Topspin follow up

Strokes

Levi Olukayode Afolayan Asked 9 months ago

Thank you very much Coach Alois for your insightful and simple ways of breaking table tennis skills down to the understanding of learners like me:

My questions for today are as follows:

1. My topspin has really improved because, I have repeatedly trained for it with multiple balls. However, when blocked or returned by my opponents I don't remember to drive or I have not really perfect the of driving. I often smash or slap the ball and lose the point. Please what do I ? And how do I perfect it?

2. When my opponent returns a ball to me and it is high my instinct's response is to smash the ball and most time they put spin without me knowing. It is either I hit it the next or throw it out of the board entirely. Very painful indeed. What do I to stop this?

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Alois Rosario Answered 9 months ago

Hi Levi,

The second forehand topspin after making the opening is often a ball that players struggle with. The main thing to do is practice this combination of balls. If you are getting someone to feed you multi ball then get them to alternate between feeding you a backspin ball and then a topspin ball.

We have a tutorial on this as part of our 52 week training plan. Forehand Follow Up.

On that higher ball the main thing to remember is that you still need to topspin the ball to add a lot of safety to the shot. If the ball is higher than shoulder height then that is probably a good height to smash.

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Ujjal Chatterjee Posted 6 months ago

Dear Alois, once more a very nice interpretation as why the 2nd ball goes up. The first one is having back spin as the opponent has pushed the ball. So one has to attack the ball and the follow up stroke has to go up to counter the backspin. Then it is blocked by the opponent. Here there is no backspin rather may be a little topspin. Now one has to close the bat angle and the follow throgh will be forward and not upwards.

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