Tactics against an opponent
General
Yuriy Unknown Asked 14 years ago
Hello!
How can i see where is the key to win the opponent, where can be the mistake of the returning ball of my opponent, where can be the mistakes of opponent and which side of the table i must to attack?
Thank you!
Alois Rosario Answered 14 years ago
Hi Yuriy,
You need to watch your opponent playing against other players and see where they can trouble him/her.
Look firstly which side you think is weaker. Often the way a player stands will tell you as little about which side they prefer. If they are a right hander and they stand with their left foot a lot closer to the table than their right it probably menas they favour their forehand. If they stand with their right foot even lightly ahead of their left, it will lean a preferenece for backhand.
The ther are many other things to look for like which serves they like and don't like to return and also which side they like to return with (this may be different to which side they prefer during a rally).
Other things to be aware of are, which side do they like to attack with and which side they like to block or defend with. Again these may be different.
Start with these and watch for other holes in their game.
Thoughts on this question
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Piers Grey Posted 14 years ago
Also, another way how you can tell where the key point is to attack is if you do a serve that they don't like or put a certain spin, change of speed or placement onto a shot forcing them to do something that there not comfortable with doing this will lead to the perfect oppotunity to attack the ball.
Remember though if you are going to do an attacking stroke off a bad shot, make sure that your in the right stroke ready position to take the shot controllably so that it can hit the table and still allow you to return back to the basic ready position, ready for either a backhand or forehand.
Something that I was always told by my coach was:-
"always assume that they are going to return the ball, even if it looks like you've won the point"