Returning Lob

I would also fake where you are gonna smash the ball. Like facing the way you are gonna smash but smash a different way. Mostly lobbers read the motion of the players and stand according to where the opposite player stands.

good lobber at my club, he returns the hardest smash and on short ball he does the wiggly woble under the table. Gives me 6 points of handicap.

Some points though :

- he cant really attack

- on shorter balls you can do the drop shot that alois advises but in my case the lobs are 2 meters above the table so that's challenging, Short balls also give the option to send the ball to the side that's what I usually try

- When he is positionned for receiving the smash 3 meters away and there is little side angle, he'll return the hardest smash, so instead of tiring myself and take risks I make less powefull smashes

Overall I'd say patience is very important to tire him off, to avoid tricky spins, and to wait for the ball to fall down to a convenient height

You may want to try a combination of the following strokes: hard smash, soft smash, topspin drive, smash with some sidespin, and drop shot.  I had played against a good lobber.  I played a drop shot to get him to move closer to the table, and then I smashed.  After a few times, this tactic didn't work.  So I changed my tactic.  I tried first a drop shot but as soon as he moved further from the table, I used the drop shot again.  This time it worked because he either could not reach the ball or he would hit it long.  Even if he coould get the ball on the table, I was ready and finished the rally with a smash.

Another good idea is to hit two long smashes one to his left hand then one to his right then drop the ball extra short over the net. Then after that hit a very heavy top spin or loop at his body and do the same again. When he is standing very far back after your two shots at his body start the process again drop it extra short. This will tire him out and the top spin-loops may cause him to make a mistake. Lobbers don't like it when they are close to the table and receive very heavy top spin.

I consider lobbing and fishing to be one of my strengths and I sometimes win matches doing little else.

How you handle strong lobbers depends obviously on their strengths/weaknesses as lobbers and your strengths/weaknesses as a smasher.  Some lobbers (like me) enjoy the pace and usually do well when the smasher tries to smash as hard as they can to finish the point, but can struggle a bit when the smasher is more patient and keeps the ball in play until an opportunity arises to smash with good placement.  Other lobbers, I find, are an impenetrable wall once they get established, but their weakness is the first lob as they backtrack.  In this case, key thing is to really kill your first smash.  Also, some lobbers are lob with heavy spin.  This makes it hard to just do safe smashes because once they are not under time pressure, they can really spin a lob deep to your end which is really hard to handle.  Also, as someone else mentioned, drop shots are good but some players are very good at putting tricky spins below the table to the short balls (of course, not a problem if your drop shot bounces twice).

Very helpful guys thanks! What about when he varies the spin on his lobs such as sideunder/heavy top?

Hi Mikey,

Watch the spin as it is going up.  You will have more time to see the spin.  You will then have to adjust your feet first to get into position to make the smash allowing for the movement of the ball.  Then with the stroke you will also have to adjust for the spin. So if the lob has some sidespin you can change the angle of your bat slightly.  You don't need too much adjustment because the ball is only on the bat for a very short time.