Power Pong September

Went 3-3. I'll probably lose 30 or so points. I played three lefties and struggled against all of them. The first one I played I beat, but struggled more than I should have for his level. The second I beat in the finals of the 1250 before, but this time lost in 4. I lost one game I was up 9-5, 10-8, which was really bad and a sign of things to come all day. I struggled to finish out games I was leading near the end. I also fell too in love with my long serves in this match. I should have served shorter more. The third lefty I played was also someone I played before. I partly lost because of a ton of nets and edges, but also I had trouble as before of reading what spin was coming from him. This kept me from using my strongest shots. He would pseudo chop the ball, which would come back randomly as topspin, backspin, or no spin, depending on how well he struck the ball. I should have used the drop shot a ton. He would back off the table very quickly, and when I tried this in the last game I had good success.

I beat a 1200 ish level penholder in five games. This was the first match of the night I really felt comfortable. I was able to use my forehand loop like I like to. My last match of the day was against a 1400+ player. I played him before, when I was completely exhausted and did horribly. This time I played much better, but was still unable to win. I felt that I had a chance if I played near my best, but ended up making too many backhand errors.

There were four things I took away from today. One, I really need to shore up my backhand. I know I'm capable of playing much better on my backhand, but I end up over hitting especially on backhand openers. Two, I've lost my edge for finishing matches. There were way too many games today where I was up 8-6, 8-8, 10-8, 9-9, ect, that I lost. I should be able to finish out these games, especially when it's my serve. Three, I should learn to loop forehands from lower. I was watching some of the better players and they were covering the wide forehand by looping the ball at knee height. Four, I suck at playing lefties. I need to find some lefties near my level to play. I just don't understand the angles a lefty can find and left spin, especially on serve.

At the club

Switched to a new blade, the Bazelart. It's a lot like the Timo Boll Spark, same thickness, number of plies, and thickness of plies, but has at least a different top ply. The main difference is that it is faster, bringing the blade into the OFF- speed category. Switching to this blade has helped my pushing the most. I also have a bit better control on my drives/slams. This blade has a lower throw than the DE-1, so I've been putting a lot of shots into the net. I think I need to go to a faster rubber on my backhand as I'm having to put too much effort to just get the ball back over the net.

Lost to Y.Lee for a second time in the league. I have a lot of trouble against his style. When he pushes down the line to my forehand I have trouble reading how much spin is on the ball. I was looping ball long thinking there was heavy backspin sometimes and looping balls into the net because there was more spin than I was expecting. I did better later on by not giving him the push down the line, but was unable to win a game. In the end my errors when slamming caused me to lose the match. I kept dumping put away shots into the net. I also had some trouble against his topspin short serve down the line to my backhand. I couldn't get my brain to hit the left side of the ball. By the last game I was able to at least get the serve on the table. The last game was a 18-16.

Also played Nathan and lost the first game fairly badly. No spin and backspin serves to the middle of the table are a big no no against him. He would put it short and wide to my forehand and I'd be dead in the water. After avoiding those serves, I did ok against him. Missed some serves and some easy loops.

Things to Work on

Been making good progress the last couple weeks after not making much for awhile. This isn't a complete list of what I'm working on or need to work on. I'm fairly satisfied with my technique for forehand and backhand looping at the moment. They of course could be better, but I think my focus now is going to be on how to put together my game and win matches. Shot selection and making good adjustments in game are the primary focuses behind this. There is still a decent amount of technique that I need to work on.

Ready Position

• Leaning forward and getting my butt lower. This will help with keeping my balance.
• Better ready position. Part of this is as above, also need to keep my elbow in front of me instead of out to the side.
• Return to ready position after every shot. Not sure how good or bad I am at this. Should work with the robot on this.

Pushing

• Following through. I noticed recently that I have a tendancy of not following through the ball on my pushes and sometimes even stopping short of the ball. I should have a smooth stroke under the ball at a 45 degree angle.

Looping

• Placement
• Spin Variation

Flipping

• Consistency. I'm getting pretty comfortable with flipping no spin and light spin balls. The biggestest mistake I still make is to open my raquet too much. I wonder if there's a problem with how I'm stepping in when this happens.

Serving

• Use all different motions for forehand pendulum. Especially the three for top side spin. (1) Fake backspin and pull hand up. (2) Fake backspin, but rotate all the way around, so wrist is moving upwards. (3) Come down like a backspin pendulum, but flip hand over into windshield wiper serve.
• Forehand pendulum without sidespin. Especially down the line backspin, making too many mistakes with this serve still.
• A short no spin serve like Margit's that can't be killed, but could be flipped. This requires cushioning the ball a little.
  
