Developing control.. Too fast too soon

Duncan Wraight Asked 12 years ago

Hi guys. Firstly, can I just say, this is an excellent website - and it keeps people like me, with a strong desire for improvement, roughly sane.

Friday of this week marks my 4th week playing table tennis. I've played three competitive games (W5 L4) in Division 4 (the lowest division of our regional league).

I'm generally practising with a trio of players from another team in D4 as well as three separate guys from D3.

When I'm playing against "standard" orthodox offensive players I seem to compete reasonably well.

However, against "pushers", "defensive" (using quotes to indicate that those terms are somewhat loose) or unorthodox players I really struggle.

My two main problems at this stage are:

• Long serves... if they're low and I try to attack them I invariably thunk the net
• Push rallies... 9 times out of 10 if the opponent simply pushes I'll lose; either hitting a short push in to the net or attempting to push long and going off the edge of the table

For the former I'm working on trying to slow down my loops - concentrating on brushing the ball rather than hitting it with pace.

For the latter however, I'm not sure how to improve. Is it just practice and experience? I'm concerned that going for an OFF- bat with 2mm Calibra LT Sound on the forehand may have been a bit naive.

I've got a 1.5mm Stiga Chop n' Drive on black, would it be worth - for a short period of time - swapping to that on the forehand to develop my push control?

Alternatively I'm not adverse to putting this bat in the bag for a few months and purchasing something more controllable, but I'd only do that if it's quite clear that I'm not overreacting.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Alois Rosario Answered 12 years ago

Hi Duncan,

One of the problems will be the speed of the rubber on the forehand and the speed of the bat. However now that you have it, stick with it and try to adjust.  I wouldn't swap the bat around because you will then have the same problem on the backhand side.

Just allow yourself some time to adjust to unorthodox players.  It is definitely an 'experience' thing when playing them.  There are a lot of subtle changes in the spin on the ball that are not easily recognised or even explained in simple terms.  If you are recognising the errors after they occur then you are on the right road.  Understand that when the ball goes into the net you could have opened the angle of the bat a bit more and if the  ball goes too high or off the table then you could have closed the bat.

In training practicing your pushing and try to get someone to vary the amount of spin on each shot.  You need to make small changes in the angle of your bat with each shot.  These angle changes are too minor to describe in definite angles so it is a lot about touch and feel.  So I guess there are no short cuts with this problem, just the need to hit many more balls against these variations.  It is a really frustrating part of the game but also a challenging one that makes the game one that you can keep working on forever.