Why good serves and steadiness go together

Many players believe that good serves and an attacking game go together. It makes sense - the good serves set up the attacking game. But I'd argue that good serves work even better if you have a control game. Why is this?

Suppose your good serves set you up to attack effectively against your peers two-thirds of the time. Then one-third of the time when you serve you are stuck not opening with a strong attack. On the other guy's serve you are also forced to start the rally playing more control as you look for a ball to attack. This means that you are starting out about one-third of the time using your strong attack, and stuck on the rest of the points. (Yes, you could attack the serve, but if the opponent is a peer, you shouldn't be able to attack his serve that strongly.)

Now let's suppose you have a control game. Even if you are a control player, those good serves are going to set you up for some easy putaways. Let's suppose you can do this one-third of the time when you serve. Plus you are able to play control on the other guy's serve 100% of the time. Result? You get to serve and attack easy balls one-sixth of the time, and play your control game the rest of the way. With the free spot from the good serves that set you up for some easy points, you should be able to win with control the rest of the way, if that's your game. (Plus the good serves will set the control player up to attack more and more, and so he'll develop his attack.) 

This doesn't mean everyone should become a control player. It means everyone should develop both control and attack. When people watch top players, they see the obvious attacking ability, but not as many notice how much ball control they have.

MDTTC webpage

On the Talent vs. Training Debate....

After 10,000 hours of systematic training with the world's best coaches, this lizard has learned how to nail its prey.

Now, before you jump to a conclusion on what I believe based on my lizard example, let me be clear: I consider innate talent to be at most just a small aspect of what it takes to be a great player. Early on, talent helps tremendously, but as you move up the spectrum, hard work, coaching, and a good training environment pay off far more. (Also, it doesn't help to talk to students about talent, since they have no control over it. Those who don't believe in talent probably have an advantage over others as they aren't held back by doubts about their own innate "talent.")

But to argue absolutely that we all start with the exact same brain hardware simply isn't true. The brain is a complex organ that's evolved many built-in areas of specialization - spatial skills, verbal areas, facial recognition areas, etc., and as noted above, a lizard's innate ability to nail its prey with its tongue from a distance. Some aspects of these skills are likely helpful in table tennis. Just as there are variations in the rest of the body, there are variations in these areas of the brain because of the variations in the DNA. Why would people be born with so many variations in their bodies, but identical brains? They are both created from varying DNA, and so have varied development of the specialized parts of the brain. (Even Matthew Syed in his book "Bounce" didn't conclude there was no such thing as talent - he simply minimized its importance.) 

Tip of the Week

Moving Players In and Out.

Topspin

I'm often amazed at how the world of table tennis is divided between two types: those who use the full power of topspin in their games, and those who don't. This doesn't mean looping every ball, but it does mean using topspin to control your offensive shots and often your defensive ones as well. Even when doing simple forehands or backhands a little topspin goes a long way. I know; I sometimes hit the ball too flat and pay the price.

It's actually very simple. Topspin pulls the ball down. This means balls that would go off the end instead curve down and hit the table. It's like having an additional couple of feet of table to aim for. The best way of demonstrating it is to drop a ball near the end line, and hit it as it reaches table level. Try smashing flat, and watch it go off. Then smash with a little topspin, and watch as it occasionally hits the far side, but only barely. Then loop kill it, and watch how it often hits the table with two feet to spare. (Of course, you have to be able to do these shots at a relatively high level to do the above - but if you can't, then get some top player to demonstrate, or just trust me.)

When attacking, you don't have the entire 4.5 feet of the far side of the table to aim for. On many shots, if you don't use topspin, you might only have the last few inches to aim for. With topspin, the size of your target goes up tremendously.

And we haven't even gotten into how topspin makes it easier to return hard-hit balls (again, larger target), or how the topspin jumps both on the table and off the opponent's racket, making it harder for them to make good returns. There's a place for all types of spin in table tennis, but from the intermediate to the advanced levels, topspin is king.

Developing a smash

At the highest levels, many top players don't even bother to smash - even if the ball is eye-level high, they loop. However, for most players, a smash is a must. Here are some keys to developing a good smash, forehand or backhand.

First, get some coaching or watch the top players. Here's a tutorial from PingSkills (3:58) on the forehand smash, and here's Tahl Leibovitz demonstrating the backhand smash (1:35). It's still best to work with a coach who can figure out and fix any flaws in your technique.

Second, practice. Here are two of the best smashing drills.

Over- and Under-Playing

Both Over- and Under-playing are scourges of match play. I'm not sure which happens often. I'm guessing most would say they lose more often from under-playing down to a "weaker" opponent, but I’m not so sure. Players often lose by over-playing, but don't realize it.

Under-playing means you play down to the level of your "weaker" opponent. It usually means that you hold back on your stronger aggressive shots, playing a safer, passive game that allows the opponent to take control and often win. It's a quick way to blow a rating or ranking.

Over-playing means you try to play at a level that's not only beyond your normal capacity, but beyond what is needed to win. For example, I'll often play lower-rated players who feel that to beat me they have to blast winners on every shot. It makes winning rather easy. (On the other hand, it's a far scarier opponent who attacks consistently, forcing a stronger opponent to choose between risky counter-attacks or playing steady and giving the opponent more chances to find the right ball to blast for a winner.) However, players do this against both stronger and weaker players, going for winners on the first shot when a steadier attack would set up an easier winner. You don't want to play down to a weaker player, but you also don't want to play so risky that you are giving away points and risking losing. It's a judgment call.

