June 13, 2012

Tactics Case Study

I recently had an interesting practice match with a top player. I'm not going to name the player, so I'll call him "Bob" (not his real name). Bob has a very good backhand, both looping against backspin and hitting against once in the rally. He also has a rather quick off-the-bounce forehand loop, so it can be dangerous going there. His serves are mostly short backspin or no-spin, with deep, spinny serves thrown in as a variation. When he flips short balls with his forehand, they almost always go crosscourt - a weakness I was about to ram an entire match through. He was playing well, and had just defeated two very strong players, while I was not playing very well. But tactics, not playing level, decided this match. Here's what happened.

Early on I could tell when his serve was going long, but I wasn't sure why - there was something different about the way he set up. So whenever he served long, I was ready to loop. (Near the end of the second game I realized it was because he set up for his long serve with his racket farther back and more closed. I pointed this out to him after the match.) Because I was looping his deep serves so well, he had to serve short over and over. This allowed me to drop them almost all short, often faking to the backhand and then dropping it short to his forehand. He mostly pushed these or predictably flipped them crosscourt to my forehand. In both cases, I took the attack. So throughout the match I was the aggressor on his serve.

On my serve, I gave him a steady diet of varying serves short to his forehand, occasionally to the middle. I used forehand pendulum and reverse pendulum serves from the backhand side (and occasionally, to mess him up, from the forehand side), and tomahawk serves from the middle and forehand side. This allowed me to throw both types of sidespin at him, mixed with varying backspin and topspin, as well as "heavy no-spin" serves, where I fake spin but serve a dead ball. Since his returns were either passive, or aggressive right into my forehand, I was able to attack.

When I attacked, I almost always went after his wide forehand and middle. Sometimes I'd aim at his forehand and at the last second go to his wide backhand. With his forehand he'd usually try to counterloop, but since I was getting the first attack over and over it wore him down. I could tell by the way he set up if he was ready for the longer, more aggressive loop since he'd be a step farther off the table, so when he did that I'd try to loop very short and spinny, which completely threw him off. If he stayed too close to the table, then my loops were aggressive and deep, and again his counterloop would be erratic. Any loops that landed in between he'd counter-loop away off the bounce, so depth control was key. If he did make the counterloop, he was usually vulnerable to a quick block at wide angles or to his middle. Since I knew he was going to mostly counterloop, I didn't even attempt to follow my first loop to his forehand with another; I'd set up to quick-block, which often set me up for another attack.

Another key was that when he attacked my forehand, he'd set up to counterloop my expected loop to his forehand. So often I'd get free points by looping down the line to his open backhand side.

I won the match three straight. The keys to the match? His backhand loop against backspin is very good, but he got exactly zero chances to backhand loop against backspin. Not even one. His backhand counter-hitting is very strong, and we had exactly three backhand exchanges during the match. Other than a few points on his serve where I decided to very things by chopping (yes, I do that!) he had exactly zero chances to serve and loop against a deep push. Over and over I played into that little weakness where he was unable to forehand flip down the line. I fought the temptation to vary things in a way that would allow him to get his strengths into play.

Obviously players with different styles and levels have to use tactics that are relevant to their style and level. For example I wouldn't coach a beginning-intermediate player in an important match to vary the depth of his loop - he doesn't have the depth control yet, and trying to vary the depth would just lead to his own misses. But the key is to find ways to use your strengths against the opponent's weaknesses. In the above, I focused on Bob's telegraphing of his long serve, his inability to flip down the line effectively, and his sometimes erratic forehand counterloop against varying incoming loops. I used my own strengths - ability to loop balls when I can anticipate chances to do so (against the deep serves and crosscourt flips to my forehand), varying the depth on my loop, short push control when I can anticipate a short serve (and so didn't have to guard against a deep serve), my varying short serves to his forehand, and the ability to quick-block when I know early on the opponent is going to counterloop.

ITTF Hopes Training Camp

The ITTF Hopes program is a worldwide program where the best kids age 12 and under get together to train under top coaches. This morning USA's Kanak Jha is featured on the ITTF web page. There is also a video (4:35) of a training session, featuring coach and former Swedish star Erik Lindh.

Team Tryouts for 2013 USA Maccabiah Table Tennis Team

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Strange Looking Tables

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