• Get more backspin on Tomahawk
• Use reverse pendulum more and understand how to use it

Service Receive

• Clear the brain and just react.
• Good ready position

Thoughts about weaknesses

Played S tonight and lost in a league match. I had trouble returning his serve so that he couldn't open the attack. I also should have served my backspin forehand pendulum as much as possible as he was having trouble returning it.

Two things to work on in particular. Adding spin with my pushes to make it harder for people without a good loop to open the attack. I also found that I was thinking too much before receiving service. I did much better when I cleared my head and relaxed my body right before the service.

Forehand Tomahawk Backspin

The trick is to follow through away from the body. I have a tendancy to pull my hand back into my body. To do this make sure I don't throw the ball too far away from my body.

Thing to work on

Besides bringing a certain level of intensity to playing all the time. I need to work on predicting where the ball is going to land, particularly the depth of pushing. I should know where as soon as I see the ball leave my opponents racket. As of now I'm being surprised by where the ball lands sometimes. I would say I'm too often surprised. I should work on this not just for inm rallies, but also on serves.

San Diego Open

Played in the 1400 and 1550 and went 3-3. I felt that I had the ability to advance in both groups, but didn't execute well enough. My biggest problem was just my concentration level. I need to practice wanting to win every single point again. I've been a bit too lax at the club and can't find the correct level of arousal in the tournaments I've played recently. Besides this the people I lost to gave me a lot of problems in service return.

The one guy was making me return the ball to the middle of the table and then slamming the ball. He also had a really good down the line serve. I think if I worked to place my service return more I would have increased my chances of winning by a lot.

One of the other people I lost to had a very spinny forehand tomahawk serve. I should have just assumed the serve was back side spin, but didn't commit to it enough. Lost the last game in duece and had a couple game points that I squandered with bad serves.

The last guy I lost to was unrated. I felt like I had his number for the most part, but gave away a few too many points with pushing and looping errors.

All in all I played fairly well. The people I beat, I beat easily, spinning them off the table with my serves. Even the people I lost to I felt like I controlled my serve reasonably well. Unfortunately I had a big fail in service return. I seem to have trouble with serves that come nearly strait down the line at my elbow. My forehand pushing weakness probably contributes to this problem. If I can shore up this problem, I feel I'll go up a level.

Things to Work on Progress

Stripping down what I need to work on to the most important things. I've been playing somewhat badly recently and I think it's because I'm trying to incorporate too many things into my game. All these things require different footwork to support them and it's gotten too complicated to correct easily. I should strip what I'm working on to a very narrow range for a bit and focus on linking my shots together.

I've been working on backhand looping, placing pushes, opening smash, repeatedly smashing, looping forehands cross court from backhand side, and flipping.

My backhand looping is coming along. I feel comfortable enough with it that I don't feel that my backhand is a weakness anymore. I need to be careful that I don't try and hit my backhands too hard and just go for consistency.

My pushing is getting better. I'm able to read the spin on the ball and not pop up as many balls, but it's far from automatic. I also need to learn to control my pushes against pushes against my serves. I don't understand what to do with the sidespin that's coming back to me if I can't loop it. Placement and pace on my pushes are also a concern, but not as much as maintaining consistency and making the adjustments for spin more automatic.

I'm also trying to smash a little more rather than looping. This is still and experiment in progress. After I start smashing I need to work on keeping that pressure on. I'm missing too many of the smashes against fishing/lobbing. This is mostly a footwork, concentration problem. I also need to work on waiting for the ball to fall if it's too high.

I'm still missing too many of those cross court inside out forehands from the backhand corner. Some of this is that I'm trying to loop more of these cross court instead of down the line then before. I think for these shots I need to take a weaker shot and work on consistency.

Flipping is so difficult. My form is still very unstable and I need to work on it every week against the robot if I intend to keep flipping in matches. It's a very subtle change in angle to adjust from flipping backspin vs topspin.

For the next couple weeks, I want to narrow list down. I want to try a very specific sequence of serving, pushing, slow looping, and then smash. This covers many of the above in technique and will serve to improve my footwork for these shots too. Only work on flipping against weak opponent serves.

Note: My forehand backhand switching needs work too.

