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Serve variation in a match
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JacekGM View Drop Down
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Points: 2356 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JacekGM Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/29/2015 at 2:08pm
Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:

Originally posted by JacekGM JacekGM wrote:

Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:

To just win the bet, all you have to do is work on a specific aspect of your game for a month or two.  Just one aspect, probably the best aspect.  If you get that more consistent, 200 pts at your level tends to be easy to come by.
Sorry about your arthritis; that should be largely treatable, I hope. As for the 200 points... well, thanks, but I have been trying for a long time. I got a tripod, will eventually record some new matches.
Thanks - the arthritis treatment has not gone as well as I would have liked so I just play until whatever happens happens.
 
I'll reserve judgment until I see you play, but trying is usually not the issue.  The problem is technique and practice partners.  There are lots of people who come to my club everyday and haven't gotten better in a while.  It's not because they are not trying, but because they don't know how to build technique.  I know a couple of people who only make it in twice a week but have made large improvements because they work with a coach on their technique.  Learning to serve with significant spin and to hit the ball with significant spin tends to go a long way.  I tell people all the time that it takes you from one class of players into another class of players so quickly that it's almost cheating.  And note I said spin, not speed.
Yes, you are correct, I know it. One factor is that all I can do is play once a week for 3 hrs, and I like competing so much that any organized training is punishment to me. Until I mature, that is... 
Smart serve variation will be one area to invest in, hence this thread is supercoolThumbs Up.
(1) Juic SBA (Fl, 85 g) with Bluefire JP3 (red max) on FH and 0.6 mm DR N Desperado on BH; (2) Yinhe T7 (Fl, 87 g) with Bluefire M3 (red 2.0) on FH and 0.6 mm 755 on BH.
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NextLevel View Drop Down
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Points: 14841 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/29/2015 at 3:00pm
The best kept and saddest secret in table tennis is that serving practice is largely not done at the table and that most of the work to improve your serves is done in
 
1) your bedroom on your bed
or
2) on your living room floor
or
3) with racket and ball in hand doing ball catcher drills.
 
Anyone who does any of these drills frequently using their serving grips will get increased spin in a matter of weeks and very improved spin and speed in 2 months.  As the drills are fairly addictive, the spin will continue to improve throughout one's table tennis play because players continue to do them at random points when they want to practice generating spin.  It also influences your ball feel on brush loops.
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
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Tinykin View Drop Down
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Sanga looks like a Work In Progress (WIP). He's fast and light on his feet with some great loop and drives, but at other times he's very naive indicating a lack of experience.
He's ranked at 555 in England and he's not on the Grand Prix list. This means that he's probably a local League player. That is, he plays in a local team league, not in national singles tournaments and practises very little.
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NextLevel View Drop Down
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Points: 14841 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/29/2015 at 3:48pm
Originally posted by Tinykin Tinykin wrote:

Sanga looks like a Work In Progress (WIP). He's fast and light on his feet with some great loop and drives, but at other times he's very naive indicating a lack of experience.
He's ranked at 555 in England and he's not on the Grand Prix list. This means that he's probably a local League player. That is, he plays in a local team league, not in national singles tournaments and practises very little.

He probably got significant training as a junior and stopped playing for a while and is getting back into things when older.  His USATT ratings history shows one appearance many years back before a few more recent on at the Joola teams, and his rating was likely higher back then based on his performance.  I doubt it has much to do with experience - his serve read and over the table game is generally behind his off the table game.  That's common for many kinds of athletic players.


Edited by NextLevel - 01/29/2015 at 3:53pm
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
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Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train...
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pgpg View Drop Down
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Points: 1306 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pgpg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/29/2015 at 4:03pm
Originally posted by Tinykin Tinykin wrote:

Sanga looks like a Work In Progress (WIP). He's fast and light on his feet with some great loop and drives, but at other times he's very naive indicating a lack of experience.
He's ranked at 555 in England and he's not on the Grand Prix list. This means that he's probably a local League player. That is, he plays in a local team league, not in national singles tournaments and practises very little.

I think the fact that Sanga is ranked 555 in England puts "Expert in a Year" experiment discussed in another thread into much better context for me. They were aiming for top 250...
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Points: 14841 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/30/2015 at 4:22pm
Originally posted by pgpg pgpg wrote:

Originally posted by Tinykin Tinykin wrote:

Sanga looks like a Work In Progress (WIP). He's fast and light on his feet with some great loop and drives, but at other times he's very naive indicating a lack of experience.
He's ranked at 555 in England and he's not on the Grand Prix list. This means that he's probably a local League player. That is, he plays in a local team league, not in national singles tournaments and practises very little.

I think the fact that Sanga is ranked 555 in England puts "Expert in a Year" experiment discussed in another thread into much better context for me. They were aiming for top 250...
 
Agreed.  Which means Sam was likely some distance from USATT 2000 which was even what Ben was originally looking for based on how he originally set his goal while referencing the book, "Breaking 2000".  Of course, this is purely by the eye test - maybe if Sam or any of the RAF team play Sam, we can get a better idea of how far off he was.


Edited by NextLevel - 01/30/2015 at 4:23pm
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon
FH/BH: H3P 41D.
Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train...
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NextLevel View Drop Down
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Points: 14841 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/30/2015 at 4:23pm
BTW, Larry Hodges has a nice post on serving combos that fits in here for anyone who is interested.
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon
FH/BH: H3P 41D.
Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train...
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ttTurkey View Drop Down
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Points: 516 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ttTurkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/30/2015 at 11:43pm
Originally posted by heavyspin heavyspin wrote:

I don't have a scripted game plan for my serves, the choice of serves just comes to me instinctively after 25+ years of tournament play.


I totally agree with this. My serves were by far the best part of my game and every opponent was different in terms of what worked best against them - I learned to instinctively adapt during the match.

A funny story: there was one guy who was quite a good player (comfortably over 2000) that I played fairly frequently for many years in the days of hidden serves and the 38mm ball.

At the start of the match, he would read and return my serves beautifully but I knew all I had to do was be patient, continue varying my serve and wait for him to misread one serve.

Once he misread one serve, he would completely and utterly lose all confidence in his ability to read my serve. By the end of the match, I would be serving only float serves and he would hit one way off the end of the table and the next into the bottom of the net!
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