October 17, 2012

Creating Spin

Yesterday I was coaching a junior (who is mostly a hitter) on his forehand loop against backspin, and later on his serve. In both cases he had difficulty in creating spin because he tended to start with his racket mostly behind the ball, both when looping and serving, rather than from below (when looping against backspin) and from above or from the side when serving backspin or sidespin. He also didn't backswing enough to give himself time to accelerate into the ball, which allows you to snap the forearm and then the wrist into the ball like the tip of a whip.. These are common problems, especially for hitters.

Hitters, by definition, don't loop as well as loopers. I've noticed that, in general, hitters have more difficulty learning to serve with spin, and I think the two are related. Loopers are more used to creating spin, and instinctively understand the need to backswing so as to allow themselves to spin the ball - getting below the ball when looping backspin, above it to serve backspin, and to the side to serve sidespin. They also instinctively understand the need for the longer backswing to accelerate the racket to create spin, whether looping or serving.

If you guide a player through the serve by holding his hand and literally serving the ball for him, with a better backswing, they tend to get the idea, though it takes practice for them to do this on their own. (Learning to graze the ball when serving isn't easy at first.) I've noticed that those who learn to serve with spin also pick up looping more quickly, for the reasons give above.

I mentioned above how hitters tend to have more difficulty putting spin on their serves. However, there is a corollary to this - hitters tend to have better placement on their serves, and usually better fast serves. This is probably out of necessity, since they don't have spin to make their serves effective.

Editorial Board Report

As a member of the USATT Editorial Board, yesterday I sent my comments to the chair, Tim Boggan, for the annual report. I had a few comments about the covers (not enough table tennis action), hard-to-find or missing captions, and the timing of the issues (which I thought could be adjusted so we get features on the Open and Nationals in a more timely fashion). I was happy with the increasing number of coaching articles.  I was probably most irritated by a statement in one issue in an unattributed article that "The minutes of each Board meeting and the annual budgets are now available online." They have been online since 1999, when I started the policy of putting them online as co-webmaster.

USA Juniors & Cadets Shine Internationally

Here's a USATT results listings and photos for the Canadian and Serbian Junior and Cadet Opens.

Betty White Does Humorous Ping-Pong Routine

Here's an episode entitled "Ping Pong" from 1952 of the TV show "Life with Elizabeth," a show that ran from 1952-55. About 30 seconds into the show the table tennis starts, and it continues for four minutes as actress Betty White and actor Del Moore put on a hilarious table tennis skit. As Del says, "All is fair in love and ping-pong." (I don't think there is any more table tennis in the rest of the episode, which is 25:54 long.) So which is better, this or the WC Fields routine from the 1939 movie "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (2:33)? There's also, of course, the table tennis routine from a 2003 episode of "Friends" entitled "The One in the Barbados: Part 2" (6:48).

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