Playing a mixed type opponent
Table Tennis Match Strategy
Last updated 10 years ago
Grenville Pereira Asked 10 years ago
Hi Alois / Jeff,
I do not have a term for an opponent who really mixes up his topspins, smashed, chops however I am referring to him as a mixed type player at the moment.
I wanted to know what would be the best strategy against this type of player . I do not want to topspin against backspin on my backhand which is more risky at the same time I do not want the game to be defensive and then get surprised by his attack.
Also I feel that the opponent puts pressure on me with his strategy and my unforced errors are more. Please advise.
Thanks
Regard
Grenville
Alois Rosario Answered 10 years ago
Hi Grenville,
Playing against an all-round player can be difficult.
They usually don’t have a very strong attack.
You need to think about playing your own game and implementing things that work for you. If you like to attack, then similarly serve short and make the first attack.
We do have a Match Strategy lesson on Playing An All Round Player.
Thoughts on this question
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Grenville Pereira Posted 10 years ago
Hi Alois
Thanks for the response. Yes , I did take a look the video on playing an all round player and it did give me a lot of information.
The player I was referring to has a style similar to Mr. Brian Berry.
The one thing which worries me about this opponent is the regular long chops like the one I saw from one of the clips in the video.
For this I need to be in the right position to play a forehand against chop.
Also my success rate for forehand against chop would be say 60% , so I might lose points here.
One thing which I can see doing is keeping many serves short and also some strokes in the rally.
I still need to play him however the information I have gathered is a s follows
Opponent
1) Plays say 80% of chops , long or half long
2) Tries to surprise and hit through with the forehand or a backhand. This is his surprise attack.
3) The success rate of forehand is say 60 % and backhand is 40%
4) Does not play short.
5) Is tempted to play a backhand topspin suddenly but makes errors against backspin.
6) Has a standard forehand chop serve which is long and backhand serve which is long.
Myself
1) Strong forehand topspin and I am relying on this as my main strength with 90% accuracy
2) Make errors again heavy backspin though
3) Good backhand topspin \ flick ( however I still need to improve against heavy backspin )
4) Have a variety of serves ( short \ long and spins ) which gives me an additional layer of protection.
5) Play the short game fairly well ( even though I can improve a lot on this I generally tend to leave out practicing short game and focus more on forehand topspin rallies ).
I think I have put a lot here in mail :) making it heavy however I thought I will just you know what I am thinking currently and what information I have gathered so that you could suggest some thing more in case I have left out.
Currently I am thinking that the short game is the key against the all round player. It worked well for me when I played against the defender.
Thanks
Regards
Grenville
Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 10 years ago
Hi Grenville,
With that information I think playing short early in the rally will help. You need to keep him close to the table and then attack fast at him when you get a chance like you would against a chopper. This will also stop him from making an attack. If you are in a topspin to chop rally and you are not sure about making the next topspin, push the ball to his backhand side trying to keep it as short as possible to bring him in close to the table and then attack the next ball when you can.