Welcome to PIPS!Written by Web Master   Saturday, 12 June 2004

Everything you always wanted to know - or didn't want to know - about pimple table tennis rubbers...

Pips is a table tennis equipment site set up by a group of like-minded table tennis players that are keen to educate the table tennis community about long pimpled and other pimpled rubbers. We feel these rubbers add great diversity to our game, and it's something that should be embraced, and not frowned upon or dimissed as a 'cheater's rubber'.

The purpose of this website is two fold:

By providing comprensive information and guides on pimpled rubber we hope to bring more players to try these types of rubbers

By educating all other players and teaching them how these rubbers work, players will learn how to player against these type of rubbers, and will see them as just another aspect of the game to learn and overcome.

We hope to also cover medium pimple and short pimple rubbers, as we see these merely as another variation in the rubber type, with properties somewhere in between long pimples and inverted style rubbers.

If you know a little about pimpled rubbers and are willing to help us in our cause, please contact us! We need all the help we can get!

IntroductionWritten by Alex   

Sunday, 20 May 2007

How many of you thought you were playing pretty well, got the basics principles of spin under your belt, but then came face to face with a long pimple players… and got made to look like a fool? Me, me…. and MEEE, I hear…well despair no more…In this article we’ll attempt to unveil the dark secrets of long pimples rubbers. These secrets have been kept hidden for centuries among the elite players, so put on your horns and walk away from the light… towards the Dark Side… and prepare to be changed forever…

Basic PropertiesWritten by Alex   

Sunday, 20 May 2007

Ok, lets get back on a more serious note. Although there is a huge range of different long pimpled rubbers, they all share some common characteristics, and all to different degrees. These characteristics are commonly referred to as ‘long pimple effects’, and are summarised below:

1. The small surface area of the tips of long pimples results in minimum contact between the ball

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and the rubber. This reduces the friction between the ball and rubber significantly, resulting in the rubber being very insensitive to incoming spin, and allowing a lot of the incoming spin to be returned back to the opponent.  This is commonly referred to as 'Spin Reversal'.

2. The pimples bend under impact with the ball, the higher the impact the more they bend. Now as the pimples bend, more of the rubber (sides of the pimples) is exposed, resulting in a greater contact surface area between the ball and the rubber, which changes the characteristics discussed in 1. In addition to this, the texture of the tip of the pimples may be different to that of the sides of the pimples, which changes the effect it has on the spin on the ball.  

3. The pimples bend back after releasing the ball. This results in some of the pimples giving the ball a bit of a ‘flick’, which can add some random spin to the ball. Although this effect is far more pronounced in soft, long and skippy long pimples, the effect is present for most long pimples rubbers.  

4.The long pimple rubbers are generally significantly slower than most other types of rubbers, often taking the pace off the ball. This generally improves control but diminishes attacking ability.  

5.The effects described in the 4 points above, can be significantly changed by the three main factors: 

 

- Choice in sponge thickness. This usually ranges from ‘no sponge’ (commonly referred to as ‘OX’) to thicker sponges usually up to 1.5mm. Most ‘long pimple effects’ are greatest for OX, and decrease with the thicker sponges. As discussed later though, there may be good reasons to choose a thicker sponge.

 - The hardness of the sponges also has an effect. Most ‘long pimple effects’ are greatest for

harder sponges, but again there can be good reasons for choosing softer sponges.

 

- The choice of blade can make quite a difference in how the pimples perform. Since the choice is often a compromise between the different rubbers on either side of the bat, the choice of suitable blades for the required style is often much harder than for inverted players. Most ‘long pimple effects’ are greatest for harder blades. 

Over the next few articles I will attempt to explain these 5 points in details, and explain what advantages and disadvantages these characteristics offer. Examples of rubbers where these effects are most obvious will be included.

