"Waldner-Schupf"

Hi,

Living 5km away from the German border and therefore being a bit familiar with the language, what I'm quite sure is that a "Schupf" is a push, not a chop.

Could it be his dropshots?

J-B.

Hi,

I think it might be a bit late to answer this question, but I hope it's useful to someone.

The "Waldner-Schupf" is indeed a push, but rather touching the side of the ball by some kind of a stabbing movement and thereby putting sidespin on it and placing it wide on the table.

Unfortunately I don't know what it's called in English.

Heard about this stroke for the first time myself today during a training camp :D

Hi Tim,

Thanks for this added information.

I think I found an illustration of this shot: see here (from 5:48 to 8:10). For the non-german speakers, they say this type of aggressive sidespin push can be efficient especially when you started a push return, thinking that the serve would be short, and then it turns out to be longer and difficult to push back short. The sidespin and/or the wide angle of this return can make it difficult for the server to make a good 3rd ball attack.

Here at pinkskills two questions away is a discussion about the "Ma Long chop block".

Could it be that the mighty Ma Long Chop Block is in fact a chinese copy of the Waldner-Schupf?

PS. Congratulations to Alois, coaching to the Silver Medal in Rio!!! A tough close Game, with a good chance for gold... Next time

Thanks Marcin.

It was a great result for us.

Hey Jean,

yes, that's the stroke! Nice job, finding some footage of it.

Hey Marcin,

it is definitely somehow similar, however we were told that this is more like an aggressive serve-receiving technique (like Jean wrote above citing the coach in the video). Ma Long playing this kind of stroke against attacking balls is just insane.