playing against seemiller grip

ok so I'm definitely quick to say im not the best player in the world. The bulk of players i play with are in the 1600-1800 range. There are outliers.. but the one i have the most trouble playing is the lowest rated player in the club.

Try playing a counterdriving style with him and you might just play into his strength. You will do better to mess HIS timing up by changing spins and speeds. You will have to probe around as not every Seemiller grip player plays the same. Most of them DO have a strong blocking/counterdriving game close to the table and can be consistant, so just hitting it back to them faster usually just results in Your shots being rushed. That is what is frustrating. You could do better against him by upping your service and receive game. Most 1400 USATT players are not so strong there against someone who can serve with changing spinsplacement/deception. If you end up winning all your service points and can control placement on his serve, you take pressure off yourself and have much better shot at the win. You will eventually discover how to setup your offense against him, whether it is a deep light spin shot followed by angled loopdrives or changing the spin on your loops. Hookshot makes a killing from players who want to keep hitting predictable drives from mid-distance. He can block all day and if you dont keep it deep, he has a wide range of angles to use against you, as well as time pressure from taking the ball early.

what is the reason for the 1400 rating? based on the rating, i am assuming you're a US player. there must be weaknesses, unless this person is EXTREMELY underrated. how do other players in your club play this person? i can only tell you how i approach junk players that flip or not. contrary to what my coach demanded many years ago, i discovered another approach that works for me. i serve with as much spin as i can. these must me pure at first. pure chop, pure top, or nothing -- with the same motion out of the same position. once you master these, you can server side chop or side top. but that gets complicated as you need to practice and understand what the ball is going to do and where you and your racket need to be.  once you serve pure chop, and this can be short, medium or long, your opponent will be forced to either put the ball into the net if they use their normal stuff, push it back, giving you a chance to either attack, or gain a positional advantage by place pushing, or use their junk. if they use their junk, disregard all of your instincts and visual cues, and instruct your brain to read top-spin. attack the ball with your racket closed. you need to practice this, but in playing these guys, they will let you do this over and over again, and that is because, at that rating, they believe, they got you.  if you're serving top, disregard all the visual cues, and handle the return with a controlled well placed power lift loop. remember to stay close to the table for this, open up your pocket, and graze up. if they manage to get their junk on it and get it back, stay at the table, and either graze it up, or move to impact, and hit it hard and long to the corner (aim a little off the table). going to the corner gives you more table in case there is a miscalculation. by the way, training this, will give you an insight into how to play against all type of players that reflect spin. good luck.

beeray1, ive also had exp of losing against this seemiller player, lost to him twice in real competition team match.

when i watch my friend played, he beat him and one reason that i saw clealry, was the WIDE angles my friend hit with his fh and bh, to the white line corners. the guy couldnt block enough or covered the corners well.

however, when my mate hit the middle fast topspin, the seemiller grip just blocked it back easily. oh and y friend varied his serves wide to the fh and deep to the bh, and like what the previous posters said, he sorta varied his placement and speed. thats how he won, angles and variation.

define: "tears them [my serves] apart." and also, what then makes you say, "my serves are the strongest part of my game?" at the very least, if all else fails, you should have serves in your arsenal that are so empty and so short, that no one, could do anything with them but push. no one is above the laws of physics. serve with the edge of your racket way off sweet spot. that produces no/very little spin, no matter what the motion is/appears to be. you have to have a very, very, very experienced player on the other side to figure this out if they can even track it (i am not talking about a 1400-1800). although you're told not to handle the surface of the racket, you can clean the racket, but don't clean the edges and even handle the racket by its edges when you lift the racket. and although some players use all sort of creative methodologies to create variance by altering their sheets according to ittf rules that is illegal. however what i am suggesting is perfectly legal. you dont care about the edges because you will not use them, unless intentionally to produce dead balls during servers and lift loops.

I play two seemiller players here, and one of them I beat fairly easily, I win the matches, he wins a game here and there. But its always a good battle and my policy against this on is to keep him moving from forehand to backhand and to keep the pace up. I also serve very deep into his backhand and then go for a quick forehand kill, or, a quick kill back into his forehand when he is moving towards the center of the table.

The other guy who also plays seemiller is a little more difficult to play. Against him I have an ok record, don't lose to him all the time, I win a lot as well, but he wins more than I do. He is more consistent is all, he returns smashes well, and blocks much better.

Again, I feel I win more when I attack more, and when the game is based on variation and placement. I serve deep to his backhand and take it from there.

Keep the serves short, that makes them reach forward and they can pop up a return that you can kill wide to their forehand.

again thanks for the advice everyone.

hi

Well thanks manluski. Good looking out.

I'll still give some of these things a try.. but its definitely in my best interest to play a faster game with better footwork- especially working off the bouce a lot more. I'm also going to pay a little more attention to how other successful guys in my club beat him.

hookshot

sorry hookshot, i use chinese penhold rpb fashioned after wang hao and malin. even danny seemiller will never dream of twiddling if i play against him. i will be too fast for him to even attempt to twiddle. he might serve and then twiddle that is all. not during a rally.

lol Dragon kid wins! I just got my HK though and im definitely more excited than ive ever been about playing.. H3 provincial #21 for the FH. Gorgeous. maybe it will fit my style so much better that I'll just beat him!!

i don't twiddle. i am all out attack/ offensive and save block if i can't counter loop.

Hi fatt,
     Those are good generalations but my forhand is Very strong. Even 2200 players comment about how hard I hit forhands.
     I don't like to push on the forhand but with PK, I can push all day on the backhand. It ignors most spin and has great control.
     The latest shot I have been working on is hitting any backspin push or serve with the PK.  I am using their backspin for my topspin.

you are both totally right. Thank you for the correction.