New Equipment: Aces 2.2 Forehand

I decided to go to a less tacky rubber than geospin black. I already had Gambler Aces sitting around so I'm going to use that for now. Initial impressions after playing with it today is that it's a softer topsheet and much less tacky. It's also a bit slower, which is probably a good thing. The parts of my game that I had the most trouble adjusting was lifting underspin back onto the table and pushing. To get the same amount of lift I needed a much softer contact with the ball. With pushing since the topsheet is softer I needed to be more proactive with my pushes. All in all I think its a good switch.

Things to work on

Pushing

• short pushing off the bounce
• long fast push
• forehand pushing
• backhand side spin push right to left motion
• forehand side spin push against forehand pendulum, hitting right side of ball

Looping

• Improving consistency with crosscourt forehand from backhand side


• looping down the line from backhand side (placement, placement, placement)


• consistency with backhand loop


• getting better at mid distance looping, but still need much more consistency, need to be better at moving forward to attack shorter blocks


• keep working on backhand loop against topspin

Flipping

• developing comfort with this shot

Serving Experiments

• forehand tomahawk, elbow dominated motion vs. shoulder dominated


• reverse pendulum poke motion vs wrist


• forehand pendulum how many motions am I using now? 4? 5? 3?


• pure backspin forehand pendulum


• kicking topspin serve; hit the top of the ball

Service Receive

• watch the racket not the ball

Still a lot of things to work on. There is some new stuff compared to the last list and I'm really still working on everything from that list.

At the club today

Only played a couple singles today. I'm mostly going back and working on my pushing and transition game.

I was able to play Siggi close by just serving backspin most of the time, and opening. Siggi started to be able to block them and I should have started varying my loops more. If I had served differently I would have done better.

I also played Jeff. I won a game with the normal point advantage, but was outmatched in the other games. We had some very fun rallies and I chopped a couple balls that managed to win me those points. I need to figure out a different way to play Jeff as my typical game doesn't work.

I was working on using my reverse pendulum serve today also. When I use this serve and serve short to the forehand I need to move to the center and be ready to play a wide forehand. In this situation against Jeff I was being pulled too wide from the table. I need to loop this closer to the table to be able to stay in the point.

I also have been having trouble recently looping forehands against backspin crosscourt from my backhand side. I think the main problem is just not being used to my new blade. I need to work on this again. It was my main winner before switching blades.

Northridge 2008

I only ended up playing 2 matches at this tournament. Unfortunately I only had 3 people instead of the usual 4 in my group. If I hand known this I probably would have played another event. Plus I sucked it us and ended up losing my first match. In total I had a 1-1 record.

The biggest reason I lost to the first woman I played was that I couldn't deal with her serves. She served very spinny top spin serves to my backhand that jumped off the table more than I could control. Her serves were as spinny as a loop, which made even blocking difficult as they weren't as fast and came at a different trajectory being a serve instead of a rallying shot. In all I'd say the rest of my shots were better than hers, but could not get into rallies to take advantage of that. I did well on my serve though and could keep the games close. Unfortunately I couldn't get the one or two points I needed on her serve at the end of the games to win. I also felt rather out of rhythm against her and wasn't as focused as I should have been. If this had been the second match I played I might have won. Later on Jeff played her and also struggled against her serves, so I didn't feel as bad that I lost. He struggled against her serve until she had to switch rackets, which let him win the last game easily. I think he probably would have won anyways, but it would have been a lost more interesting.

In the second match I won very easily. My opponent gave up early in the second game and I cruised to victory.

I helped coach Jeff in two of his matches and I felt I did an OK job at this. I managed to point out a few things that he could adjust and do better at. Unfortunately he met a little kid and couldn't quite pull out a win losing in the fourth game in duece. He also coached me a little in his second match, but I really needed it more in my first match. Just having another set of eyes that knows your game really helps. It's hard to see from the inside the simple mistakes you're making.

Unfortunately I feel that I didn't learn much from this tournament. I was outspinned on service, and without experiencing those serves more I'm not sure what adjustments I could make that would help in subsequent matches. In general I'm still adjusting to my new blade, and probably will be for another month. I'll give a review of it then. The one thing I could do better at is getting settled in my first match quicker. I don't think I approached my first match with the right mental attitude. Needed to be more calm and relaxed. If I'm stuggling I should play slower.

