ttEDGE - William wrote:  dropping the wrist doesn't necessarily mean your racket pointing downwards. Put your forearm and hand in front of you and horizontal to the ground. Then angle your wrist backwards towards yourself 45 degrees and downwards 45 degrees. I would call this dropping the wrist.

Thanks a lot for clearing this up, and happy birthday!

mikepong wrote: can i ask why you switch to calibra on FH?  s2 on BH is also very good and yes vega pro has high arc throw i actually like it but its not as durable as T05

I switched to calibra on fh from vega pro 3 days ago (all videos are with calibra lt on fh), because with vega pro some players could return my loops too easily. With VPro I would end up making a swing too wide so I would lose balance and could not recover in time. Not so with Calibra LT: In particular in the second video in my signature, Levon finally could not block my fh loops so easily, and said I have improved (he says it is not the rubber but it's me, but I know it's the rubber).

Same problem with backhand: as you see in the videos (all videos are with vega pro backhand), my loop was spinny but not fast enough, so in order to kill I ended up swinging too wide and missing. Not so with Acuda S2: today my bh with S2 had much more penetration than you see in the video.


Edited by seguso - 02/23/2012 at 5:48pm

mikepong wrote: i actually like your BH, you hare a good high arc which i have no doubt has lots of spin,

BTW, the bh arc is due to vega pro. Today I played with Acuda s2 and it is much lower and straighter. But faster, which helps against very good players such as Levon. The spinny opener does little to them. I think I'll switch to acuda or calibra for bh too.


Edited by seguso - 02/23/2012 at 5:16pm

xander7803 wrote: he's movements look good! is he top 100 in italy?

yes, the guy in red is easily in the top 100 in Italy, climbing very fast. He is almost 17 years old. His service, receive, footwork and fh counterloop are his strong points. The other guy is his father, now 60 years old, formerly in the top 200 in the world.


Edited by seguso - 02/23/2012 at 4:51pm

he's movements look good! is he top 100 in italy?

Here is another clip from side view:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IIBhSl09bw

here you can see:

backhand counterloop: 0:41  1:06    1:14-1:18  1:42  1:49  2:56  3:02  3:44 (@Imago and bluebucket: is this what you mean? )

backhand flip: 0:16   0:36   1:27

short game fh: 2:50

Edited by seguso - 02/23/2012 at 6:57am

I am trying to understand what you mean by wrist dropped.

Edited by Imago - 02/23/2012 at 4:29am

racquetsforsale wrote: Seguso,   Is there someone you can play with who can return short and low or with heavy underspin, both with good placement?

Yeah, the guy in the first video, the one in the top 100. When he does, I usually lose. I can backhand-sidespin-flip over the table, but when the ball is short and underspin on the forehand I am in trouble because my short game is weak.

seguso wrote: Hi, I put a video online of me playing:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wgm37596fA&feature=youtu.be I am in blue shirt. My partner (red shirt) is easily in the top 100 players in Italy. Here he is only doing push and block, not playing for real. We are serving underspin only. What usatt rating do you think I'd have? Here's another one:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZVvTapZOkg&feature=youtu.be This is a warmup against a long-pips player, but he is not using pips here (the camera batteries expired :) ). I'll put other videos against a short-pips player and a looper when I have time.

Beside your BH/FH strokes, your timing is really good too.  I would say that you are between 1900 to 2000.

you should also bend your knees a bit when you are playing! your fh stroke is good but you stop your motion past middle of stroke. if you would commit all the way to the end your fh topspin would be spinnier and more devastating!!! your bh is pretty good but again you are too stiff on your feet! again if you lower your stance a tiny bit your bh will also improve. also try to cover and guide your bh shot with your wrist. i hope i make sense to you my man! overall my hat off to you for playing only for a year!!! i know players who play for 15 yrs and they are not even close to your level!!! as for rating? i put you at 2000CDN...

roundrobin wrote: seguso wrote: Here is another clip http://youtu.be/RfMdRP9d1i0 but this one is edited to only show rallies, as there were lots of mistakes (because my opponent could not stand the pace so he was playing a "kill or miss" strategy, making the game unwatchable).   Based on this video I would rate you 1750-1800.

sound about right

seguso wrote: Here is another clip http://youtu.be/RfMdRP9d1i0 but this one is edited to only show rallies, as there were lots of mistakes (because my opponent could not stand the pace so he was playing a "kill or miss" strategy, making the game unwatchable).

seguso wrote:   I appreciate your help. I am trying to understand what you mean by wrist dropped. In Henzell's video, I do see that the hand starts below the table, and moves upwards, but at the same time I do not see the wrist dropped, i.e. I don't see the blade tip pointing down. I see the blade brushing the ball from above. I'll have another look though. At first I thought you were describing Schlager's backhand. That one seems to me to fit your description more: he starts with the wrist dropped (blade rather open) and then he rotates and closes the blade during the shot. Anyway, I need to learn backhand loop against block, that's for sure.

Edited by bluebucket - 02/22/2012 at 12:16pm

bluebucket wrote: I always watch the things going on in the background or balls on the ground to see how much editing has been done, there was only minimal editing in this.  Seguso, what I meant with your backhand was that you don't start the stroke with the blade pointing back and down, sometimes it's level rather than up.  What happens when you are starting the stroke with the blade up is that you are almost committed to blocking the ball straight or hitting a backhand without much spin and for that matter not much speed since you can't involve your wrist. When you start the stroke with the wrist dropped you can hit either side of the ball for a natural curve into the right hander or fade it away from him or you can block or punch, you can choose between all these in a fraction of a second depending on what the opponent is doing. It's a big advantage compared to what you are doing now so please take the advice :), you'll notice a lot less balls from your backhand flying long because they will have a lot heavier spin on them too edit: this video has been posted 100 times before but it will give you an idea of what I'm talking about compared to your stroke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3inKrRCDiCY Henzell is using T05 on the backhand so no excuses about Vega pro being high throw

I appreciate your help. I am trying to understand what you mean by wrist dropped. In Henzell's video, I do see that the hand starts below the table, and moves upwards, but at the same time I do not see the wrist dropped, i.e. I don't see the blade tip pointing down. I see the blade brushing the ball from above. I'll have another look though.

At first I thought you were describing Schlager's backhand. That one seems to me to fit your description more: he starts with the wrist dropped (blade rather open) and then he rotates and closes the blade during the shot.

Anyway, I need to learn backhand loop against block, that's for sure.

Here is another clip

http://youtu.be/RfMdRP9d1i0

but this one is edited to only show rallies, as there were lots of mistakes (because my opponent could not stand the pace so he was playing a "kill or miss" strategy, making the game unwatchable).