For an attacking player, it's best to develop a strong core to your game, with attacking shots you can depend on. For example, develop an opening loop against backspin that you know you can do over and over, rather than one where you can win the point with one shot, but only if you are playing well. (You won't always be playing well, and key to playing at a higher level is winning even when you are not at your best.)

Banana Receives

Perhaps the biggest change at the higher levels in table tennis in recent years is the advent of the backhand "banana" receive. This is the nickname used for a backhand topspin flip of a serve, essentially a mini-loop, with the name referring to the curve the racket goes through with the stroke. It's done against any type of spin, but it's against short backspin that it is most effective. Some do it with straight topspin; most can add sidespin. It's much easier to do this type of shot on the backhand than the forehand, where the wrist is more locked, and so more and more players are covering more and more of the table with this backhand shot. At the U.S. Olympic and World Team Trials this past weekend (Feb. 9-12), it was the receive of choice of nearly every player.

Some players used it nearly every receive they could. Others mixed it up with short pushes. The ones who didn't use it much were thought of as "old school," while all the younger players used the banana flip over and over.

From a server's point of view, it complicates things. If you serve short to a corner, you give the opponent a wide angle. So most short serves go toward the middle of the table, which is easy for the receiver to banana receive. (If you serve long, then it usually gets looped much harder, so that's only done at the higher levels as a surprise variation.) This means most rallies start with the receiver getting in at least a mini-loop. About the only way to avoid this is to serve very wide to the forehand. The problem here is that the receiver then has a wide angle into the server's wide forehand, and since he has to cover that, the server is open to a simple down-the-line receive to the backhand. (This is for two righties; lefties would reverse all this.)

Tip of the Week

Those Dizzying No-Spin Serves.

Happy Valentines Day!

Here's your Ping-Pong Champion Valentine!

Results for U.S. Olympic and World Team Trials

Here are the Final Twelve results for Men and Women. (The top ten men and women were seeded into the Final Twelve, with a Qualifier held for the final two spots in each. Here's the Men's Qualifier and the Women's Qualifier.) The top four made the U.S. National Team and advance to the North American Olympic Trials in Cary, NC, April 20-22, where they will compete against the top four Canadians for the three available spots each for men and women. Making the team and advancing were:

Men: Michael Landers, Barney Reed, Adam Hugh, Timothy Wang
Women: Gao Jun, Ariel Hsing, Lily Zhang, Erica Wu

U.S. Olympic Trials News

Here's a rundown of my four days at the Trials, where I coached John Hsu in the Qualifier and Han Xiao in the Final Twelve.

Blog Returns Tomorrow

Due to getting in late last night, and a nearly continuous headache since Friday (the causes of which I'll blog about), I'm going to go back to bed and start blogging again tomorrow, including the Tip of the Week. I'll have lots of tidbits from the USA Olympic Trials. Meanwhile, here's an article in today's USA Today on the Trials. 

NO BLOG ON THURSDAY & FRIDAY

I'm off this morning to coach at the U.S. Olympic Trials (Cary, NC, Feb. 9-12), so no blog entries the next two days. See you all again on Monday - hopefully with lots of news from the Trials!

U.S. Olympic Trials Live Streaming and Schedule

Yes, you can watch the U.S. Olympic Trials live! They are care of NBC Universal Sports Live Feeds. (Trials are Feb. 9-12, Thur-Sun, in Cary, NC.)

Here is the basic format of the Trials. For both men and women, the top ten seeded players are seeded to the Top Twelve. The rest play a qualifier on Thursday, Feb. 9, for the final two spots. On the men's side, 32 players (13 of them rated over 2400, led by Jeff Huang and Dan Seemiller at 2504 and 2494) will play single elimination to the final two, who will advance to the Top Twelve. On the women's side, there are only three in the qualifier, so they will play a rather short round robin to see which two advance to the Top Twelve. (See player listing below to see who the players are in the Qualifiers.)

The players in the Top Twelve then play a complete round robin, eleven matches each, four on Friday, four on Saturday, and three on Sunday. All matches are best 4 out of 7.

Seven-year-old looper

He's been playing only about six weeks. Last week he learned to loop for the first time. Normally I start players looping against backspin with multiball, but he'd seen others looping against block and wanted to try it, so we started with that. Apparently he practiced it all week. Yesterday he showed up, and he's looping against my block like a pro! He lets the ball drop very low, since he's very short, but he was getting very good spin with textbook technique. Wow. Can't wait to see how he develops.

You may remember this kid - he's the one I blogged about last week, on Jan. 31. Here's what I wrote: "A third kid, age seven, has the weird habit of hitting until the ball is high. Then he'll wait for it to drop, and loop it! He has loop written all over him, and will probably be looping everything soon. The interesting thing here is that at age seven, he already knows all the best players in the world, and likes to mimic them. Yesterday he was showing off his 'Ma Lin backhands,' mimicking both Ma's conventional and reverse penhold backhands, though he's a shakehander. He also tried to mimic Timo Boll's loop - needs work." Okay, now he has the Timo Boll loop down cold.

This is how many Europeans coaches teach kids - starting them off early looping against the block, where the kid lets the ball drop down to his level, so contact is below table level. This kid's going to be counterlooping in another month.

Next week I'm going to spend a good portion of the session split between looping against block and looping against backspin, using multiball for the latter. When he's ready I'll get out my hardbat chopping blade and have him loop against my chop.

U.S. Olympic Trials