Ask The Coach

and Jeff Plumb said...

Hi Bayron,

A good bat is essential for generating spin. A decent rubber with sponge allows the ball to grip into the rubber and hence generate spin. Using a hard bat without any sponge makes it virtually impossible to generate your own spin.

Table Tennis is a game of spin. If you can master spin, then you will become a very good player. Here are just a couple of reasons why you need to be able to spin the ball.

1. You need to be able to generate a lot of topspin when you want to hit the ball hard from a low level. The topspin will make the ball drop and allow you to make attacking shots from a position which would not be possible with a hard bat.
2. Serving - To have an effective serve you need to be able to generate lots of spin.
3. Defending - When defending it really helps to be able to mix up your strokes and it is often helpful to be able to impart a lot of backspin on the ball. Backspin can make it much harder for your opponent to play an attacking stroke.

It can be difficult making the transition from a hard bat to a professional bat. The main reason is that the ball will come off the professional bat much faster and is harder to control. That is why it is not recommended to purchase a super fast bat as your first decent bat. It is much better to start with something slower that you can still gerenate spin with.

Although it can be hard at first especially if you have been using a hard bat for a long time, I strongly recommend that if you want to improve your Table Tennis, you switch to a decent bat with good rubbers. Once you do and you learn to hit your strokes with topspin, you'll be glad you did. You'll be hitting much stronger strokes that overpower your opponent.