Looping a sidespin ball

It's definitely not easy. What I have found is that the returns or loops that work involve some kind of sidespin or sideways motion if you take the ball early. If you take the ball late, the spin has usually dissipated and you have more time and table space so you can overpower the spin.

For example, if someone banana flicks the ball or a lefty hook loops the ball to the middle of the table (giving you pendulum type sidespin on a loop), I open my paddle slightly and fade with forehand (move paddle to the left). So I continue the spin and give them a sidespin ball back that they have to know how to deal with (which in my limited experience, is rarely possible). Most people who so this expect the point to end and have no real idea what to do when the ball comes back.

I can also stop the spin by contacting the side of the ball and then push the ball forward to block, but that return in my experience is more familiar to lefty loopers.

So the bottom line is that taking the ball early and aggressively needs you to contact the ball in some way on the side and the either atop or continue the spin, whichever you prefer. Point your racket upwards for fade, downwards for hook and return the ball. Hope that helps.

Edited by NextLevel - 11/18/2014 at 2:29am

First of all,Identify the spin.If this is achieved,you will make the task of returning much easier.

mjamja wrote: Larry Hodges has often discussed the tendency of the playing hand to be raised up as we reach out to get to a ball breaking away from our body.  Such a higher starting position often results in hitting the ball into the net.  Concentrate on keeping the hand down even as you move to your right to get to the ball.  Also if the spin is almost all side-spin, then you have to correct the stroke.  Use less blade closure and/or swing more vertically than you would for a mostly topspin ball with some side-spin.

My answer is only : improve your footwork as much as possible then you have 2 possibilities  to play that kind of ball :

AlexZ wrote: larrytt wrote: mjamja wrote: Larry Hodges has often discussed the tendency of the playing hand to be raised up as we reach out to get to a ball breaking away from our body.  Such a higher starting position often results in hitting the ball into the net.  Concentrate on keeping the hand down even as you move to your right to get to the ball.  Also if the spin is almost all side-spin, then you have to correct the stroke.  Use less blade closure and/or swing more vertically than you would for a mostly topspin ball with some side-spin.   <span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span> Actually, what I've written is that when a ball unexpectedly breaks away from you (in particular a big-breaking sidespin serve, such as a tomahawk serve to the forehand between two righties), the tendency is to reach out and lower the racket. This results in lowering the racket from what was likely the right height to a too-low position, and so players then lift too much, and so go off the end. Also, of course, the very act of reaching for the ball at the last second (i.e. lunging) leads to a loss of control, and while this usually leads to going off the end, it can also lead to going into the net.  -Larry Hodges Yes, this is what happens to me most of the time -- the ball breaks to my far forehand, surprising me and thus causing me to reach out and lower my racquet. The end result is that I lift the ball too much.

AlexZ wrote: Hi Larry: Thanks for the tip (I followed your link)! However, I have a question: Say I want to loop against the side spin ball that's breaking away from me (to my wide forehand), and I want to loop it cross court, the incoming ball is actually a top spin (relative to my paddle), am I right? You wrote backspin (to over-power the backspin). And I would have to close the paddle more (since it is a top spin relative to the paddle).

Let's say you are a right handed player and you are playing against a left handed player and he does a side UNDERSPIN serve it would courve into your forehand and out then you need to aim at the middle when you want to top spin it for the other one I know a lot of guys who make this tamahawk kind of serve and the are right handed.when thee serve that serve into my backhand which would courve into middle I just run around my backhand and spin that ball down the line but i actually don't know how I think I just antissipate where it lands and then I take the ball rely but you can also wait and take the ball a little bit later and them you can control the spin easy.for short serves the reverse pendulum is actually very easy to flip with backhand ashen a right handed player does it just flip it