Distance from table and judgement

Hello pingskills

I want to be able to engage in topspin against topspin but I am having trouble returning my opponents really fast forehand to my forehand corner. Whenever he does it, the ball zooms right past me and I have no chance. I was wondering what would be an ideal distance from the table if I want to have to time to do a full forehand or loop.

also I am also having trouble judging if the ball will bounce twice or go off the table slightly. Sometimes I leave it to the end but when I see that it's about to bounce again I push the ball and it pops up really high for my opponent to smash it. Is there a certain distance from the net that will gaurentee a second bounce from my opponents serve? I usually push balls with backspin on it since I know there's a higher chance that it will bounce twice with the plastic ball.

thank you very much 

Hi Bryan,

If you take a step away from the table this will give you a little more time to see and react to the topspin.  If you are finding it is not enough you can always make another adjustment and take another half step away.  During a match you will start to get the feel of the best distance to stand to allow yourself to see at the ball well.

Judging the short and long bat depends on a lot of factors.  You can 't just judge it by where the first bounce lands because the speed of the contact and the type and amount of spin will also influence where the second bounce is going to be.  Therefore, putting yourself in the position to get a lot of practice returning serves and short pushes will help.  It is good to sometimes in training, to leave the ball and see where the second bounce lands.  If find multi-ball can help with this too.  Get someone to feed you a lot of pushes or lots of serves and practice your push or topspin depending on how long the second bounce is.