By Larry Hodges

Have you ever had one of those matches where your opponent clobbered every ball past you? Where you spent more time chasing balls than actually hitting? Where you got a bad back just from bending over to pick them up? If you won the match, you probably didn't mind; there's nothing you can do about an opponent who clobbers (and misses) every shot.

Unfortunately, every now and then you meet a player who clobbers ball after ball, and they keep hitting! This type of player also goes by the name 'National Champion' or 'U.S. Team Member' or even 'World Champion'. There's not much you can do when you play them.

By Larry Hodges

There is nothing more infuriating than losing to a patient chopper who lets you beat yourself with your own errors. Losing to a chopper is like four-putting in golf; you may have made some good drives to get to the green, but all you remember are the misses at the end. Rather than four-putting forever, let’s learn how to beat the chopper.

A chopper is weakest in the middle, and that is where you should focus most of your attack. However, you have more table (and so more margin for error) by going diagonally to a corner. Going for a winner down the line often catches the chopper by surprise. A chopper who is not particularly fast is vulnerable at the corners, especially if you aim one way and then go the other; a chopper with inverted on both sides is more vulnerable in the middle. Keep these “basics” in mind when playing any of the following styles.

There are four general ways of playing a chopper. Informally they are called European style, Asian style, Pick-hitting, and Chiseling. While you should favor one of these styles, feel free to combine them in developing your own style against choppers.

In all four cases, focus on attacking the middle, the weakest spot for nearly all choppers. This is imperative when playing choppers. 

By Larry Hodges

Since the forehand is almost always stronger than the backhand, it is very important to be able to use the forehand out of the backhand corner. An inability to do so, will limit the overall strength of your game.

Stepping around the backhand involves four parts: (1) Setting up the shot, (2) assessing whether to step around or not, (3) the footwork itself, and (4) the shot itself.

By Larry Hodges

In modern table tennis, the forehand is usually the more powerful shot – the point winner. But as rallies get faster and fast, the backhand counter becomes more and more important. If you don’t have a good backhand, you’re at a big disadvantage. At tournaments, in match after match, I find opponents who don’t know how to score with their backhands. Even worse, they don’t know how to stop their opponents from scoring with theirs.

By Larry Hodges

By Larry Hodges

By Larry Hodges

In 1967, Nobuhiko Hasegawa shocked the table tennis world by not only winning the World Championships, but by using the lob as a primary weapon in doing so. Since then, the lob has become the most spectacular shot in table tennis for both players and fans. It has also become one of the least understood shots in the game.

By Larry Hodges

Table tennis is supposed to be fun. And nothing (except perhaps lobbing) is as fun as counterlooping. There is something magical about throwing yourself into the ball from off the table and arcing the ball back on the table with topspin. If you haven’t counterlooped, you’ve missed out on quite a lot--but you have a lot to look forward to. Unlike lobbing, however, counterlooping is an important part of most top player’s games, and if you’re a serious player, you need to learn how to do it.

By Larry Hodges

The most basic and common third-ball attack in table tennis is to serve short backspin, and loop the receiver’s push return. Many players find it very difficult to stop this pattern when receiving, and end up losing match after match to this one tactic.
The next time you face this tactic, try one of the following:

By Larry Hodges

Many players practice looping against both backspin and topspin, against blocks, pushes, chops and loops, even against (!) lobs. However, once they get into a game, they find all this practice to no avail as they loop serve after serve off the end or into the net.
The problem is they are not used to looping against a sidespin serve. There are two things to be considered when doing so.