Overcome fear of defending

Hi Alois, thank you for your useful suggestion.

May I ask another question? I have one main problem with my foot work. For me, I can reach two steps to the right to hit the ball, but I feel very difficult to step back to the left for good position (preparing for second hit). I feel I lose balance completely!

I hope I can make change to this problem!!!

Gday coach, your advice is really useful, and I hope I can get it in mind (me frogetful person). Today, I tried to hit and get balance, it was not so good, but I feel something (better than before).

Today, at 7:30pm I have to face a young junior who beat me the last five week!!! It seems to be a bit hard put all advices into the upcoming match, but I will try and let you know after the match.

This junior has very nice serves, and he is ready to attack most of the time!!! His serves can get points from me, but mine not!!! He has very good foot work with consistency loop, and I wonder why he is still playing in the lowest level (A5 at Dandenong)?

This is very, I reckon, hard question for the coach if I want to win the guy???

Work on making it as difficult as possible for him to make an attack.  Keep the ball low and give him a lot of variation of shots.  Put the ball to his weaker side a lot, which is probably his backhand side.  

Returning his serves, make sure you get them back on the table first and allow him a chance to make a mistake.

Good luck.

Well, I lost again coach, :)!!! the last 5 week I lost 0 to 3, but today, lost 1 to 3 (with a bit hiccups for the junior player!!! His services are great, and in the game he could prepare for big swing because of these. I did not really know whether the serve was back, side, or top spin when he started serving. So I blindfolded returned the serve. But when the ball reached my side, oh god this was top spin, that was side spin, and damn this was short back spin!!!

I know I have to be trained otherwise I cannot improve the skills for the table tennis game (in the next level A4). Unfortunately, I really have no time, :(! 

Coach, no one wanna play with the lower level player, :( ! Even my friend (coach at coburg) does not want to have a hit with me!!!

I think for solo player, the basic skills are very important. I missed them, and it is hard to get to used!!!

I would like to ask another question! I can loop the flat or top spin ball well, but when I try to loop the back spin, it increases the top spin back, but the ball seems to be slow and no power(so easy for opponent to block or smash back)! How can I make the ball heavy top spin to counter the back spin push??? 

You can brush through the ball faster.  Also see if you can keep the ball low sometimes over the net.  this will also make it harder for them to attack.  Try to vary the speed and spin on the ball.

Take a look at our lesson on the Forehand Loop Off Backspin.  This will help you with your technique. 

First time I faced a big problem in a competition. The competition was for going to getting a coach in org. Those who will get selected in top 30 will go to coach and he will make it to top 15 based on potential. 

I lost badly in my first ever competition I had on TT. I lost in first round by a player I could have defeated. I became nervous when I start loosing few points. Another thing and that is more important is that I realized that I never made a habit of defending. Defending correctly is important I realized after much thinking after a month or two. 

Hi Satya,

The more competition you play the better you will get at handling the situation as well.  Try to play in more competitions of any kind.

You are right, learning to defend is also important.  Think about practicing strokes like the push and block during your practice time.

True true. Being alert and staying calm and relaxed really is a challenge. That reminds me of Koki Niwa. I love his style bedause it often looks as if he doesn´t care at all ;-)

Great video, fear has always messed my performance.

This is one area where a robot is really helpful, as they can feed balls much faster than any multi-ball server.  I just a few minutes today, I got much more comfortable blocking fast topspin shots.

Keep up the good work!!

Thanks!

Is ping pong going to be an Olympic sport this summer?