Brilliant Tactics - The Video

Nice shoes.

I like your game.  In many ways, it's similar to mine, which is likely why we are similarly rated.  My game tends to look fine until I come up against the structured, highly trained looping juniors whose serves I can't return and whose loops I can't block (it's the ones whose serves I can return and whose loops I can block that gave me my rating).  The "invite your opponent to attack and if he doesn't, put away the ball and if he does, block the ball back to where he is not" is a popular game for adults who did not get structured training as a junior.  There is clearly a ceiling on the pure form of that game, but I think it is much higher than I thought it was.  You have more variation than I do on the backhand because you have short pips, but my backhand is more offensive than yours (in a good way).  I usually play the backhand diagonal more, but you felt comfortable serving long even into your opponent's forehand.  I also serve short more often, but I have found that serving short is a bit overrated if you have serves good enough to prevent your opponent from creaming the ball at you repeatedly.  That gets harder though as you approach 2000 but it is still possible.

Edited by NextLevel - 09/29/2014 at 6:49am

Mark, apart from serve, service return and stationary shots, even CNT players don't look like their drills when playing matches. Any challenging opponent will push your game to its limits and at the limits, form tends to be at the breaking point.

Partly because of health, I have had an off and on desire to achieve better form, on because of desire, off because of health. My compromise has been to continually work on better strokes and to the degree that something else facilitates the better stroke (getting into position before looping as opposed to looping while moving), I will attempt it but lose no.sleep over failed attemtps. It is good to have a perfectionist approach to your form if that motivates you.   But TT is first and foremost a battle.