Anti loop rubbers

Hi Alois

I have seen your kind face on television at the Commonwealth Games. Are you still the coach of the Australian team? I have a new question to ask and since you are not at home you can answer whenever you will be able to. It can wait. A Chinese player has suddenly appeared at our Club. He is around 60/65 and is beating all of us. He uses a shake hand grip but has some kind of anti loop reversed rubber on the backhand. He serves with the spinny rubber and if you push on his backhand the ball comes back with some horrible spin thus forcing an error from the opponent. He stands at the table and if you lift the ball on his backhand he will attack it with a slow horrible ball. I managed to take a game from him by serving long on his forehand and elbow but don't seem to be able to serve to his backhand without prompting an easy ball to attack. Please give me some guidance on how to get closer to him. All the best and enjoy Birmingham. Filippo

Hi Filippo,

Thanks for the question and I was half thinking you might be at the Commonwealth Games.

Dealing with a player with anti spin can be difficult at first but with a bit of time you will start to get used to it.  The main thing is to get used to the effect of the anti spin rubber.  It will reverse the effect of the spin that comes back to you similar to long pimple rubber.  A good simple tactic can be to serve long and fast with backspin to the anti spin rubber.  This will give you a topspin ball return that you can then attack.  Or if you want you can serve along fast topspin to the anti spin and it will come back with some backspin that again you can attack with a topspin stroke.

The main thing though is to know that the feet will be consistent.  If you pay with topspin to the anti, it will come back with backspin and if you pay with backspin it will come back with topspin.

Often another good thing to think about is to not add sidespin to the ball because the ball will come back with an awkward sidespin to you.

This tutorial may also help a little. Help Against a Chopper with Long Pimples.