March 11, 2015

Tactical Thinking - Adjusting to Different Opponents

Recently at the end of a coaching session I played a practice match with a student. He often served short to my forehand, either backspin or sidespin, and over and over I flipped it aggressively to all parts of the table and dominated the point. Halfway through one game I finally put the game on hold and challenged him to give me his best short serves to my forehand. Over and over he served low with heavy, yet varied spin - and over and over I flipped them aggressively with ease, to his growing consternation. ("Aggressively" doesn't mean flipping for winners, but fast enough that if placed well, the server is usually put on the defensive.) Finally I challenged him to figure out how to deal with this. At first he said he'd stopped serving short to my forehand - and I said that would be a bad mistake.

So I challenged him to think about why I was able to flip his serves over and over with ease. When he served backspin, I used his own spin against him to create topspin, which allowed me to flip aggressively. When he served sidespin, it was even easier, as that's easy to flip, like a mini-counterdrive or mini-counterloop. So I asked him how he could keep me from using his spin - and that's when he figured it out! He served short, low no-spin, and miracle of miracles - or actually rather predictably - I had to slow down my flip. (I could still place it, but it was no longer the dominant shot it had been earlier.) 

The lesson here is that everyone is different. I happen to have a very good forehand flip, but only against spin, since I know how to take advantage of different spins. This doesn't mean you don't want to serve short with spin to the forehand, just not a whole lot against me, since I happen to be good against it - and so it's a tactical thing. Others might have trouble against these same short spin serves, which is why it's important to either scout out an opponent in advance, or test him out early in the match to see what works. (Most players won't flip aggressively against a short backspin ball to the forehand - it just happens to be a strength of mine. Many players have trouble receiving short balls with the forehand in general, and are grateful when opponents don't take advantage of this.)

When the game resumed, the student began mixing in short no-spin serves to my forehand, and long serves to my backhand, one of the most standard serving patterns. Since I was forced to watch for the short serve to the forehand, I had to receive many of his long serves with my backhand - and I don't have a particularly good backhand loop, so those receives were relatively weak. If he'd given up on the short serve to the forehand, I wouldn't have had to watch for it, and so I'd have been able to loop all the long serves to my backhand with my forehand, and I'd have dominated the points. Also, before I had made up for the weaker backhand receives by punishing him with the forehand flips, but now most of my returns were relatively soft, and he often turned me into a pretzel as I tried (usually unsuccessfully) to forehand loop the deep serves to the backhand while still covering the short ones to the forehand. So I was soft against the short serves to the forehand, and against the deep ones to the backhand I was either soft with the backhand or erratic with the forehand. Tactically, he had figured me out, taking away my strengths while playing into my weaknesses. I began to regret teaching him tactics!

Lots of Tournaments

If you are looking for a tournament, see the USATT Tournament Page. From there you can see a listing by date, or refine the search and search by state, region, date, and/or star level.

Constant competition is one of the keys to improving. Knowing how to prepare for a tournament is important or all that practice is wasted. Here are four articles on these and related topics.

We have two local tournaments coming up, and two semi-local large ones.

  • MDTTC Open: This Saturday, March 14, is the MDTTC March Open here in Gaithersburg, Maryland, run by Charlene Liu, with seven events: Open, U2300, U2000, U1700, U1300, Under 16, and Over 50. I'll be there, off in a corner doing private coaching from 12:30-4:00PM, and perhaps coaching students in matches during the tournament.
  • Smashtt RR: The new Smashtt club in Sterling, Virginia, is holding its first tournament on Sunday, March 22, a big round robin event, run by club owner, coach, and referee Michael Levene. Here's the entry form and info page. Michael wrote, "Accepting scanned entries with PayPal payment to michael@smashtt.com if people don’t want to go through regular US mail services."
  • Butterfly Cary Cup: That same weekend many local players will be traveling down to Cary, NC, for the $21,000 Butterfly Cary Cup, March 20-22. I may be going down to coach - not sure yet.
  • Westchester March Open: The following weekend, March 28-29, is the Westchester March Open at the Westchester Club in New York. They run monthly 4-star tournaments - you should give them a try! (You'll even get to meet owner Will Shortz - see "11 Questions" article below.)

Tactical Training for Table Tennis

Here's the new coaching article from Expert Table Tennis. (There's even a mention of my book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers!) He also has a free ebook, The Table Tennis Playbook.

Ask the Coach

  • Episode #92 (23:15) - How to Serve Short (and other segments)
  • Episode #93 (20:05) - Playing on Auto Pilot (and other segments)

USATT Athletes of the Month

Here's the USATT article. For February they are Ishana Deb, who won the bronze medal in Under 15 at the Swedish Junior & Cadet Open, and Kanak Jha, who won the Cadet and Under 16 titles.

11 Questions with Will Shortz

Here's the USATT article that features the famed New York Times Crossword Puzzle Editor and owner (and player) of the Westchester Table Tennis Center.

Samsonov on Ball Quality and ITTF Penalties

Here are two new articles on issues being addressed by ITTF Athlete's Commission Chair Vladimir Samsonov.

Zongqi Zhong takes Under 2500 Title; Tiffany Ke Surprise Under 2200 Semi-Finalist

Here's another article from Barbara Wei on the $12,000 Arnold Challenge tournament held this past weekend.

Public and Private Schools Come Together at NCTTA Northeast Regional Championships

Here's the USATT article.

West Region of NCTTA Converges for Regional Championships

Here's the USATT article.

Anything to Win the Point

Here's video (21 sec) of a crazy point where Oscar Perman of Sweden does pretty much everything to win a point, including changing hands, some crazy fishing, what appears to be a two-handed backhand, and a running backhand loop kill.

Amazing Table Tennis Features Marcos Freitas

Here's a new highlights video (2:22) that features the best rallies of world #9 Marcos Freitas of Portugal.

Table Tennis Joy

Here's a new highlights video (4:55).

Tom Hanks Plays Table Tennis in Music Video

Here's video (2:38) of a new Carly Rae Jepsen music video, "I Really Like You." At 58 seconds in, someone hands Hanks a ping-pong paddle, which he autographs, smacks a ball with it, and then poses for a selfie with them. Hanks, of course, also played a little pong in a little movie called Forrest Gump.

Blow Ball?

Here's video (3:04) of some German show where Belgium's table tennis great Jean-Michel Saive (on left) and someone else battle to see who can blow the ball past the other! The actual game begins about 65 seconds in. I've introduced this very game to the kids in my beginning class many years ago. Saive recently won the ITTF Legends Tour event in Halmstad, Sweden.

Calvin Shows You What to Do with those Broken Ping-Pong Balls

Some have noted that many of the new 40+ poly balls break more easily than celluloid balls, and that when they break, they often break cleanly into two sides. Well, Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes shows you what you can do with these halves!

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