Backhand offense problems

D K Asked 2 years ago

Greetings Team,

currently I am training my backhand offense. Yes I am a defender but I have been caught too often in situation where my opponent keeps pushing to my backhand because I cannot attack it using my forehand as it exposes my forehand corner and even much weaker players seem to be errorless when blocking my pivoted shot to my empty forehand corner.

I have noticed that there are several problems:
1) My wrist is simply too stiff. This cannot be easily changed that is simply a movement limit of my body.
2) I tend to swing my arm sideways and behind myself. Here I am unsure how to get rid of this. I am aware of this problem but I am subconsciously avoiding swinging forwards just to avoid the table. I am basically fighting the self-preservation instinct, as I am desperately trying to keep the space in front of my body empty in order to prevent my bat or hand crashing into the table edge. I have seen multiple cases of my friends or opponents destroying their bats this way. One of my opponents in the past nearly cut off his index finger during an attempt to rip my chop using a backhand loop.
Any ideas how to avoid this?
3) I struggle to find where exactly should the hitting point be, in what distance from my body.
Usually it is either too close and I hit my body during backswing or I lean backwards or it is too far and I barely touch the ball or catapult it upwards.
Also for side placement of the hit-yes, I have heard many times that it is "in front of the body".
But where exactly? I feel like I am always hitting it rather in front of right hip, forcing me to hold the bat handle-down, hitting the table with the handle tip.
If I move the hit point to belly center, I can keep my bat more horizontal and I can give more power and sideways consistency but I hit behind the table a lot more. In this situation, I feel like I am sticking my elbow too far to the right.
If I move the hit point slightly towards left hip, I can fully use my forearm and I have maximum power but my placement skills are very bad. In this position my palm is basically exactly in front of belly center.

To compensate for the fear of hitting the table, I inspired myself by technique of Jorgen Persson and learned powerful flat attack from a bit longer distance (from where I can no longer reach the table edge) performed rather by forearm swing and arm extension, slightly resembling a boxing punch. Do you think this is useful technique for backhand offense, when it comes to flat attacking?

Also for a backhand loop, I often rip it very high-but when I watch the videos of pro players they usually finish much higher than me (with forehand too). Though when I finish this high I fire behind the table even against backspin balls. What am I doing wrong?
I often feel I have to actually finish lower than I started. But pros do not do this.

As I said my backhands are mostly inspired by Jorgen Persson and his strokes, notably the ones which he played basically from a tall stand position without actually visibly using the waist.
Could you please help me?

Thanks
Dan

Alois Rosario Answered 2 years ago

Hi Dan,

I think the ideas of standing further away from the table is a good compromise for you.

I think you can also improve on the stroke from close to the table.  You are right with all of the ideas of hitting the ball closer to the middle of your body.  I think you can overcome the fear of hitting the table.  Relax your arm and swing and don't get too technical.  The difference between hitting the ball long or perfectly is just a matter of a few degrees with your racket... too technical to think about.