Intricate spin from the opponent
Table Tennis Strokes and Technique
Last updated 10 years ago
Kate Oganessian Asked 10 years ago
Dear Jeff and Alois,
Hope you can answer my question or offer a link if someone has already asked that question before.
I'm a beginner but already can distinguish some types of spins my opponents make, can make myself topspin to topspin and short push to short push etc. But now I have new opponent, he seems to add suddenly some intricate spin and all my strokes come to the net. The serve and first strokes are ok but then he makes a kind of diagonal movement – as I can guess giving very strong backspin with a portion of sidespin. He is right-handed player, not very skilled but this stroke is a riddle for me. When he uses open side of the bat, I see ball moving from low right part of the bat to upper left. When he uses backside of the bat, I see ball moves from low left part to upper right. In both cases his stroke is very long and bounce is low. What is the right answer in such case? I guess topspin is impossible. Push is also impossible because his stroke is too long and I'm too far from the net. When I try to make backspin or no spin at all, ball anyhow comes to the net. The only option I managed to find – to catch the ball very low, about 50 cm over the floor, and make high stroke from under the table. Please advise!
Alois Rosario Answered 10 years ago
Hi Kate,
You have read it correctly. He is putting a lot of backspin with some sidespin on it. This will be possible to push back once you get the feel for it and the angle of your bat right. You will need to tilt you bat right back to almost flat. On contact you can even push up slightly to lift the ball more. This will take a bit of trial and error to start with. Then to counter the sidespin at the same time you will need to angle the bat a little to the side. When he does his backhand stroke you need to face your racket to your right. When he does the forehand stroke you need to face your racket more to the left.
Keep going with it and you will get the feel of it. Ask him to play with you often and you will get the idea quickly.
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Surapun Wongopasi Posted 10 years ago
Does he use normal inverted rubbers or pimpled rubbers? This is very important because pimpled rubbers can produce some weird spin especially the long pips with no sponge. Long pips players are good at chopping or slicing the ball sideway to add both back spin and sidespin to the ball and the ball would sway in its flight coming towards you. My advice is to wait for the ball to lose some of its strange spin before hitting it.
Kate Oganessian Posted 10 years ago
Thanks, Alois, I'll try it! Now I'm trying strokes myself, with almost flat bat, just to feel it and trace the ball trajectory. Am I right that the more backspin means the more flat trajectory for the ball? Now I can see why push up can help. I will meet my opponent next week and will try your recommendations.
To Surapun Wongopasi: Normal inverted rubbers, identical on both sides, nothing special. I think the case is my opponent manage to make really strong backspin. He is not too skilled to hide it. But this moment I'm not skilled enough to make reliable response :). But I'll practice more.