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how to read amount of spin

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blahness View Drop Down
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    Posted: 02/12/2021 at 7:23pm
Recently been troubled with these haha...so am wondering if there is any good way that you use to read the amount of spin (especially on serves/pushes) from the opponent...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GrayGhost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/12/2021 at 8:55pm
If you can see the logo on the ball - not much spin.  It's tricky though!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/12/2021 at 11:18pm
Originally posted by GrayGhost GrayGhost wrote:

If you can see the logo on the ball - not much spin.  It's tricky though!

Haha my eyes aren't good enough for the logo method Cry also if the opponent is varying between light spin and heavy spin, even at the lighter spin the logo cannot be seen...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mjamja Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/13/2021 at 2:00pm
As there is more spin on the ball, the visual  persistence effect of the rotating label causes the apparent color of the ball to darken.  During the pandemic I am doing perception training to increase my ability to distinguish between various shades of gray.  Hopefully I will be able to identify multiple shades of the ball color and be able to correlate that to the amount of spin.

As the old axiom goes,  most things are not black and white, but instead various shades of grey.

Mark - Who, despite the fact that all cats are grey in the dark, still likes dogs much better.

PS - The above is just humor.  But in reality I can sometimes detect a no-spin serve by the whiteness of the ball.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DonnOlsen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/13/2021 at 2:30pm
Originally posted by mjamja mjamja wrote:

As there is more spin on the ball, the visual  persistence effect of the rotating label causes the apparent color of the ball to darken.  During the pandemic I am doing perception training to increase my ability to distinguish between various shades of gray.  Hopefully I will be able to identify multiple shades of the ball color and be able to correlate that to the amount of spin.

As the old axiom goes,  most things are not black and white, but instead various shades of grey.

Mark - Who, despite the fact that all cats are grey in the dark, still likes dogs much better.

PS - The above is just humor.  But in reality I can sometimes detect a no-spin serve by the whiteness of the ball.

As we are accustomed, another fine technical contribution!

Speaking of grey, we have life course direction from none other than Jon Bon Jovi, an artist you may at this moment be listening to: "No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate. The world doesn’t need any more gray."

Thanks.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cole_ely Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/13/2021 at 2:45pm
Originally posted by mjamja mjamja wrote:

As there is more spin on the ball, the visual  persistence effect of the rotating label causes the apparent color of the ball to darken.  During the pandemic I am doing perception training to increase my ability to distinguish between various shades of gray.  Hopefully I will be able to identify multiple shades of the ball color and be able to correlate that to the amount of spin.

As the old axiom goes,  most things are not black and white, but instead various shades of grey.

Mark - Who, despite the fact that all cats are grey in the dark, still likes dogs much better.

PS - The above is just humor.  But in reality I can sometimes detect a no-spin serve by the whiteness of the ball.

I do think you can see the spin by how blurred the logo is, just as you can tell how fast your ceiling fan is spinning. Also I've noticed the more spin, the less interaction with the table on bounce. If the ball checks on the table, it's often a sign that there's not that much spin. You have to be careful though because a slow ball with no forward momentum will also check more
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cole_ely Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/13/2021 at 2:46pm
Originally posted by DonnOlsen DonnOlsen wrote:

Originally posted by mjamja mjamja wrote:

As there is more spin on the ball, the visual  persistence effect of the rotating label causes the apparent color of the ball to darken.  During the pandemic I am doing perception training to increase my ability to distinguish between various shades of gray.  Hopefully I will be able to identify multiple shades of the ball color and be able to correlate that to the amount of spin.

As the old axiom goes,  most things are not black and white, but instead various shades of grey.

Mark - Who, despite the fact that all cats are grey in the dark, still likes dogs much better.

PS - The above is just humor.  But in reality I can sometimes detect a no-spin serve by the whiteness of the ball.

As we are accustomed, another fine technical contribution!

Speaking of grey, we have life course direction from none other than Jon Bon Jovi, an artist you may at this moment be listening to: "No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate. The world doesn’t need any more gray."

Thanks.

I can promise you, I'm not listening to bon jovi
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Simas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/15/2021 at 6:13pm
Originally posted by cole_ely cole_ely wrote:

Originally posted by mjamja mjamja wrote:

As there is more spin on the ball, the visual  persistence effect of the rotating label causes the apparent color of the ball to darken.  During the pandemic I am doing perception training to increase my ability to distinguish between various shades of gray.  Hopefully I will be able to identify multiple shades of the ball color and be able to correlate that to the amount of spin.

