May 15, 2013

Play With Creativity - Do Something Different!

In my blog yesterday I wrote about how some of our players had trouble with Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy's serve. It was a pretty good forehand pendulum serve, but there wasn't anything seemingly special about it. He actually used less wrist motion than he should, and had just two versions - side-top and side-back - though he did vary the depth well. As I watched it, I began to see why they were having trouble with it, and there were two reasons.

First, he wasn't changing his grip to unlock his wrist, and so he had less spin than he could have. But because he has such quick wrists and a good grazing contact, it was sufficient spin to make it effective, and the different grip seemed to give players difficulty in reading it.

Second, he served it over and over from his forehand side. We're all used to players serving forehand pendulum serves from the backhand side, since that allows a player to more easily follow up against a weak return with a forehand attack. And so when the same serve came at them from the forehand side, crosscourt into their forehand, they struggled. It wasn't something they had seen very often.

But I had - or at least I from JJ's side of the table! While I usually serve from the backhand side, at key moments in matches I often do forehand pendulum serves from the forehand side, both regular and reverse pendulum. It's a great way to get a free point or two. It was also a tactic I'd used in a pair of key matches years ago, which I described in my book Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers in Chapter 7, Tactical Examples:

Changing Service Position

At the North American Teams one year I was playing with slightly lower-ranked players as a player/coach. I was one of the three undefeated players in the division. The other two were two junior players from Canada. Our teams played in the final. Both of the Canadian juniors played the same style, which had created havoc throughout the division: big forehand looping attacks, but medium long pips on the backhand which they used to flat hit shot after shot. They quick-hit every short serve with their backhands (spin didn’t take on their pips), even short ones to their forehand, and followed with their big forehands.

As I watched them play, I realized that they would have little trouble with my best serve, a forehand pendulum serve I do from my backhand corner, which sets up my forehand. No matter where I’d serve it, if it was long, they’d loop it; if it was short, they’d backhand hit it. I could use a tomahawk serve to their forehand, but that would take away my big serving strength. What to do?

When I went out to play the first of the two, I set up like I normally do to serve, in the backhand corner. Then I took two steps to my right, and spent the whole match serving forehand pendulum serves from my forehand corner. This gave me an angle into his forehand so that he’d have to receive with his forehand (or risk me going down the line to his open backhand side if he tried to cover the short forehand with his backhand), and so I was able to use my pendulum serve to his inverted forehand, something he had probably rarely had to deal with. Since he couldn’t return it aggressively, I was able to move back into position after each serve to attack with my forehand. The same strategy worked against the other Canadian junior, and I won both matches. (Ironically, before the last match, the perceptive Canadian coach took the other junior off to a table and mimicked my serve over and over from the forehand side so the kid could practice against it, but it wasn’t enough.) I won all three of my matches, but alas, we lost the final 5-3.

The key point is that often you have to think outside the box to find the right tactics, and that often it is an advantage to do something different. So try and do things different - it really messes up an opponent's strokes and timing. I know; I do it all the time! Vary where you serve from; use sidespin on a push or block; dead block; aim one way and at the last second change directions; play a backhand from the forehand side; fake spin and serve or push no-spin; vary the height of the toss on your serve; open up your wrist on a forehand shot so the ball goes to the right (for a righty), perhaps putting some sidespin on it as well; vary your contact so it's sometimes off the bounce, or later than usual; put a little topspin in your blocks; or something else. Be creative!

Jan-Ove Waldner is considered by many to be the greatest player of all time. He's also considered the most creative of players, constantly doing different shots to mess up opponents. So be like Waldner - and J.J. Hardy! - and do something different, and mess up your opponents.

2013 World Championships

They started yesterday, in Paris, May 13-20. Here's the ITTF World Championships page, where you can follow all the action - results, articles, pictures, etc.

Team USA at 2013 Worlds

Here's the USA Team at the Worlds Page, which shows up-to-date results and video.

For USA, the last one standing is Lily Zhang.

Table Tennista

Lots of great coverage of the Worlds here. Included among the articles - China's head coach Liu Guoliang proposes an international training camp in China, and Table Tennista starts a new magazine.

ITTF Daily Show

Here's the World Table Tennis Championships Daily Show - Day 1 (3:05), Day 2 (5:02).

Orioles Hangout

I blogged yesterday about Baltimore Oriole shortstop JJ Hardy and former centerfielder/current VP Brady Anderson at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I wrote a short article on this for Orioles Hangout, with a link to the blog. It's their front-page story this morning.

Ultimate Edge to Edge

Here's a video (43 sec) of Tomas Pavelka (CZE) against Bastian Steger (GER, world #25) at 8-9 in the first game. Pavelka mishits a ball high into the air off his racket's edge and turns his back to the table in frustration. Watch what happens!

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