anti penholder tactics

Against standard penholders I just found an incredible serve against them, which is the FH heavy sidespin serve to the BH short corner (not the cockscrew variant). If you serve it spinny enough it's close to unpushable as they'll pop this up where you can then loopkill to their wide FH. Any balls that are long you just loopkill to their wide FH as they'll be out of position.

Edited by blahness - 12/30/2020 at 7:30am

if you can practice your serves where the ball lands right next to the net brackets of the penholder backhand, then you have a real winner.  I use that sidespin serve as part of my repertoire, but it isn't spinny enough, but at least the placement is there.

liulin04 wrote: if you can practice your serves where the ball lands right next to the net brackets of the penholder backhand, then you have a real winner.  I use that sidespin serve as part of my repertoire, but it isn't spinny enough, but at least the placement is there.

lasta wrote: Any wide serve to the backhand is a good start against penholders. But I think a wide side-backspin even harder to attack. Keep in mind you'll just as likely get a wide left-sidespin return to your backhand, so a loopkill down the line will take some skill.

lasta wrote: 10:35 side-push is a pretty stand stroke for penholders (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AUDoW50MRA) You'll likely have a higher chance of pop-up if they overestimate the backspin on pushing a side-back serve.

lasta wrote: Try to get good spin, more side than back, but enough to let them think there is backspin in it. If it doesn't pop up, it will be more likely be longer to your backhand or middle. More predictable for you. Side push/chop-block works too well against pure sidespin or even topspin serves.

wappak wrote: most penholders are forehand dominant, try to put long ball on their bh, keep the ball always low and put some backspin. then surprise them with cross court ball on their fh

wappak wrote: blahness wrote: wappak wrote: most penholders are forehand dominant, try to put long ball on their bh, keep the ball always low and put some backspin. then surprise them with cross court ball on their fh Hmm the penholders who have RPB would eat this ball for breakfast. I honestly don't know that many penholders who play without RPB these days.  I found the short super wide sidespin serve to be very anti RPB in it's design (along with the side backspin variant) im one sided penhold, im not sure about RPB, but if think RPB players are still better in their FH, if you watch some matches between penhold vs shakehand, shakehand players always put the ball in the BH of penhold. i think penhold BH is inferior to the BH of shakehand even RPB.