Advice from Aussie Player

"Coming away from this years World Cup, I feel very happy about the way I played. I didn’t quite manage to win more sets than previously but there were many positives to focus on despite that. I’d managed to play on fairly level terms for most of the match against two of the best players in the world. I discovered that you don’t have to come up with the spiniest serve in the world to cause trouble; it’s enough that it’s something different and new. So experiment and think outside the box. I was shocked that such a simple serve could win me around 75% of the points against such high calibre players but it really opened my eyes to the value of originality."

how did I play today?

On Saturday I played Bill in a league match. Lost 3-2. It was the closest I've played him before and lost in a fifth set duece. I should have served long at that point, but forgot about it and tightened up a bit. I had been serving short most of the match. I lost focus in the fourth game and lost that game badly. I think Bill contributed though with the adjustments he made. I should have stayed with a more conservative slow loop pushing strategy, like I played in the first two games. I started to get a little too aggressive at times.

Today I played a few singles. It was a bit tough as I'm a bit sore and didn't sleep enough. Of note I tried to play an all out attack strategy against Margit and lost. I tried to flip or loop almost everything. If I would have played a little more conservative at times I probably could have won.

I played a pen holder hitter. He was probably significantly better than me. He got me a lot with sharp angle pushes. He hand a forehand loop, but was a one sided pen holder, so I should have tried to push more to his backhand. I lost pretty quickly in three.

Lastly I played Nathan and was doing pretty well and lost the match 3-0. If I could have dealt with his serves to my elbow better I would have had a decent chance to win.

I'm still struggling a bit with the new blade. I've been lifting many of my loops long. Especially against no spin. It helps if I let the no spin drop a bit, but it would be better if I could attack these at the top of the bounce. I'm also having a problem missing my backspin forehand pendulum. I keep wiffing on it. The backhand is doing better, but my form still falls apart at times.

Club League Matches

Played three league matches today at the club. When I was warming up I was trying to use my de-1 blade, but decided that the weakness with serving was too much and switched back to the KLHS. After playing most of the night with the KLHS, I think the YinHe De-1 is better for everything except serving. If I can learn to serve with a different grip I think even this can be overcome.

My first league match was against Jeff. It ended up being a 3-1 loss, but was closer than it should have been. Jeff was making a few errors that he normally doesn't make. I actually won the game where I missed 2 serves. I think I missed one more each in the third and fourth games. This was really unaceptable and I probably could have won another game, if I hadn't missed any serves. I'm not entirely sure why I missed these serves. Concentration is the only explanation I can come up with. We had some nice rallies with me playing defense. These were where Jeff was making some uncharacteristic mistakes. I don't think I could have played much better.

My next match was against Yoshi. I managed to win 3-1. The change from last time was mostly that I was more aggressive with backhand service return, and I would force shots to Yoshi's backhand. My safe backhand to backhand topspins were enough to win points. I also was getting easy points off my serve.

My last league match of the night was against AJ. I also won this 3-1. The main reason I won was that I found a serve that AJ could not return. It was a long low heavy backspin serve to his backhand. AJ didn't try to lift his push up and kept putting this serve into the net. I leaned heavily on this serve and probably served it for 50% of my serves in the last three games.

For the most part I just played my game and managed to dictate the pace of the matches I won. Neither Yoshi nor AJ were aggressive enough to take that away from me. I also played Waad in a couple of singles matches. Some of the games were close, but I only won 1 of 7 games. He gets me to make some errors with a pretty good block. I probably need to play a more controlled looping style against Waad. The other adjustment I should have made was to push more and invite his attack.

All in all I'm pretty happy with my progress recently. I've been hitting my backhands more consistently and this has strengthened my game as a whole. I haven't been working too much on flipping in games. In fact I can only really flip against people whose serving is fairly predictable. I am doing better with pushing and am starting to gain confidence that I can beat some of the people just below my level with pushing. In my league matches I made a fair number of errors when I backed off the table and tried to loop from mid distance. I'm guessing this was a combination of switching rackets and being more anxious and rushing shots.

One things I'm very happy about is that my fitness level has gone way up. I felt that my legs could have played several more matches. My shoulders on the other hand are pretty tired. I'm not sure how much of that fatigue is from doing pushups again and how much is just trying to play at 100%. Hopefully if I keep at the pushups this will help with my match endurance. If not, I may have to start doing other exercises.

