Short and Wide

Francisco Cespedes Grau Asked 13 years ago

First i want to tell you, your lasts answers helped me a lot and i'm grateful.

 Some months ago with short balls, i just knew pushed them long with a bit of backspin, but watching your videos I saw i can too push short, and that it's useful too depending of the oponent, but sometimes i get a problem pushing short.

 With oponents who have a very good control with short balls, sometimes when i push them short they do me a lateral push, i mean a push what will go most of times to the forehand side, and near from the net, the ball will go out for the right side of the court, in this cases i try to topspin the ball, but i usually fail cause i cant get a good position cause of the court (i just cant down my body to do a topspin against backspin), should I push them back? anyway push short that balls is very hard and i cant do a good topspin, what I can do to dont give an easy return to that balls?

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Francisco,

If the ball goes out wide after you play a short ball, you can still make a topspin.  Any ball that only bounces once on the table is good to make a topspin.

You need to move your legs around the corner of the table and get closer to the ball.  It is OK if you don't reach it until it is falling you can make a topspin from that position. 

The footwork for this is a little different.  If you are a right hander, move your right foot around the corner of the table and get it close to where the ball is going to bounce.  This will help you to get your body into a good position for the stroke.

Thanks for your kind feedback as well.