Calmness and timeouts
Table Tennis Match Strategy
Last updated 9 years ago
Nicholas-Ge Nicholas Asked 9 years ago
How do you know when you need to calm down? Should you call a time out when you are ahead, behind, or both? Should you call a time out when you are about to lose a set, or wait for the set to be finished?
Alois Rosario Answered 9 years ago
Hi Nicholas,
There are some signs that you will start to recognise in yourself to let you know you are getting a bit too excited.
Take a look at this lesson on Recognise Your Feelings. I think this will help you.
As far as taking a time out, there are different times that you can utilise it. Some players use it when it is very close in a set and they want a little bit of time to think about what they are going to do next.
A common one I see is when their opponent has to win one more set and the player is 3 points down. It is a way of giving their opponent time to think about the finish line and hopefully they will tighten up. It also gives the player a bit of time to think about an alternative strategy.
Thoughts on this question
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Jean Balthazar Posted 9 years ago
If I may add one here, I often see (and that's when I do it myself mostly) that a player who had a comfortable lead in a vital game, let's say 9-4 for example, which should have normally ensured him to win that game, but his opponent makes a comeback winning 4 points in a row and now it's 9-8, then the leading player would take a time out to think about what to change, but mostly just to break his opponent's momentum. Even if you have no clue about what to change, and therefore no real need for a pause, it can be very efficient just to mess up your opponents winning trend.