Today at the Club

I got the Galaxy De-1 blade and tried it out at the club. It was a little tricky to adjust to because it's significantly thinner than my KLHS. The blade was definitely faster and maybe stiffer. Even though it was faster it was less bouncy so it was easier to keep my pushes low. Looping was pretty good as the blade flexed as I swung harder keeping the dwell time. The extra speed helper a lot on my backhand as I backed away from the table. On the forehand side it was a bigger adjustment as I found it harder to lift the ball, especially against backspin. I need to try the blade more to see if I can adjust. It's possible I either need to use a thicker rubber or softer rubber on my forehand side. Hitting felt really good. The ball went faster and the extra speed gave me more control on hitting. The big thing I need to try is using the blade for flipping. I didn't really get a chance today as the people I played mostly served long. I think with the better touch on pushing and control in hitting and blocking, the blade fits my game well.

Not too much to say about the matches I played. I'm trying to be a little more aggressive with my backhand service return and it's been serving me well. By agressive I mean topspinning the ball. Against topspin and sidespin serves I'm trying to use a very conservative slow shot and place the ball. Against backspin I need to take a bigger swing to counteract the spin. I'm still trying to open to my opponents forehand side and it still feels a little awkward, but I'm starting to hit a few more in.

I think I'm going to try and adjust to this blade and use it at the next tournament.

Notes on Technique

Some observations on my current technique

• On my forehand my followthrough blocks my view of the ball sometimes. I can reaquire the ball well before my opponent hits it, but this needs to be corrected somehow.
• I found at my last time at the club, that I could use a slow backhand loop to return most serves. The only one I couldn't was a moderate backspin serve. I should be doing this more often
• I'm still not sure what to do with my free hand. On backhands I've been tucking it close to my body and it doesn't quite feel right. On forehands I'm not sure what I'm doing most of the time, but on loop kills I think I'm doing it correctly by bringing my left hand across my body and then swinging it in the same direction as my right hand.
• Putting the weight on the inside of my feet and forward while waiting on service return seems to make a significant difference in reaction time. Need to remember to keep doing this.

How did I play today?

I concentrated today on backspin serves, pushing game to opening loop, 3rd ball attack with a cross court forehand, and being more aggressive with my backhand.

Backspin serves are interesting. I've been trying to cushion one of my backspin serves and in theory I should be able to get more spin with this motion than with just following through the ball. In practice I have more experience with the other serve and thus get more spin with it. I still don't get heavy backspin with my other service motions. On the reverse pendulum it's enough to get people at my level to push, but against better players they can flip of loop it. My tomahawk serve doesn't have enough backspin even against players of my level. They both need a lot of work and a little experimentation.

Pushing needs a lot of work. I made a lot of errors when playing Siggi, both on the forehand and backhand side. I also need to recognize a touch quicker, which pushes I can loop, when they're hit at me. That way I can step around (if played at my elbow) or step backwards to loop (if played at my backhand.

Trying to play my 3rd ball attack towards a righty's forehand has been tough, when the ball is on the left half of the table. I'm still having a lot of trouble with this either hitting the ball wide or long. I think the biggest problem is that I'm almost trying to hit it to the backhand side as I'm more comfortable with that. It also might be that the table is shorter in this direction. I should also think about looping inside out down the line, when the ball is played to the forehand side. I'm guessing this would have been a better opener against Hilton as he was blocking my cross court opener fairly easily.

When I'm watching the ball, I do OK with my backhands and can counter hit cross court with everyone except Hilton. Unfortunately this shot isn't very natural yet and if my concentration slips I end up making errors. On this I just need many more repetitions.

I played all five people that were there tonight.

Against Nathan I still cant seem to win a game. I feel like I'm very close, but near the endgame he pulls out a few serves and I end up behind. Not sure what to do about this. Getting better at backhand service return could help.

I won against Siggi 3-2. I feel that when I serve mostly backspin I force Siggi out of his comfort zone and he then can't hit consistently. This also sets me up for easy third ball topspin winners, when I need a point. However if my level slips a little bit or I don't serve enough backspin, then I lose games to Siggi. He really needs to learn a backhand loop to raise his level.

Against Margit I lost 3-1. I was trying to work on my backspin game a little too much against her to win, but no worries. I could have used a more dangerous mix of serves to have won the match, but I would say that we're pretty close in level.

I lost 3-0 to Ivan. I was close in the first two, but when he got in trouble he would start hiding his serve. It was also tough because I couldn't always keep the ball short, when I went to a pushing game. He has a pretty good loop and I would lose these points when he looped them. To win I should have pushed more at his elbow.

