Spin or Short and Low

When playing one of my club members the other day, I encountered a feeling I hadn't felt in a while: despair. While warming up before our match, I was feeling confident about my chances as I was able to keep up with his speed during the warm up rallies. Another thing I felt good about was my ability to put more spin on the ball than most of the members.

My predicament appeared when he served his first point to me. he served a manageable backspin shot to mid-table, which I pushed back with high spin as I usually do. As the shot progressed from contact to bounce,  I felt good about my serve receive. As the ball bounced on his side of the table, I saw him wind up for a big forehand, and before I knew what happened he had blazed it by me. As I am not used to such a great return off of my pushes, I assumed it was a combination of just a little too high of a bounce and a good shot that probably had some luck involved.

I was wrong. The rest of the match (which was short...) he continued to attack what I felt were strong pushes and I am not yet able to defend such strong shots. He was able to do this on shots that would have bounced twice as well.

My question is if I should back off on worrying about putting so much spin on my pushes and work on keeping the return shorter and lower so my opponents won't be able to attack so freely? Is lower and short that much more important than higher spin ability?

Hi Dakota,

We have all felt this despair at some time.

I think placement and control is more important in this situation because he could handle the amount of spin.  When a player gets to the stage of being able to topspin off backspin well, then the amount of backspin doesn’t really matter because they can adjust to that.

So try to focus on keeping the ball shorter and lower as you suggest.  Also placing the ball to more difficult positions for him to attack, if you can find it.