As the old axiom goes,  most things are not black and white, but instead various shades of grey.

Mark - Who, despite the fact that all cats are grey in the dark, still likes dogs much better.

PS - The above is just humor.  But in reality I can sometimes detect a no-spin serve by the whiteness of the ball.

I do think you can see the spin by how blurred the logo is, just as you can tell how fast your ceiling fan is spinning. Also I've noticed the more spin, the less interaction with the table on bounce. If the ball checks on the table, it's often a sign that there's not that much spin. You have to be careful though because a slow ball with no forward momentum will also check more

I'd doubt that. Maybe, just maybe you could get some insight about the spin from the logo on a very slow and not spiny ball. If the spin is somewhat ok or the serve is fast and long you should have a high frame camera instead of you eyes to distinguish it. 

I had the same idea some long time ago and bought bicolor DHS balls to experiment. In the end, as I said, if the serve is spiny, or you get a long and fast down the line ball, you see only a general color of the ball. As my balls were white/yellow bicolor, I saw a pale yellow ball without any distinct spin.  You can judge the spin from the trajectory, also from the actions of the opponent. Basically this intuition (a.k.a expepience), comes with experience Smile
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Odie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/15/2021 at 11:37pm
Watch the motion of the opponent's racket and listen to the contact of rubber on ball.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Twiddler Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/16/2021 at 9:52am
If you can make the spin you can probably read spin pretty well. A player who can make heavy topspin or light underspin or a side topspin serve- they will be able to use those skills to read spin.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote vanjr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/16/2021 at 1:22pm
Watch your opponent play somebody and see how they handle the serves/pushes. I think this is one of the best ways to read spin. Many times, because of deceptive motions we can misread, but if you see your opponent make their opponent dump the serve or push into the net often, you can know there is more spin than it appears.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kolev Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/18/2021 at 5:13am
The OP is fundamental. I am pretty shure reading the opponents spin takes a life time to master. Even the biggest names missread often the incoming spin whether it is a serve, attack or a push.
Me personally, I am trying to stay focused on the speed of the opponents racket in the moment of impact with the ball


Edited by Kolev - 02/18/2021 at 8:53am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Veteran Player Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2021 at 9:07pm
I find that if you get your head lower, so that you are watching the ball come straight towards you instead of watching it from above, you are better able to read the spin.  I'm not sure of the reason for this but I have mentioned this to a more senior coach than me and they have agreed with that.

Putting your head low also works out to be good posture for playing the game.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/27/2021 at 7:53am
I actually asked a few of the highest level players in my circle and they said that watching the trajectory is the surest (and fundamental) way of determining amount of spin, because there can be a lot of deceptive movements involved in disguising the spin on the push or serve. But that requires that the stroke be flexible enough to accommodate last second changes to react to new information. And usually that is no problem for a push, but for a loop there's apparently some skill involved in this (for eg say you already positioned low to loop a heavy underspin ball, but you noticed it's actually quite weak underspin, you would need to close your racket angle more in the split second before contact to adjust to the ball)

So it's mostly bat action + trajectory for them. 


Edited by blahness - 02/27/2021 at 7:53am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/27/2021 at 3:32pm
The truth IMO is that reading spin is an unconscious skill developed over years of observation and practice (sometimes with generating skill yourself) and for many people it is a skill best acquired in child good as almost anything is better when you start young.  Verbal instructions don't really get to the heart of any of this. One would to better watching a lot of serves in slow motion on YouTube or just playing a lot of matches with a skillful server.  I found the TTEdge app helpful for a while when I was active in training visual focus.  Wish the app was still being expanded with more players and servers.
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Shiro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/27/2021 at 7:12pm
Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:

The truth IMO is that reading spin is an unconscious skill developed over years of observation and practice (sometimes with generating skill yourself) and for many people it is a skill best acquired in child good as almost anything is better when you start young.  Verbal instructions don't really get to the heart of any of this. One would to better watching a lot of serves in slow motion on YouTube or just playing a lot of matches with a skillful server.  I found the TTEdge app helpful for a while when I was active in training visual focus.  Wish the app was still being expanded with more players and servers.

I agree with NextLevel. Reading serves definitely is a skill acquired over time and not just something that can happen over night. After playing for a while, you will generally begin to see certain patterns in how people will contact the ball to create certain spins as well as how certain spins affect the bounce/travel of the ball after it leaves their racket. 
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