Spin ReversalWritten by Alex   

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

1. Spin reversal:

The key and most important feature of long pimpled rubbers is it so-called ‘spin reversal’. Although some of the other properties of these rubbers are important too, without ‘spin reversal’ they simply would not be effective. So what’s this ‘spin reversal’, and how can this magical rubber ‘reverse’ the spin I hear you ask? Well the reality is, it’s not magical at all and it’s actually simpler to explain than the effect of the smooth and spinney inverted rubbers. All that the long pimple rubbers do, is allow the spinning ball from your opponent, to continue spinning in the same direction when you return it. It’s as simple as that! So

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technically it should really be called ‘spin continuation’, but there’s a good reason why it’s more commonly referred to as spin reversal, as illustrated in this example:

1. Your opponent feeds you a ball with topspin:

2. You hit the ball with your long pimpled rubber and the ball rebounds off:

3. The ball rebounds off your bat, with reduced speed and spin, but notice that the ball is still spinning in the same direction, but because it’s traveling in the opposite direction, it’s now backspin:

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Now the tricky and deceptive part of this is (put over-simplistically for illustration purposes), that it does not matter what type of stroke you play, the ball WILL return with backspin. So even if you play a stroke where you appear to impart topspin, the ball will still return with backspin. Just make sure you get it on the table.

Similarly if your opponent feeds you backspin, or any other spin for that matter, you will return the opposite spin when you hit it with your long pimpled rubber. The fact that the spin is opposite, is where the term ‘spin reversal’ comes from. In other words the key difference between spin coming from an inverted or long pimple rubbers from your opponent is: - The spin coming from an inverted rubbers basically depends on what type of stroke your opponent plays - The spin coming from a long pimple rubber depends on the type of spin that you send to your opponent, with the type of stroke that your opponent makes having much less impact (the extent of this depends on the type of long pimple rubber used).

At the lower levels of table tennis, this property alone can win you points and often whole games. If your opponent imparts a lot of spin on the ball, and does not understand that this comes back in reverse, it will draw many errors or easy balls to put away. At the higher levels, the principle of the spin-reversal is often well understood, and can actually be taken advantage off. The main advantage that this property offers at this level is it’s relatively insensitivity to incoming spin, and the ability to return heavy spin when you receive heavy spin. For example your opponent feeds you a loops with heavy topspin, you return it with the long pimples, and heavy backspin comes back, which may make it hard for your opponent to attack again, or he may even hit it into the net! The spin reversal in association with some of the other properties of the long pimple rubber is what makes the rubbers powerful. The spin reversal just by itself has limited potential. The amount of spin reversal that your rubber produces, actually depends on many factors. The type of long pimple used is one factor. However how you play the stroke has an impact too, and varying the spin reversal is actually one form of deception, but this will be discussed in a later section.

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Bending the pipsWritten by Alex   

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

2. Compressing and bending the pips:

As mentioned before, spin reversal is one of the key properties of long pimple rubbers. However once you climb the grades ladder and get to play to more experienced players, this property alone may not be enough. If these players know that whatever spin they feed to your long pimple rubber, will come back with almost the exact reverse, they can control the spin completely, and can feed you spin, so that just the right spin comes back to suit their own game… Of course you still have control over the speed and placement of the ball, but this may not be enough. Other options are still available for the more advanced players, such as twiddling to use the other side of the bat, or running around to play the ball with the rubber on the other side, but this will be discussed in the strategy section. OK so what options are available to combat your opponents from dominating play by exploiting the spin reversal property? Well the concept of the spin-reversal was described with an ‘ideal’ long pimple rubber, where spin reversal is maximized. Some rubbers have hard pimples and very glassy and slippery tips come close to this ideal long pimple rubber, and are suited for a style where maximum spin reversal is required. Examples of these are Dr Neubauer “Super Block” and Hallmark “Super Special”. These rubbers are commonly referred to as “Frictionless long pimple” rubbers, and are a very important class of rubbers. However there is another main class of rubbers, commonly referred to “Grippy” or “Friction” long pimple rubbers, and these have some other interesting properties which will be discussed here. The reality is that ALL long pimple rubbers DO have some grip and therefore the type of stroke played WILL have some effect on the spin that is returned. Many long pimple rubbers also have softer pimples, which means they’ll bend under impact, the harder the impact, the more they bend. By bending the pimples, more of the rubber surface is exposed to the ball, so the contact area between the rubber and ball is increased. This has the effect of reducing the spin reversal, but increasing the amount of spin you can impart. Some of these Grippy long pimple rubbers are designed to have significant grip on their tips and sides, and are often made softer so that the pimples can bend more easily. So what use is this property if it reduces the key spin-reversal property of long pimple rubbers? Well it offers another key feature of grippy long pimple rubbers, which is the ability to manipulate and control the spin, which can be used as a form of deception. This will be described below. Just as in section 1 we used an ideal frictionless rubber to illustrate the principle of spin reversal, here we’ll use an ideal grippy long pimple rubber for illustration purposes. This rubber will have grippy tips, will bend under impact, and will have grippy sides. Consider the following…

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1. Your opponent feeds you a ball with topspin:

2. The ball strikes your bat. But because the pimples are soft, they compress and push in as shown, resulting in many more pimples contacting the ball surface. The pimples are grippy, so they grab the ball and try to stop it from spinning.

