Different Plans and the Recovery Position

Hi Larry,

In your amazing book "Table tennis tactics for thinkers" I read that it is beneficial to be able to have different tactics for games, i.e. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. I can loop both with backhand and forehand, but my backhand open-up against backspin is weaker. So my Plan A is to use forehand loop whenever possible, and use backhand loop for recieve and when caught off-guard. The Plan B is to play forehand from the forehand side, and backhand from the backhand side. I have two questions:

1) What is the best recovery position after the serve for Plan A and for Plan B? Should they be the same?
2) How to practice these two plans with the best efficiency? Should I spend, say, a few weeks strengthening the Plan A, and then a few weeks on Plan B? Or it is better to interleave the practice? I play 4-5 times per week for 2-2.5 hours for each session.

Hi Ilia,

First remember that favoring your forehand is the right thing to do tactically. Strategically, even if you always favor your forehand, you should make sure to strengthen the backhand! This is such a good question I'm going to use it in my blog tomorrow. I'll post it both there and here. Check back around 10AM tomorrow!