Humidity and rubber

Chandrachur Mukherjee Asked 7 years ago

I had a few questions about table tennis, I thought it would be better to put them all into a single post instead of creating multiple ones.

1) When I make a forehand topspin/counter, I are able to generate a lot of power than I am with my backhand strokes. I always wondered why this happened, now I know why. While making the forehand strokes, I can rotate my waist and my ankle along with the speed of my hand. This generates a lot of extra speed and creates the difference. So, is there a way of using my waist and ankle in my backhand strokes as well? I always tried moving them on the opposite direction but it does not fit in and feels odd.

2) Where I go to play, that club is a very humid place. While I enter that place, I test out my rubbers by rubbing the ball against the rubber to check the grip, and I can feel that my rubbers are in tip-top condition. However, after playing 30-45 mins, I check my rubbers again, and literally they feel like they can become the best anti-spin rubbers in the world :P. No grip at all. I think my rubbers are dead, but once I return home and check the rubbers again, they again seem to have gained their grip back. This problem is haunting me for months now. I have tried changing my rubbers but every rubber seems to become dead as after playing 30-45 mins in that room (my club). Alois, your help is really needed. I think it is the humidity but I dont know what to do. If the rubbers are not useful when I am playing with them then they are really useless.. :(

3) How to overcome my natural reaction of blocking the ball against a fast topspin. I want to counter the ball really bad, but whenever I dont pay attention, my hands automatically start blocking the ball. Any suggestions.

These were the questions, thanks for all the help and support you have provided till now. :)                     P.S: I really need some help on the second question. 

Alois Rosario Answered 7 years ago

Hi Chandrachur,

1) For the Backhand topspin you can use your waist and legs in a similar way to the forehand.  Another crucial part with the backhand is using your wrist correctly.  Take a look at the video on the Advanced Backhand Topspin for more help on this one.

2) The humidity does effect the performance of the rubber.  It basically forms a layer of moisture on the rubber which makes them slippery.  You have to make sure you are wiping your rubber constantly, even before each point to keep them dry.

3) To generate a little topspin on your counter, work on keeping it simple.  Just put a little topspin on the ball.  Think about just kicking up on the ball on contact.  Don't make the stroke too big.  Then you need to practice doing this often in training when the ball is coming randomly to position.