I played two matches worth against Hilton and only won the second game. I did well and am getting better at looping when he fast pushes to my forehand side. It still needs a lot more consistency. I typically did better when I looped hard to his forehand side rather than backhand. He would never try to counter loop and had a good controlled block with his backhand. When he looped I was usually done. I should have tried to push more to his backhand side.

How did I play today?

Played a League match against Patrick and three more matches against players much better than I am.

I beat Patrick fairly easily. I was able to initiate the attack most of the time and could win easy points this way. When I opened hard, he did a decent job blocking it back in the second game, but he was backing off the table to do it. I switched to slow looping and managed to win a good number of points outright. Once we got into a rally, he did a good job counter attacking, but I was able to hit winners when we played backhand to backhand.

I played Randy and got smushed. I was having trouble both controlling my serves and reading his serves, which made the match very lopsided. I have a lot of trouble against Randy and his controlled hitting style. I thing the biggest help would be able to be more aggressive on service return.

I played David later and played ok, but was never in any danger of winning a game. I had trouble with his no spin hitting early in the match, but was able to adjust to it. My biggest problem against David was sustaining offense and picking the right serves to use. I probably should have varied serves a bit more.

I played an asian fellow, but didn't get his name. Lost again, but mostly because I didn't take the match seriously enough. I won the first game fairly easily and was in all the rest, but wasn't doing everything I could to win. After the opening game and I get a good assement of what serves and level of spin my opponent can create, I need to think hard about being more aggressive with my backhand service return.

I played Tong for my final match and lost fairly easily. One thing to note is that he would serve down the line to my forehand and I would loop hard to his backhand, but then he would block pretty well, and I wouldn't be able to follow up with my backhand attack. I should have tried to either move my stance farther over to the forehand to try and go cross court or tried a slow loop deep to his backhand. I had the same problem when I would get a weak ball on my serve. I need to learn to loop these to the forehand corner. My other problem was on backhand service return. I think if had tried to be more aggressive and looping his serves I could hand done better. His serves didn't seem particularly spinny.

I feel that I did return serves with my forehand fairly well and attacked long serves with decent consistency. I did have problems with one of David's serves where he served just inside of my forehand strike zone. I was having trouble recognizing in time that I needed to side step just a bit to get a good return.

I'm doing better with my backhand attack, but expect that it will be several months before I wouldn't consider it a weakness and people to stop picking on it. I also need to learn to not try and loop low just barely long pushes to my backhand. I'm missing a lot of these. I also need to make better progress with my backhand smash. It's really not a shot I use in singles much though.

I'm also going to try and go to a different blade. While the Kong Linghui Special feels great in the looping game up till around 8 feet, it seems to be a bit too bouncy for consistent flipping. I bought a triple arylate galaxy de-1 blade to try and I think I'm also going to try the keyshot if I can figure out how to fix the handle.

How did I play today?

I tried to use the Keyshot Light with Geospin tacky 2.0 and F3 2.0 for most of today. The blade is ok, probably one step down in speed from the Kong LingHui Special. I really don't like the tackiness of the rubber. In the pushing and flipping game it helped to get more spin, but on serve and looping I felt like the ball was sticking to the rubber and slowing down. I may need to try tacky in the future to help my short game, but I'm happy for now with the regular Geospin. On the backhand side, I felt better with the KL. I'm not sure if this was the newer rubber or that it was thicker. I'm going to put a new sheet of 2.0 before my next session. I've also been thinking of trying geopspin on my backhand too. The handle was also causing me problems. I started to feel some pain in my hand and forearm. I don't know if this would go away if I played with it more, but I'm not going to try.

I played a few singles matches. Nothing too interesting to report as I was handicapped a bit by the different racket. I beat Margit due to her switching back to inverted on her backhand. Lost to Greg because I was an idiot and forgot to adjust for the fact that his racket is pretty dead. And split two matches with Siggi. In the second match against Siggi I switched back to my normal racket and it felt much better, especially on the forehand side. I didn't make much progress on my things to work on list. As I spent most of the time trying to adjust to the keyshot. I've decided to stop EJ'ing and think that my current setup has plenty of room to grow into.

