Playing a chopper

Here are the details:

Handling defensive player (chopper):

1. With a chopper the goal is to serve short and then do strong attack.
2. Choppers are most vulnerable in the middle. When you serve short and attack at corners chopper can take long strides to reach it but in the middle he can not move fast and is forced to take it early by chopping or blocking.
3. Sometimes change the strategy and fake attack and push it.
4. Other way to handle, push short on backhand, attack deep into forehand or
5.  Push short on forehand and then attack deep into backhand. Changing sides to defend on strong attack is very difficult especially when you push on forehand and attack deep on backhand. The shoulder blades hinder the chopper from stretching beyond a point making return difficult or impossible.
6. If a chopper is successful in chopping the strong attack, push short and start again. His chop in short push will be weaker then his chop on your strong topspin. He has to rush to get the short push and would be in a motion to go near the table, your attack at that point would be more effective.
7. If he has long pips then attacking soft topspins to find a loose ball to hit harder is effective too. With long pips the spin return is as strong as the spin you send to him.
8. Varying spin from no spin to very spinny balls is crucial to keep the variations. But, when you do heavy spin, expect a heavy chop back and the vice versa.
9. Consistent heavy spin topspins are not good as this allows chopper to do consistent heavy chops making you erratic.
10. Not letting the chopper build the rhythm is crucial.
11. Sometimes pushing twice to one side and top spinning to the other side is effective. By pushing twice to one side you are setting him up to build one side memory and then making him change to opposite side.
12. When top spinning get your eye level close to the ball that way you can watch the ball better, bend your knees and lift. This will make it more consistent.
13. Lastly, if you can not topspin enough, you could at lower and medium level chop back and wait for loose ball to attack.

hohenadel wrote: I play regularly against a person who is a chopper. Almost nothing but backhand chops and some forehand chops.  I have a very very hard time playing against this person. I can usually pull out a win but it is quite difficult. I see it to be much harder to play against than a regular topspin loop. Can someone give me some information or some tips on how to play against a chopper like this??? Thanks.

Hi hohenadel,

I've got some info that might help with your tactics at

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jsgletts/tabletennis/articles/mptAttackervsDefender.html

Have a look and see what you think.

Greg

go to this link:

http://www.masatenisi.org/english/kesmeci.htm

good article on how to play choppers, and the different styles of choppers about.

I just atack aggressively whit the strongest forehand loop that I can produse(something that Kreanga's style)

 Sunny, that was a very detailed description about how to play a chopper! Good stuff.    Choppers can be really annoying, because they force you to adjust your game, sometimes drastically, in order to play them.  A blocker or counter-player cannot continue his style against a reasonably good chopper( 1800+) and hope to succeed. You have to do other things: push, roll, loop, chop back, play down the middle more etc.   Irritating as they are, I realise deep down that their game has more skill than my game does!  One day, I'll find the right mix to play them successfully.