3. The ball rebounds off with reduced speed and with virtually no spin.

The extent of how much of the spin is taken off the ball depends on quite a few 6

other factors. The grippier the pimples, the better they can grip the ball and take off the spin. Also the longer the ball is in contact with the rubber (i.e. dwell time), the better the pimples can take off the spin. So a soft blade and/or a sponge will also increase the ability of taking off the spin. Finally the speed of the ball has an effect, the slower the ball, the slower the rebound, so the pimples have more time to take off the spin. An actual picture of the ball compressing the pimples is shown here:

This property by itself can already be very useful. A spinney loop that is returned short with no spin can be hard to attack again. However the player can actually control how much spin is taken off the ball as well, by the movement of the bat upon contact. By brushing the ball in the same direction as the ball is spinning, you can control whether you take off all the spin, return all the spin back to your opponent, or even add a little spin if you brush the ball faster than it’s spinning:

1. Your opponent feeds you a ball with topspin:

2. You strike the ball with a brushing action in the same direction as the ball is spinning. Note the squashing of the pimples while you’re brushing exposes even more contact area for the ball to grip the rubber, allowing more manipulation of the spin. Because the bat travels in the same direction as the surface of the ball, some of the spin is continued on:

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3. A reduced amount of spin is returned to the opponent, you control the amount:

The amount of spin returned is obviously also dependent on other factors. There will often still be a moderate amount of spin reversal, depending on factors explained earlier. By disguising how fast you’re brushing the ball at the point of contact offers a form of deception, drawing errors from opponent who misjudge this.

A picture of a ball making contact with a brushing action of a bat is shown here:

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Note that if you brush the ball fast enough, you can actually add some spin to the ball as well. Against fast loops this may be very hard to do, and this is not really unique to long pimple rubbers. There are a variety of different strokes that can offer further manipulation of the spin, but this will be discussed in the ‘Long Pimple Strokes’ section.

Modern Defense - techniques and tacticsWritten by Kees   

Friday, 29 February 2008 CLASSIC & MODERN DEFENCE – BASIC TECHNIQUES AND TACTICS.

1. Introduction.

Defending away from the table, made famous by masters of the art such as Ding Song, feared for his supreme staying-power and his ferocious attacks, or willow-waisted Tong Ling, who seemed to win her matches lightly dancing an intricate ballet, is the most spectacular as well as the most demanding style in table tennis. The classic defender mainly chops from about two paces or more behind the table, coming in fast regularly to push short returns or attack weak ones; the modern defender alternates even more between defending and attacking. A defender has, therefore, to be able to move very quickly from side to side, covering a considerable distance since six feet behind the table balls tend to travel fast out of reach, and at that he has to be able to move quickly in and out. Moreover, at the end of every rush he has to be able to poise himself perfectly and then flawlessly chop, push, block, loop or smash. Not only fleet feet and a great sense of balance are absolutely necessary assets in this style, but the defender must be able to execute each and every attacking stroke as well as all defensive techniques. After three years of ardent practice an attacker will be more or less completely skilled, but at that point the defender’s education will have just begun. Defence, be it classic or modern, is the high-school of table tennis and if you wish to attend its classes you should be aware that you will have to do so for a considerable time and spend a lot of effort. You might well ask if all this labour is worth it. As a defender will you eventually be more than a match for attackers? Theoretically, yes. Backspin as a means to defeat your opponent is superior to topspin. Firstly, because topspin is produced by swinging upward, against gravity, using groups of muscles which are normally less strong than the groups of muscles used to hack downward, assisted by gravity, in order to produce backspin (try to fell a tree hacking head-high; then try felling it knee-high; and see what you like best). Secondly, because topspin can be used against the player producing it, for it can be actively blocked and