Things to work on

Forehand:

• flipping
• looping backspin farther from the table
• looping to the forehand corner when the ball is in the middle of the table
• pushing, esp. returning deep pushes
• looping controlled forehands more in the 5-8 foot range

Backhand:

• use shoulder turn more on all topspin shots
• more consistency on backhand
• flipping
• backhand openers
• learn to loop backhands against topspin
• playing backhands more aggressively in the 5-8 foot range

Footwork:

• get away from table quicker after short game shots. Bouncing in and out. Backing off from the table enough to loop backhands and forehands
• bending my knees more

Strategy:

• pushing and transition to opening loop
• when to control loop versus aggressive loop
• a controlled looping, lower energy style
• varying spin on pushes
• controlling amount of spin in rallies better
• better concentration

Service:

• step farther from table after serving
• reverse pendulum third balls
• better reverse pendulum
• convex vs concave motions on reverse pendulum
• serving tomahawk from middle of table
• getting heavy backspin with tomahawk serve
• high(medium) toss forehand pendulum, esp. heavy backspin

Service Return:

• keeping weight on inside of feet for service return
• being a both less and more aggressive with service returns

Goodness that's a lot to work on. Many of them are situational. Focuses should be more controlled looping with forehand, more consistent backhand openers, more concentration, getting all service returns on the table, and getting all serves in. For the next month, all other motions other than forehand pendulum are only for variation, but should practice everything.

Service Receive Positioning and Footwork

After going to an extreme forehand position for a few months, I've now returned to a more standard forehand position. At present I think there are three valid service return stances, that I should use. Two of these I should use often for serves from the left corner, and one for serves from the right corner. From left to right:

Extreme Forehand Receive
This stance is with my left foot outside the sideline and my body at around a 45 degree angle. I need to use two step footwork to get to short forehand serves, and crossover footwork to cover serves down the forehand line. When the ball is tossed, I have to recognize if the toss is all the way into the backhand corner or not, and if not to adjust my positioning while the ball is in the air.

Advantages

• Can cover 90% of table with forehand, if server is in the backhand corner.
• Don't have to move to take wide backhands

Weaknesses

• Nearly impossible to cover wide forehand serves if server is away from backhand corner
• Have to have excellent footwork. Both for step around loops and covering wide forehand serves
• Step arounds can ill advised on wide serves

I don't think that in most cases this is the best position to play in. It does strengthen the backhand (by not having to move), and allow you to play the stronger forehand most of the time, but leaves you vulnerable to serves that fade away from the forehand. This isn't so much of a problem against the standard forehand pendulum serve, but is a problem as soon as the server moves even six inches into the middle of the table. I have been caught looking at the serve go by when the server sneakily moved a bit into the middle, since he had been serving from all the way into the backhand corner for most of the match. (I've stolen this serve since.) Some of these problems may be alleviated as I get better.

For now, this positioning is best used as a variation to my standard receive. I think it's best used as a surprise when I really need a point. It does give a better angle to view the standard pendulum serve. I've noticed that from my standard forehand position, I'm staring at the edge of the blade for this serve, which makes it very hard to read the type and amount of spin from the motion.

Typical Forehand Receive

In this service I stand with my left foot more or less on the sideline, and my body at a 30 degree angle. I can cover about 75% of the table in this stance if I step around. I can cover serves down the line from the left corner with a shuffle step and cover serves to my wide forehand with crossover footwork. To cover serves to my wide backhand, I need to use one or two step footwork.

Advantages:

• still covers most of the table with forehand

Disadvantages:

• the elbow is more pronounced than the extreme forehand

This is where I typically return service. In this position I feel I can return all serves without extreme movements. If I want to loop wide forehand serves, I still need to use crossover footwork, but can push or counter with just a shuffle step. I should cover my elbow all the time with my forehand, but sometimes will cover with my backhand. I need to get a bit better at returning wide serves to my backhand.

Neutral Position

This stance is with my feet parallel. Depending on how wide the server is, the left foot should be near or a little inside the sideline. With this stance I'm only covering half of the table with my forehand. I can cover the whole table with one step footwork, but can't loop everything without more movement.

Advantages:

• Can cover whole table with one step footwork

Disadvantages

• Weakens forehand with parallel stance

I used this stance for the first time at the last tournament. One of the main reasons was fatigue, as I had trouble covering serves to the short forehand. I don't know too much about this stance yet, but I'm going to be experimenting with this when people serve from the forehand corner. Probably has a big weakness to serves to the wide backhand.

Power Pong January 2008

I played two events, the 1250 and 1400, at this tournament. I made the playoffs in both events.

