Can't understand..

If you can lift a backspin serve with a good loop, you should go for it. If the backspin is too heavy, or the ball too short, you push. I'm not sure why you're confused.

what do you think Jike should do, push it back? The problem was that the serve was too short. ZJK was fooled into thinking the serve would be long, so he tried to loop it.

decoi wrote: the thing is that serve is probably slightly topspin or even heavy topspin. ZJ only barely graze the ball hence why it jsut dropped

Hmm..this would make more sense..but is it indeed a topspin? looks like a backspin...i dunno


Edited by davidwhang - 02/19/2013 at 4:02pm

fatt wrote: wow! that ball was loaded with back-side-spin; unless zjk touched it? or maybe it was the wind of the blade ?  LOL/JK (not again...)

could be what decoi said but not sure..doesn't look topspin though :|


Edited by davidwhang - 02/19/2013 at 4:03pm

fatt wrote: I was joking, making an allusion to those threads: http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=44665 http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=53251

Oh i'm sorry. Didn't know it was posted already before. My bad!

Look's like Ma Lin's racket was rising and faced slightly down, and the ball did not sit up that much after the 2nd bounce.  These first made me think the ball had top, but when I saw the further bounces near the edge of the table, I was sure it had backspin.

Just a regular side-underspin serve that ZJK misjudged the length of and missed the shot (missed the ball). Nothing magical going on there. Had the serve been slightly longer (as ZJK anticipated) he would likely have looped it with no problem - nothing weird about his racket-angle, stance, height of his socks, or anything like that. 

Edited by Pondus - 02/19/2013 at 4:26pm

Height of socks lol!

davidwhang wrote: ...it's just that i've never topspin looped (with that racket angle) a very heavy backspin serve like that before.

Your wrist is the most important key in controlling the speed and spin of your loops (both forehand and backhand). You're right that it's hard to really tell in that video... maybe I'll dig around quick for some video clip that shows this really well (ie the variance of wrist action in loops by the same player depending on the incoming ball). The racket angle is really an integrated part of the wrist-motion, so the 'better' your wrist motion/timing is, the less you will need to open up your racket angle on underspin, for example (and thus creating a higher arching shot). I hope this all makes some sort of sense.

hookumsnivy wrote: davidwhang wrote: Pondus wrote: davidwhang wrote: ...it's just that i've never topspin looped (with that racket angle) a very heavy backspin serve like that before. Look at the massive wrist-action ZJK has on the upswing of his loop (you can see this the best in the slowmotion)... the pure torque from that motion (combined with good timing) would loop even really heavy underspin without a problem. Hard to see the wrist action cause of the quality of the video..but this is the answer I'm looking for. Will try this next time I play against a heavy backspin serve. Thanks! It's definitely something you'll need to add to your game if you're an offensive player.  If someone finds that you can't or won't loop a long heavy underspin ball, they'll just keep feeding it to you to get an easy 3rd ball attack.  Since you play penhold it should be easier because of the added range of motion in the wrist. I've beaten better all around players than myself because I found that they couldn't handle that serve.  They'd either hit the ball into the net or give me an easy 3rd ball.  Your mental game can crumble when an opponent finds an easily exploitable weakness.

Thanks for the advice! I can loop long backspin balls if they're long enough. I really just have trouble looping backspin balls at that area of the table since I always fear hitting the table..or hitting it into the net. Lol. Definitely something to practice. Thanks!

if you can loop it, loop it! zjk thought he could and he went for it but...he thought wrong; to his credit he did not change his mind in the middle of his stroke.

Even pros should once in while be allowed to have an excellent serve. Once in a while be allowed to make a bad choice of shot. We however have the advantage and luxury to comment after it happened.

vutiendat1337 wrote: omg, it didn't go back to the net. Not at this pace. It was about to double bounce and ZJK went for the loop thinking it was long but he only "scratched" the ball, thus causing the change in trajectory. Why do we have to go through this again? Isn't too obvious? Or am I wrong?

You're right. You can clearly see the serve is top from the way it bounces on Zhang's side of the table. The reason it spins back towards the net is that it was too short to loop and Zhang was only able to barely contact it, putting his own top on the ball without being able to hit it hard enough to make it go forward. This is not that complicated people.

Tinykin wrote: Anyway, do think that's a top serve. I raise you this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=43slTzNWkM8&feature=endscreen

That serve was so fast, it created a tear in time space continuum.