Questions and Doubts

First of all I would like to thank you guys for helping all of my doubts so far and I think this is the best table tennis service of all. Keep up the wonderful work.

However, I need your help again as I'm having some doubts and questions.

Firstly, as I want to make my way to a professional I need to participate in some competitions to gain experience right? I also wish to participate in competitions, but I'm not sure whether my skill level is ready for competitions. I had only played for around 1 year plus and I'm already 14. I kept having this thought that "I would lose badly and the spectators would laugh at me or mock me". I don't mind losing, as my aim is to just gain experience.  So do you think I'm ready for competitions, if I had only played for 1 year plus?

Secondly, is about experimenting service. Throughout my table tennis journey I tend to keep changing the serving style and can't exactly seem to stick to a consistent one. Do you think, if I had only played for 1 year plus should still continue to experiment services? And when should I stop and stick to the service styles I have chosen?

Thirdly, is about twiddling the bat/rubbers when about to service. Even though I'm using both side inverted, pimples-in rubber, the forehand side is DHS neo hurricane 2 which has pretty hard sponge and the backhand sideis palio cj8000 biotech 36-38 degrees hardness sponge, sponge which is pretty soft, at least softer than the forehand side. I heard that rubbers with softer sponge produces more spin than rubbers with harder sponge. I'm mostly using forehand to serve, and I'm trying something new which is twiddle my backhand rubber which has softer sponge to forehand and serve with it,and then twiddle back. Do you think this is a good idea or is it just ridiculous to twiddle since I'm suing both sides pimples in rubber?

Lastly, I can only play table tennis once a week, and I wish to experiment/practice my serves regularly. Do you know how to practice/experiment serves without a table tennis table?

Thank you for helping me. I'm looking forward to your reply. :)

Hi,

I would recommend anyone who wants to improve their game start playing competitions. It is a great way to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are. You can learn a lot from being beaten in a tournament.

I don't think waiting until your skill is a certain level is a good way to judge whether you are ready for competition. If you do that you may never get started because you always want to get just a little bit better. Just take the leap and enter a competition. Alois has written a great blog - What to expect at a tournament which you should read so that you can prepare yourself. 

You can play in a graded event where you will play against people around the same standard as you and/or you could enter an open event if you wish to see how you stack up against the best players.

My advice at your first few tournaments is to not worry about the results too much. Just try to play your best Table Tennis and remember to enjoy yourself. You want to make these tournaments a fun experience. 

You should keep experimenting with your serve. What works well against one player may not work so well against another. So the more options you have the better. However I would still recommend practicing your favourite serve more often so that you can really work on improving it with subtle variations. Choose a couple of serves as your signature serves and really focus on them. Make sure though to allocate some time to new serves.

I haven't really heard of anyone with inverted rubbers twiddling between the serve and the third ball. I don't really see the need for it but if you feel you can get a better serve with one than the other then go for it. As long as you can twiddle the bat quickly and never get caught out. I suspect however that whatever advantage you gain by twiddling may be rubbed out if you ever get caught out by twiddling too slow.

Serving is all about varying the amount of spin you get to confuse your opponents. So you can work on your serve without a table. Simply practice getting as much spin as you can on the ball. You can do this anywhere. You need to work on a fast swing with a brushing contact. Then you can work on producing varying amounts of spin, starting from a little to a lot. By being able to vary the spin you can confuse your opponents when serving. They not only have to watch what type of spin you put on the ball but also judge the amount.

Good luck!