My first match of note was my fifth match. Before this I had a fairly easy time of winning in the round robins and one playoff match. This match was against the top seed on my table in the 1400. He was an older Indian man, who played a bit of a weird backhand dominant style. I won the first game easily playing my style. In the second game he made the adjustment to serve mostly to my backhand and with less spin. I was pushing these short and he was then doing a weird backhand attack into my forehand corner. He won this game and also won the third, but the third game was closer as I tried to figure out a way to stop this attack. I started to get back the first attack consistently in the third game. In the fourth game I started to gain confidence and felt in control of the match and won easily. Before the fifth game, I realized I was really tired, but had to play my 100% game to guarantee a win. I also had a good idea of which serves worked well and how my opponent would return them. I dug down and found the energy to win easily, but the well was almost empty after the match. I became worried that I wouldn't have the energy to perform in the playoffs.

As it turned out I was right. I lost my next to matches. The first to a lady who I had played before and won. She was a lot better this time around, but so was I. Unfortunately I had trouble finding the energy to win even a single game. The one game that I did find the energy I won, but the rest were pretty weak. I couldn't summon the focus to change my strategy either. I lost 4-1.

In my last match I was playing a defensive long pips user. I didn't have trouble against the pips and even used them to my advantage. I won the first and third games fairly easily and if I could have continued my play from the third game would have won the match. Unfortunately my legs got too tired and I lost control of my loops and lost the fourth and fifth games. One interesting note on this match was his preferred serve was a backhand serve from the forehand corner using his pips. This changed my service receive position to a neutral stance shifted about a foot to the right of my normal position. As I was attacking all his long serves, he was reduced to serving short to the forehand and backhand corner. I tried flipping a few of these, but didn't have the confidence with my tired legs to do this consistently.

One thing the last match taught me is that I should develop a controlled looping style that I can use even when I'm exhausted. I should be able to play a moderate to low spin game against weaker players, and win with placement and better technique.

How did I play today?

I played three singles matches of note today, and lost all three.

I played Bill first and won the first game, kept the second close, but lost the third and fourth fairly easily. I realized afterwards that I started to over hit some of my loops, instead of spinning them. I have trouble right now balancing aggression against controlled looping, esp. when I'm playing a chopper. Bill started to do a good job with throwing me off with no spin chops and side spin chops.

Then, I played Yoshi in a league match. The first two games were not so good as I wasn't into the match yet. My concentration level was way too low, but I raised it in the third game, and won it and the fourth game in deuce. In the final game, I was in it, but Yoshi managed to take a 9-7 lead and won 11-8. I again had some trouble balancing aggression and control. After the first two games, one of the big adjustments I made was to block many of Yoshi's loops instead of trying to hit or loop them. I also had trouble recieving Yoshi's serve. From where I normally stand I only could see the edge of his blade, when he served, making it difficult to tell the difference between side spin and top spin. I went to an extreme forehand stance and was able to see the motion a little better. One thing this match showed me is that I need to learn to deal with heavy topspin short and wide to my backhand better. This is also a serve I have trouble recieving from Jeff.

I also played Nathan later on. I can stay with Nathan for most of the game now, but can't seem to win games. He does a good job, getting some easy service points when the game is tight and near the end. I also need to do a better job of watching his serve to read the spin. I should go back to thinking that I can't read serve at all and reread the post I had on reading serve.

Things to work on:

• Watching the ball when I'm trying to loop, especially for balls that are fading away.
• Pushing and developing game using backspin serves
• Using backhand more aggressively and consistently. Picking my spots better to loop backhands.
• Using a shoulder turn, when smashing backhands.
• Flipping no spin balls more consistently
• Watching the service motion.
• Balancing aggressive loops with controlled loops. Emphasis on using more controlled loops
• Understanding all my serves that aren't the forehand pendulum
• Footwork and getting to the right position after serving.

Forehand Tomahawk Serve

Probably the serve I have used the longest. I have been using a backspin and a side spin variation of this serve for a long time and developed a super spinny top spin a few years ago. I don't really understand this serve very well and am hesitant to use it except to get a couple easy points. I can outspin most people with the first serve and have a no spin variation with a weird motion.

I'm in the process of learning to do this serve from the middle of the table and trying to learn a heavy, high toss backspin variation. This will take some time, especially if I'm maintaining my forehand pendulum and learning about and improving my reverse pendulum.

I need to work on my wrist snap and keeping the blade in the same plane to be able to execute a heavy backspin serve.

I should also bring back the heavy, long topspin variation, that just curves in bounds to the backhand side. I think on the short topspin, I could try and snap my wrist more and skim the ball more to get more spin.

I should concentrate on this serve or my reverse pendulum for the next couple months, and possibly ignore the other serve.