What I'm Working on

-Two step footwork on service return
-forehand flips
-placing forehand pushes
-tighten up forehand loop
-inside out backspin forehand serve
-no spin serves
-reading serves

Evaluation of these skills:
Two step footwork: still needs a lot of work. on forehand pushes and flips I find myself stepping with the right foot and stretching to reach the shot too often. There are many times that instead of a forehand loop I should be using a forehand flip. I could also let the ball drop a little more on my wide forehand service returns

Forehand Flips: against medium to heavy backspin, reasonably consistent. The problems I have are against no spin and light backspin. In the stroke, I'm both too open and too closed at times. I also tend to lean over the table with my shoulder. I need to step in strongly and keep my shoulders closed more.

Placing Forehand Pushes: too aggresive with trying to put sidespin on the ball. Try to place at sharp angles without using sidespin. Touch just isn't where it needs to be on this shot.

Tighten up Forehand Loops: I'm pretty satisfied with where my loops against backspin are right now. The biggest problem is still again no spin. I have a tendancy to hit this one long. The adjustment I'm going to try to make is to hit into no spin a little more and close over the ball more. I still also have problems with looping topspin. I have a tendancy at times to catch too much of the ball. I could probably fix this problem by always waiting for the ball to drop before trying to loop it. On all my loops I need to raise my concentration level. Make the small adjustments with my footwork and keep my eye on the ball better.

Inside-Out Backspin Forehand Service: This is the first week I've been trying this serve. It's tough to figure out what the right form is as I haven't seen any people really use this serve live, except on tv. I think I've got a good idea of the motion, but the trick is when and where I should hit the ball. I believe I need to try and keep my toss close to my body and around my center line. I've been getting the most spin when I contact the ball with the trailing edge of my paddle. This is probably because the paddle has had more time to accelerate. If I get the ball more to the left of my body and use the midde. This should have the same spin and increase my control. I like this serve. The ball is staying in the middle of the table and staying short with good spin when I hit it correctly. Most of the time when I miss the ball is landing short. This is probably good and I shouldn't worry about the ball landing short as much as getting good racket speed and spin. Sometimes I'm catching the ball with the edge of the paddle though. This is probably because My stroke isn't stable yet.

All in all the serve worked pretty good today when I got it over the net. I think the point to focus on is the toss and getting a full backswing. The toss should be closer to the body than my other serves and possibly a little more towards the table.

No Spin Serves: I can finally hit these so that they're a weapon. My consistency with them is lacking though. When I don't really go after them, they ussually lack a lot of speed, but as long as I don't over rely on them, people at my level don't usually return with off speed ones. I especially have trouble with my no spin down the line. I've only been hitting 1 or four of these. This has to change. It's a bit of a mystery to me as to why I'm missing so many. A big part of it is that these are a more recent addition to my game (last half year or so), and possibly body position and hitting the ball too far from the table are the reasons. Also I don't adjust very well for the change in distance that hitting the ball at different angles. I should devote a day or two to these in the near future.

Reading Serves: This I figure is going to be a continual work in progress for at least the next couple years. I think my biggest problem is my weak forehand push and flip and knowing the right weapon for the right job. Later I'll devote a longer post to this topic specifically.