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redirected; but against backspin, using inverted rubber, one can either push or try to counter by producing at least as much topspin, so your opponent will have to give up the initiative or spend more energy than you did to try and gain it. Thirdly, your opponent cannot really afford to return heavy backspin balls when they are dropping; this severely limits his reaction-time and therefore cramps his style, whereas the defender prefers to take the ball when it is dropping and therefore has all the time in the world to play his game. In practice, however, the advantage of the defender over the attacker is not as clear-cut. The defender will chop mostly well away from the table and as a result the ball will travel farther than a ball hit by an attacker who is typically standing close to the table. The defender’s ball will, therefore, in general lose speed and spin more than the ball hit by the attacker. The loss of speed is not much of a problem; the loss of spin is. Moreover, the introduction of the 40 mm ball, which loses spin and speed faster than the 38 mm ball, has been to the advantage of the attacker in this respect. It is still possible to deliver more chop than an attacker can handle, though, if the defender stays somewhat closer to the table than Ding Song used to do in his glorious days. Modern defensive styles as adopted by e.g. South-Korean female player Park Mi Young or Svetlana Ganina from Russia display this change in basic position. Seemingly a disadvantage, it has been turned into a gain, because attacking from this shorter distance is easier. As a result, the modern defender now may be more dangerous than ever before. How is it then, you might ask again, that there are so few defenders among the world’s top-players? There are two answers to this question. The first answer is that the number of defenders amongst top-players actually is disproportional high: 3 in the top 15 of men, 7 in the top 40 of women, if I counted right. That is 1 in 3 and 1 in 6 respectively, whereas I would estimate the rate of defenders to attackers in the total population of table tennis players to be more like 1 in 20 or 30. The second answer is that one probably would find even more defenders at the top, if more young players would choose to adopt this style. However, defensive styles are unpopular because it takes quite a long time to master them – much longer than attacking styles. Ours is an era of impatience; success has to come quickly or people will turn away to find other opportunities. Typically, it will take more than a year to make an accomplished defender out of an accomplished attacker. Most players who set out at this course quit after about three months; this is known as “the defender’s dip” and is caused by the grim fact that stepping up from attack to defence will initially mean you lose most matches you would have won before. You will start to win some after half a year of backbreaking training and again half a year further on you may be almost back on the level of competition you were used to. After that, however, you will start to shine. And defenders generally outlast attackers, so you may shine for a long, long time. Becoming a defender, then, will be far from easy and the choice should not be made light-heartedly. But if you are willing to dedicate yourself completely to the sheer beauty of this style, you will reach the apex of table tennis.

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2. The essence of defence. Outline of the style.

If you want to defend, you must be attacked. Think of yourself as a city; having an impregnable wall is not enough to defeat your enemy – your opponent must be provoked to try and breach it or his weaknesses will not be exposed and you will not be able to exploit them and bring him on his knees. The idea of classic defence is to be besieged in such a way that the enemy attacks in vain and in the end is worn out, either to die in the field or to receive your coup de grâce. The idea of modern defence, however, is to be besieged in such a way that the enemy attacks in vain and while doing so rapidly becomes vulnerable for quickly mounted counter-attacks. Modern defence is generally faster, more deceptive and less safe than classic defence, because it is more provocative – it needs to be, because modern enemies are often so heavily armed (fast frames with fast rubbers generating massive spin) that they will breach your wall if you let them go on blasting at it. Whether you are a classic or a modern defender, your wall of defence should be equally perfect. No cracks, no fissures, no flaws. In table tennis this means you have to be able to bring back every ball. Furthermore, as any wall may be broken in time if the enemy is allowed a concentrated attack on it, you have to scatter his force and disrupt his assault – time and again. This means you must deny your opponent the opportunity to fully deploy his topspin and, if he succeeds in deploying it nonetheless, counter it in such a way that he will not have another opportunity to fully deploy it. Impregnability and disruption are the keys to a successful defence. An unsuccessful enemy will weaken and get exhausted; yet you may have to finish him off and this is the only instance in which a classic defender should actually attack. Behind the table this means you will wait for your opponent to miss and use his mistakes to win the point yourself. The more modern you are as a defender, the more you will try to force errors and use them. From all this it can be seen why your main tool is backspin. Firstly, because against no-spin and topspin the full force of topspin can be used for the attack; since there is no need to lift the ball, all energy of the stroke can be used for spin and forward speed. But against backspin part of the energy must be used to lift the ball; the result is less forward speed, so the attack is half-smothered. Using backspin means draining the opponent’s energy. Secondly, lifting a backspin ball is even harder (more likely: unsuccessful) when it is dropping after the bounce. This limits the possibilities the attacker has; he will have to hit the ball on the rise. Therefore using backspin cramps his style. Thirdly, using backspin against a topspin ball means (if it is done correctly) you are continuing the spin, instead of trying to stop it and replace it with spin of your own. So, all in all, using backspin means you are not only redirecting and draining your opponent’s energy, you are actually tapping it, turning the force of his attack against him. Nevertheless, a classic defender may still use topspin, but will do so merely for the coup de grâce. A modern defender will use topspin attacks far more frequently, to disrupt his opponent’s play and force him to make errors. Now, for a rough outline of the defensive styles it is useful to discern between three zones of defence: you have to return balls from between the net and the middle of the table (first zone of defence), or between the middle of the table and its end or close behind it (second

