Returning Low Spinny Serves to Extreme Backhand

BizLawProf wrote: Fascinating.  So improvements sometimes come in sudden leaps forward?  How does this happen all at once?  What's going on?I've

I've found that this is often the case with improvements in TT. I think it is when you learn some new strokes, without any major improvement in your level, then all of a sudden you are able to connect the new strokes to your current game, thus making it feel like a sudden jump in level.

Still remember how disappointed I was when I learnt to loop back backspin balls and my results didn't improve, as I was certain that once I learned that, I would become a lot better. Then, suddenly, this loop got connected to the rest of my game, and I learnt to handle the return of the loop as well, that's when my results improved and people started complimenting me on my improvements. It was a long process, but the results didn't show until I had learnt it all.

BizLawProf wrote: NextLevel wrote: I agree with you that higher quality push would likely help.  But what I don't get is how his opponent is so easily able to loop a push if the initial backspin is that heavy.  MY guess is that when OP learns how to handle this play, he will realize that what he thinks is going on is not quite what is going on. Maybe I'm not putting enough backspin on push.  Tell me here, should I be touching the ball, with racket facing up, to push, or should I be sliding racket under the ball, or should I be going at it in more of a chopping motion?

Edited by NextLevel - 01/22/2013 at 5:54pm

By the way, it may seem like your friend is WAY ahead but he's really not.  It sounds like he is really hammering you with this one, so keep in mind that once you "crack" this shot he will be lost.  

dabookerman wrote: By the way, it may seem like your friend is WAY ahead but he's really not.  It sounds like he is really hammering you with this one, so keep in mind that once you "crack" this shot he will be lost.

I hope so, this is getting old!  He beat me like a drum last night. Used that 3^rd ball attack repeatedly, beat me straight sets, I never got more than 8 pts!  He has now won 9 straight matches against me.  RRRGGHH!  I need to learn how to loop long serves and push short serves better!

I notice that better players when returning short serves are consistently "on" the serve very quickly when pushing. They either push right off the bounce or at the apex of the bounce at the latest. Their preparation always looks the same but from there they can vary the length and direction of their push. On this foundation, they can also throw in their flips --- reacting and preparing their BH flip so quickly at times, it almost seems like they're waiting for the ball, pausing and measuring it, or feigning a push but then executing a flip at the last instant.

Playing against those players, I always feel like their push returns are often not where I expect them to be and they land at just the right spot with the right speed and bounce low to make it difficult for me to do anything --- too long to flip, too short to loop, and too fast for me to push back with quality.

BizLawProf wrote: yogi_bear wrote: thats what i stated before. learn to do 2nd ball attacks.  I'm going to have to, because that's another thing my playing partner is starting to grasp: how to blast the living daylights out of my loose serves.  If I float them in a little high or in that sweet spot right or left where you're never supposed to bounce a serve, more often than not I'm in the next few seconds turning round to go retrieve the ball he just blew by me. Weird when a playing partner you can beat just suddenly gets it and blows by you by a couple hundred USATT points!

Quick update: I finally seem to have figured some of this out.  I employed a new strategy, tried new things out. We played this weekend a couple matches and while he beat me handily the first match (as I was working on new techniques), I took him to the final set of the second match, playing him heads up all the way, and even led 10-8 and serving for the match in last set (alas, got bad case of service faults and blew it, I think 14-12, guess I was too excited).

What did I change?

1). Some of you suggested 2nd ball attack, I tried it, catching his cross court serves quickly off first bounce for a flick/flip attempt, rather than waiting for them to clear table and looping.  A number of times I was turning tables completely on him, flicking it so fast to his extreme FH that he was caught flat footed. Didn't work every time by any means, but worked enough to make a difference.

2). Worked very hard to keep pushes down, which I did with greater success, in some cases skimming the net with them. He wasn't able to get off that 3rd ball attack for a winner more than once or twice a game (rather than 4 or 5 times a game as he was doing before). Just concentrating on the pushes and going after that occasional fast flick made a big difference, he stopped going to that serve every time against me, it no longer worked with dull regularity.

3). I practiced relaxing. This is maybe the biggest difference.  Like most beginners in a sport (been playing for only about a year a a month), I tense up too much, lunge suddenly at the ball, grab racket in death grip as ball approaches.  The tenseness and spastic lurches were very obvious to me when I saw a video of my game recently. Cringeworthy. So I kept saying to myself "relax, relaaaax", and it started to work, where before I had little feel for the ball, now I could feel it better on racket, before, a hard loop hit my way, even if I got racket on it, would usually go careening off way over table. Last match, I was often able to soften the incoming force by relaxing my grip and control a return. It made about a 3 pt a game difference in play against my main playing partner.

He's taken me 14 straight matches now, but I can feel that now, there will be parity. At least until he learns some new trick and leaps by again!

Bizlaw,

Great work.  Like Mark, I need to work on all these 3 things too, especially the last one - I still grip the racket way too tightly.

In order to repay your partner for the gift of improvement he has given you, maybe you would work on the topsin/underspin serve short to the forehand?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfGEK60t9l8&feature=player_embedded

BizLawProf wrote: Another update: Same result as last time, took him to final game, but lost 18-16. So I think I can safely say that we're pretty much even now--even though he's now taken 15 straight matches off me!  I swear I've jumped in level 100 pts USATT just learning to deal with his newfound abilities.  Though of course, if when I go to my next tournament, I get wiped clean by everyone around my rating and get a huge comeuppance, I won't be the first!

hookumsnivy wrote: NextLevel wrote: Don't worry about your rating when you play tournaments - at your level, so many deficiencies are in your game that you could get wiped out by a player much lower rated just because he is attacking your deficiency and you can't attack his (for example, I have serious service return issues that show up and make me vulnerable to players 200 pts below me if they use the right serve).  So I'm working on them, but I won't take it personally if a player 200 pts below me finds the right serve and beats me with it. I'm guessing it's 1 of these 2 serves: Short top with or without sidespin Fast no spin

NextLevel wrote: Don't worry about your rating when you play tournaments - at your level, so many deficiencies are in your game that you could get wiped out by a player much lower rated just because he is attacking your deficiency and you can't attack his (for example, I have serious service return issues that show up and make me vulnerable to players 200 pts below me if they use the right serve).  So I'm working on them, but I won't take it personally if a player 200 pts below me finds the right serve and beats me with it.

No, I can't take it too personally, sure. I've only been beaten in a tournament one time by someone with lower rating (and that was only 30 pts, and I personally think that guy's underrated by about 200, he's in my club and beats me 4 out of 5 times), but it's not saying much when you're only beating people who are sub-1100, and I have little tournament exp (4 USATT-sanctioned, one meaningless university-wide tourney where no one was > 1400).  I have a ton of deficiencies in my game, I can't hit more than two loops in a row without blowing something, my service isn't very deceptive, no chop at all, block too much with BH, whiff too many loops with FH, tense up and lash out at ball about 1 in 4 shots.  A mess.  So if that person 200 pts below beats me, they probably deserve it.


Edited by BizLawProf - 01/29/2013 at 7:22pm