Training with School Table Tennis Team

Dear Alois,

This week, I talked to you about making it into my school table tennis team.

Today I did some training with my table tennis team.

I noticed some problems that immediately occurred when I played.

1. When someone does a fast topspin serve to my forehand, I hit the ball but a most of the time, the ball hits the edge of my bat and flies up to the ceiling (this is extremely unusual since I can receive more advanced serves)

2. One of my teammates repeatedly beat me by using a strong backhand topspin

3. When I do a tomahawk serve, most of the time, it hits the net 

4. Many of the people around me did very good forehand loops and other winning shots but I was sure their technique was not correct for a lot of their strokes.

I had a really bad day today because of what happened. 

My team and I will go to a tournament soon on Thursday and I already feel quite nervous.

If you can, please explain to me what I'm doing incorrectly. Any advice would be very helpful :)

With thanks,

Gerard  

Hi Gerard,

Perhaps you are trying too hard.  Try to relax a little.  When receiving those topspin serves don't try to do too much.  Make your swing shorter and use the pace on the serve to guide the ball back to where you want it to go.

Work on your blocking skills as well as your attacking skills.  The Block is a really important part of the game.

If the serve is going into the net, hit it from slightly higher and into the table more.  This will help it to bounce higher and over the net.

Don't worry too much about other peoples techniques.  Just work on getting better.  A lot of techniques can work up to a certain level.  What you are doing is building for a strong game in the future.

Good luck.