before hand so i have everything i need...

if he keeps hitting them out of your reach just take a LONG time to go get the ball...

he will get the message.... and if he does it's his loss because then he doesn't get any warm up...

but make sure you are warmed up before the match

A little sad to see those things (and all hostility that it causes) happen in a so called friendly club atmosphere. And I'm glad I haven't had any experience with it. In our club, it sometimes happen that we practice (or 'warm up') against each other for quite a long time before really starting a match. And we try to help each other as much as possible, after all... we're club mates. And moreover, I find it rather challenging to try to win a match after my opponent 'got used' to my pips. It urges me to be more creative and bring variation in the match.

And really, I wouldn't even consider to play one single ball against a club member who deliberately tries to get me out of balance with such a childish behavior... for just a friendly match. And Lorre, I agree with Def-attack: forget about the 'revenge' thing doing the same kind of behavior. Ignore the guy or just try to beat him by being very focused and calm

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I make the same thing, I Warm Up with my partner like 15 minutes.
Cause the opponent dont have to warm up you before the match,
Sometimes the player is anxious and dont hit the ball rigth or miss a lot in the warming with his opponent.

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Victas Koji Matsushita
Thibar Hybrid k1 euro max
TSP Curl p1-r 1.0

Oh this subject touches a nerve with me. I made a thread about it not too long ago.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20973

Long story short, I found (it's slightly better now) that a high % of club members warm up for a match like we're playing points.

Ultimately what I do is I'll ask if we can go counter hit to counter hit to warm up and gesture where to hit it. If they do so? Great.

If they don't or continue to try to hit winners or try to run me around the table, at first I'll simply not even try to go after a ball or if it's apparent they're not interested in letting me get warm I'll just let them know that we can just start the game if we're not going to get warm. I've only had to do that maybe once or twice as it's kinda a passive aggressive statement letting them know that's not how you warm up.

But one thing is for sure. If they're not going to let me warm up, I'm certainly not going to continue to feed them balls to let them get warm. It goes both ways.

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Stiga Clipper Classic
FH - TSP Spectol Red 2.0
BH - Dawei 388D-a 1.5

I find it sad too and I often warm up with guys for a long time before playing a match (if that happens, because we often just train for more than an hour). Trying to help the other is also part of that training. I also find it challenging to win a match after the "opponent" got used to the pips. So no other attitude from my part...

But then you have that part of the club that just warms up like this guy and wants to play a game as soon as possible. He even asked to play a match and maybe I should have answered I'd rather not to. The worst part of the whole thing is those are the guys who are higher ranked, like they are scared to lose in one way or another. I can't find another explanation. Of all higher ranked players I only know one player who can train for hours if he wants to. He produces massive spin and is fun to play with, in training and in a training match.

Maybe something I also noticed is that one of those players (not the guy I was talking about, but another one) tends to play really aggressive against me: an all-or-nothing game. At this moment I can't find an answer to his game, but that's not important. What I find more important is that he plays a lot less agressive against someone who has a quite similar style like me (pips on the backhand, OX ones, and a very spinny forehand and he's also left-handed). I followed one of their friendly matches and it's like the ball isn't moving forward in their game when you compare it with a match of mine against him.

Thx for the advise, suds79, and I'll follow it along with the other advise. I'll see what works and what doesn't, but in any case I now have a couple of options to try out against those tiring people, along with the knowledge I'm not the only one who experiences something like this. Back to leatherback's journey!

Reminds me of what S-Jan said back on Usenet - he didn't want his opponent to get used to his pips so he'd deliberately spray balls all over the place during the warmup.

Iskandar