How to play against anti-spin rubbers
Table Tennis Match Strategy
Last updated 8 years ago
Harsha Eswaraiah Asked 8 years ago
Hi Alois:
Can you tell me the effective way / technique to play when my opponent is using anti-spin rubber. I am finding it very difficult to play when my opponent is using anti rubber. This is both in practice and during matches.
Thanks in advance
Regards,
Harsha H.E.,
Bangalore, India
Alois Rosario Answered 8 years ago
Hi Harsha,
First it is important for players to understand what happens when they hit the ball with the anti spin rubber. If you play with topspin, when it hits their bat, it will come back to you with backspin. If you play with backspin it will come back with topspin. So you can almost order the type of return you want by the stroke that you play.
I find it easier to play a backspin ball, especially on the serve and then I get a topspin reply that I a able to attack.
For our Premium members we have a lesson on Playing Against Antispin.
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SirLoops Alot Posted 8 years ago
One tactic I find useful against LP or anti is to serve very deep to that side. Get the ball to bounce as close to the end line as possible, even if your serve is a bit higher than normal. It's practically impossible for them to attack a deep serve with the anti surface, so their return will be predictable, passive, and give you lots of time to setup to pounce on the next ball (which may have an unsual flight/bounce).
If you experiment with deep serves against this kind of player, you'll usually be able to determine quickly whether backspin, no spin or topspin serves are working better.
Also, I generally recommend NOT serving short to the anti side, as it gives you less time to react to a potentially weird ball. Also the opponenet can recieve your serve at wide angles.
If the opponenet twiddles or has really good footwork, they may surpirse you and attack deep serves with the inverted side. In that case, you'll have to be a bit more clever and move your sevres around etc.
Good luck,