OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi. I'm just starting to play with a Butterfly Primorac wood blade, 1.7 Rozena, and 1.3 Gorilla Neubauer anti. I'm switching from a Sardius with Tacky Chop and Butterfly anti. Any advice on how to play with the new setup is great appreciated. I'm a Seemiller style player, just to throw that out. Don't have a great backhand.

Well... There are a few things that come to mind when playing this style.

1. Are you gripping the racket correctly? You should have your thumb wrapped around the handle like a shake hands player not resting on the back of the blade. Except for backhand pushing (see below).

2. Which type of "Seemiller" player are you? Are you a "Seemiller" Seemiller player or a "Bogan" Seemiller player? There is quite difference. Danny is more of a forehand dominant topspinner, backhand blocker. While Eric is more allround spinning and hitting off the forehand and punch blocking with his backhand. Spend some time watching all the videos you can of both of them to give you a good idea of the differences in there styles. Eric can also hit most shots from either side with the inverted or the antispin. If you watch closely you can see the difference in how they grip the racket with Danny's index finger farther up and straighter on the side of the blade while Eric wraps his index finger around the blade lower. I think that this give Eric more control of the racket angle while Danny gets more spin on his loops.

3. Practice twiddling. There is no reason to have the anti if your not going to be able to use it. These guys didn't have frictionless anti when they started. They can both use it to both return serves, hit and drop the ball short. Eric has amazing hands and can drop balls short or drive hard offensive shots with anti.

4. Get good at changing your grip to push on the backhand. This is when you need to put your thumb on the back of the racket to rotate it enough to be able to get under a backspin ball. Immediately return to a topspin grip after each push. I've even seen Danny chop this way.

5. Practice serves. The grip is great for windshield wiper like serves that can be very deceiving.

6. Learn good technique on your strokes. They are not any different because of the grip. Seperate your anti and spinny rubber strokes and it will make them easier to learn. Practice as much with the anti as the spinny rubber.

One piece of equipment advice... you might find it harder to do attacking strokes with the Gorilla other than attacking backspin. If that is the case you may want to try something like Nittaku Best Anti. It is a more traditional anti with a tiny bit of grip.

Good luck!