Coming back to table tennis after 15 years

Hello Dear Pingskills Team, I have played table tennis for about 13 years in my teenager time and back than i would have considerd myself a decent player. My life changed. Job, family.... So i stopped playing table tennis. 15 year later i decided to give it a shot again. Alot has changed since then. Bigger ball, one set counts to 11 instead of 21. New Gear with speed glue effect inside and so on. I joined a club 4 weeks ago. In training it went suprisingly well and everyone keeps saying i have a fairly good technics. But i really struggle to play a proper match. I feel like a grandpa. All the things that work in training doesn't in a match. I either hit the net or the ball goes over the table. Its like the game became to fast for me. I also struggle to stand correctly. After two weeks of training my knees, shoulder and wrist hurts. Not to mention my back. I really want to get back into table tennis but all this hampers the fun for me. Should i give it more time and am i to hard on my self? are there suggestions how i should approach this?. I don't want to be a pro player but i also want to be a good player again. thanks in advance.

Hi Florian,

First thing is yes, be patient even though that is difficult.  When we start to play again we always have some expectations of ourselves.

Playing matches again will take longer to get right.  The small things like return of serve and pushing take the longest to get right.  The forehands and backhands come quite quickly to give us good feeling.

Persevere with the game.  As for the aches and pains, perhaps think about stretching and a little fitness to get to a level that will enable you to sustain your game.  Stretching in particular becomes really important as you age.