Topspin balls cannot be attacked?

If I can generate a ball with heavy spin and good speed it most likely will require the opponent to close his racket face in order to keep his return on the table.  If he is closing his racket then he is not able to generate the same kind of forward speed as if he could hit the ball in a flatter manner (kill or loop-kill).   If you consider an "attack" as a ball hit with maximum speed, then a counter-loop would not be an attack in comparison to a kill or loop-kill which generally have more speed than a counter-loop.  

A good counter-loop can be a winning shot, but some would not consider it as a true "attack" like they would a 3rd ball loop-kill off of a weak return or a 4th ball kill off of a weak block of a good opening.

At my level I still have a lot of counter-loops go right by or through me.  I like to think of those as really good attacks by my opponent rather than errors on shots I should have returned.  At least that makes me feel better about my game.  I am sure higher level players would consider them to be errors on my part instead of winners by my opponent.

Mark

Not so much errors, but I think a good part of being rated over USATT 2000 consistently is having a decent antidote to the loop.  Below that, the first loop off a push or opening receive wins the point.  Above that, a good push or flick on service recieve tends to make it harder to get a killer loop, so the opening is of medium strength and permits a rally to begin.

No, he is quite sure about this - "if you spin up the ball - it cannot be attacked!"

Since he does have a lot more experience and knowledge than I have, figured it's best to try and understand what's involved here.

It was a situation where bunch of other high level players were all involved in the discussion. I didn't want to jump in there and break up their conversation.

I believe someone in the group questioned him on this point and he asked if I spin the ball up to you, what is your first reaction - block or counter it right? 

At this point - I was thinking - I would take a swing at it - but this might not be the right thing to do. 

takethat told me to hit the spin out it. 

He doesn't count counterloop as 'attack'? Maybe his english wasn't great.

jrscatman, I would disregard that comment. Sometimes people talk $hit, high level players or not.

  

As far as byebye making a comment about "lame covering like pips because you have no athletic ability or because you like to cheat...cheat and that you should man up and play the game the way it was meant to be"...I hope he's just kidding, but probably not as many players seem to feel that way about anything other than smooth rubber. I also never knew there was a written way for how the game should be played. I thought the main thing was to keep the freaking ball on the table. I can see why some people think LPs is kind of cheating as you're really relying heavily on the disturbing properties of your rubber to win the point, but SPs are not really doing that. Playing with SPs takes a lot of athletic ability. Not everyone is great at looping and counter-looping. I've always been a good athlete but I didn't get coaching at an early age and never learned properly how to counter-loop. Anyway I've already said enough and it's such a ridiculous statement I probably shouldn't respond, but when I read comments like that I thought I would anyway. Maybe he's just like my son who sometimes says things that he know will get a rise out of me.

XX multiball training attack vs heavy topspin.

Apparently if a serve is long or high enough to loop - he saying - soft spinny loop low on the table will not be attacked. It would be countered or blocked. Apparently Wang Zhen does this often. I'll try and find a video of this with Wang Zhen.

On a side note - I tried this strategy and it does work. I hit and loop without thinking, last night I made sure I was looping more than hitting and I was getting a lot free points, my opponents tried to hit and usually went long. 

I guess what was confusing me is the concept of opening loop and how it's different from any other loops. In general I try to rip everything I can given the chance. The idea of the soft loop not being killed is a new concept for me.