the push...a tap or a chop?

when i recieve, i lightly contact the backspin ball, but when i try to dig or chop it, it goes long, they rip it or loop kill, or it  goes out the table.

i need advice with regards to contact point, angle and so on. i would like to creat backspin in the push, but i cant it, instead they kill it [flip it or loop kill..]

I've been in the same boat, I've dealt with backspin touch game alot because of a penhold at my club, serves HEAVY backspin. 

"You always thought low and non attackable was heavy spin".   I don't understand what you mean.

tap is short push return.

alfie,

you mentioned 45 degree with little wrist tapping movement for ball with backspin. What to do if ball is very little backspin/no spin? Can I put heavy backspin back to the ball? Can I place it short and low? HOW?

1. The most important thing is your footwork! You need to be close to the ball in order to make a decent push. As soon as you are too far away from the ball and you have to "reach" for the ball you have zero control.

2. Soft hand i. e. your arm, shoulder and hand needs to be completely relaxed.

3. Racket angles (x-axis, y-axis): This depends entirely on your rubbers and the incoming spin. It can be anything from 0� to 100� forward tilt and 0� to 180� sideways tilt.

4. What is a push? A push can have any kind of spin, even topspin. An super short upward "tap" will basically reverse the incoming spin. An upward tap with a slightly longer contact time (->feeling) will take out some spin. The longer the contact the more spin is taken out by the friction of the topsheet. With some practice you can thus make true floating balls with the same wobbling effect you get with long pimples.
Some guidelines: Heavy incoming backspin that you tap over with a totally flat racket angle will normally result in heavy backspin unless you have spend a good deal of time practicing taking out or reversing the spin.
Another common aspect of a push is a sidespin push with or without a combination of backspin or even topspin. It's basically the same as with a pendulum serve with the exception that when you serve the ball has zero spin and when you push you have to take the incoming spin into considereation and either work with or against it.

On a trick push you have to work with or against the incoming spin. Against the spin is the most common form. You use a racket angle (x-axis and y-axis) to make up for the incoming spin and your aim is to get a straight ball (x-axis) or an inverse angle shot i. e. you want the ball to travel in the opposite direction of it's spin. "With the spin" means that your aim is not to get a straight ball (x-axis), but you want the incoming sidespin to bite on your racket and let it deflect in the direction of the x-axis resulting in an angle shot that travels in the direction of the incoming spin. The angle is determined by your racket angle and the amount of the incoming sidespin.

Example: You have strong incoming sidespin on your middle line. The incoming sidespin would take the ball 1 meter off the right side of the table if you don't do anything. What are your options?

• a) work against the spin: You hold your racket in 90� x-axis thus the tip of your racket faces the net, the handle faces you. You contact the ball on the right side of the ball. If you don't do anything at all, the ball will go straight off your racket on the middle line.
  
  If you want to place the ball on the left side of the table you have to to push the racket to the left on contact. Thus you work actively against the incoming spin as the incoming spin wants to go to the right.
  
  
• b) Working with the spin: If you want to place the ball on the right side of the table (this is where the incoming spin wants it to go anyways) you have to decrease the 90� x-axis racket angle to let's say 45� or 60� or whatever. The spin will bite your racket and the ball will be deflected to the right side of the table. Where exactly depends on the incoming amount of sidespin and your respective racket angle.

So which form of ball handling you use depends on where you want to place the ball.


Pushing is incredibly complex business if you want to reach a good standard. It's not only about getting the ball where you want it to go, but it's about getting it there with good quality and in such a way that gives your opponent as little time as possible to prepare for the shot. If your opponent knows too early where you are going to push the ball he'll be ready and you'll be into trouble. This is why players need to work on disguising the direction of the push or even the nature of the whole shot (will it be a defensive push or an aggressive fast push or even a flip?) until the last second. This is normally done by a neutral wrist position that is only changed shortly before contact is being made.
The short game is notoriously difficult. It's principles are simple and even lower level players can be good at pushing with some nasty and tricky variation and they might even base their entire game on pushing. However, the better the players, the better their push. This is an unarguable fact of higher level table tennis. What seems so simple on lower levels is starting to feel so hard while you get better. The reason is that your margin of error gets so much smaller. On lower levels it's all about judging the spin right in order to get the ball on the table. If the quality is somewhat OK the opponent is not going to make a strong attack - let alone winning the point because of one inferior quality push. However, against better opponents you can be sure that they will win the point in the short or long run if you make a push that is not good enough. And good enough is relative to the quality of your opponent.
It's all about variation, predictability = pressure, how low?, shallow bounce, short enough, but not too short, placement of your opponent and your own placement and most importantly: tactical play.

