Old-Man-Southpaw wrote:
Cobalt wrote:
If you go to the middle of the table you are likely to find out pretty quick whether the opponent is a forehand dominant player as they will move around to play on forehand. It might not mean though that backhand is weak.
Yeah, as in you will get creamed!
My 2 cent opinion is to make them move to return the ball, and if possible, make them switch FH to BH or visa versa, and try to mix in inverted chops and pips blocks that look like chops to make everything unpredictable, to the point where they don't trust their ability to land an attack ball, and then *I* want to attack hard and fast with something ugly at the first opportunity before they recover their senses.
Against those who are not elite amatures, this is a good way to go in general. The lower you go, the more unforced errors and many of those come from in inability to move into position and hit a consistent shot. Some of those errors come from spin variation. Always land the chop deep as you can. Sometimes, a player crowds the table and if you get it back deep right at their crossover, if they are too mesmorized to step around in time, you get a point. I also agree that when you can get an opponent to miss enough to want to play "safe"... you start decisively attacking for winners those balls and that opponent becomes scared shytless afraid to do anything.