is there an actual way to practice a push to see if it would actually work on a backspin/side spin serve? i only bounce the ball on the table and push it over but i dont know if that practice would work in a real match

i live in an area with all these children who play knock out on 1 table, we all are learning

PingPangQiu wrote: i live in an area with all these children who play knock out on 1 table, we all are learning

There is a good way to practice tt at home. It may sound funny, but it has helped so many players to become good that you can be sure that it is worth a try. Here it goes:

You play in your room at home. You make yourself a little table according to how much space you have. It can be a piece of wood 100cm x 100cm or even smaller put on a box or 2 cases of cola and push it against a door, wardrobe or any other really smooth surface.
You play tt on this table against yourself. hitting the ball against the door/wardrobe will reverse the spin like an anti rubber or a long pimple rubber or a chopper. You play a slow, controlled topspin against the wardrobe and make it land on the "table" and then follow up with another topspin and so on forever until you miss. This way you practice topspin against backspin / chop. You can decide the amount of topspin yourself as the more spin you produce with your loop, the more backspin you'll get in return. This is *very* good practice and it will give you a very good sense of timing and you'll learn to control your own spin.
You can thus learn how to push backspin also. One loop, one push, one loop one push ....
As you can decide the amount of backspin yourself you learn to adapt your racket automatically.

i find it hard to do top spin as it is the only way yo get backspin but the ball bounces out of the wood

ssiew968 wrote: Dear YATTP, Some questions:- 1) 2. Soft hand i. e. your arm, shoulder and hand needs to be completely relaxed. I understand completely relax before the contact point. But what about at the contact point? Should my forearm be firm but my wrist be loose if I were to do short push or vice versa? What about short push on low no spin ball?

I will answer your question with regard to the fh push. The bh push is a bit different anatomically, but the same principles apply there also.
The main movement of a fh push is stretching out the forearm in the direction of the net/opponent. This action pushes the ball over the net. The forearm stretch is the same action as when you use a big saw an a piece of wood or when you box.
The important aspect here is that the stretching (= applied forward momentum) is applied at the right time i. e. you start the action very shortly before contact so that the racket is well moving on contact. An earlier/later timing of this action will cause different effects, i.e. they increase the dwell time or shorten it and thus taking out spin or adding spin.
Your wrist is not an essential element of the basic push. You can leave it out and still get good results - in fact much more consistent results because the wrist is always a big error source as it is yet another moving axis element. The essential elements of a push are the arm stretch and the racket angle. So why does your whole shoulder and arm need to be relaxed and not firm? Because what you need the most is "feeling" and very well timed and very well measured use of force. With a soft hand, arm and shoulder you can do all these things much better and your feeling will increase. You have to make sure that the whole movement is very smooth and not hectic. Thus, the footwork is so enormously important when pushing. You need to operate close to your body. If you arm is stretched out complete (especially side-ways) already before the actual push, because you are out of position and you have to reach for the ball, you will not be able to do a nice and smooth arm stretch in the right direction.
First you look, then you move, then you push smoothly.
Another important aspect is that your movement does not start or end abrubtly. Smooth start, smooth finish. Pay special attention to the direction of your arm stretch as this is one of the most decisive factors. Try to be as close to the action as possible, also with your head. The push is a delicate, smooth action that needs very close attention from your eyes and fingers. Try to get your head down and close to the action.

No spin pushes: The same principles apply. Adjust the racket angle (~90� = vertical to the table), slow, smooth movement into the ball into the direction where you want to push, smooth finish. You need to feel the ball and then apply the necessary forward momentum (=arm stretch) to get the necessary speed. Now if you want to add backspin to an incoming no spin ball you do as above, but when you start to feel the ball on your rubber you kick down your wrist while the rest of the action remains the same. This is a z-axis movement (the arm stretch) and a y-axis movement (the downward movement of the wrist to add backspin). You may also add a further x-axis movement (=shoulder action and ideally increased by a rotation of the whole arm around the z-axis to the right. The arm rotation around the z-axis will transform the downward wrist y-axis movement into a x-axis action, thus adding both backspin + sidespin. As a result, you now have a backspin + sidespin push against a no spin incoming ball.
The same principles apply for wrist action. Be smooth. Quick, but smooth. To become good at this you really need to develop your feeling for the ball. You need to feel when the ball touches your rubber and when and how strongly its spin bites your rubber. This is no magic, this can be done by simple conscious training. Soft hands are important here as well.

ssiew968 wrote: 2) 3. Racket angles (x-axis, y-axis): This depends entirely on your rubbers and the incoming spin. It can be anything from 0� to 100� forward tilt and 0� to 180� sideways tilt. X and Y axis is horizontal and vertical line? If so, really can't figure out your example given. It will be nice if you could upload some diagram so it wont be subject to interpretation.