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zone of defence), or from (much) further behind the table (third zone of defence). In the first zone you will kill the occasional high ball, but almost always balls in this area will be low and you will push them aggressively, placing them deep to provoke the half-smothered topspin attack (mentioned above) in the second or, preferably, the third zone. At that, a modern defender may decide to go for a flip every once in a while. The third zone is where your strength really lies if you are a classic defender, since away from the table you are able to chop with full force. Here you will almost always chop, because chopping means making full use of your opponent’s attack, continuing his topspin as backspin and if possible adding to it. A ball too high to chop, here, will be a ball to kill. But the modern defender may also decide to loop aggressively in this zone. In the second zone you will again kill a high ball and for the rest either chop-block or chop-push (I will explain this term later on), placing the ball deep in order to provoke a topspin ball in the third zone. For the modern defender, looping is an option. From this it will be clear that not only you will have to move to the left and to the right in order to get to the ball, but that you will also move to the table (in) and away from it (out) a lot; in fact, as a classic defender you will move in to move out and as a modern defender you will be all over the place. This determines your basic position behind the table: you should stand at a point from which you can comfortably reach balls in all three zones. Too close to the table means you will have problems going away from it in order to chop; too far away and you will not reach the balls in the first zone. Your basic position as a classic defender is, therefore, about a yard from the table, with your right hip behind the middle line (if you are right-handed; because your reach at the backhand side is somewhat less than at the forehand side). During play you must always be able to reach any ball, so you have to come back to this position after every move you make. It is useful to imagine a rectangle, occupying the court from one small step to your right to one small step to your left and a good step backward; your basic position is in the middle of the front line of this rectangle and, moving around the court, you should try and keep at least one leg inside it at all times. If your defensive style is more modern, your basic position is (for right-handed players) more to the left and closer to the table; this will give you more room to use your forehand attack strokes.

3. Moving around the court.

As a defender you have to move in the right way or you will be caught in a position from which you cannot confidently return the ball. Stand in the basic position, feet somewhat apart (about is wide as your hips or even a bit less), your weight equally divided over them, knees slightly bend to make you stand springy, crouching a bit, holding out both your arms crooked (about 90 degrees) in front of you, your bat pointed half upward, half to your opponent. Stand balanced, relaxed, very lightly, ready and eager to move in any direction. Going in for the fast push or occasional flip, you step forward, always with your right leg (if you are right-handed) bringing your right foot just under the table. At the same time you move your weight forward; you catch it on your right leg, bending it. Instantly find your

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balance. While you were moving forward you stretched your arm; now you reach out even further and perform the stroke aggressively. Then, withdrawing your arm, you straighten your leg pushing back your weight, and you bring your leg back to the original position. Again, instantly find your balance and be ready for the next move. Note that going to the right, the middle or the left, you step out with your right leg! Always keep the other leg where it is! Think of moving in and back as one single flowing motion. Going out for the chop to the right you step out to the right and backwards, one not too big step, with your right leg. At the same time you move your weight in the same direction; you catch it on your right leg, bending it, and instantly find your balance. Moving this way you have turned your body half away from the table and you have raised your hand, bending your arm sharply upward (your bat should be more or less in your neck). The moment you have found your balance, you begin chopping down, bending your leg even more; have your upper body follow the stroke downward (so you are leaning over, but retain your balance) and forward, so that you will end up face forward. The stroke itself resembles a deep scoop, going at first (still high up) a bit backwards, then mostly down, then down and sharply forwards; your bat should come in one flowing motion under the ball. You hit the ball, relax, and follow through downward and forward a short way, then upward, in one single flowing motion, pushing your weight upward straightening your leg and return to your original position. It is important that you push up your weight energetically, offsetting the upwards motion against the vigorous downwards motion of the stroke; if you do this your right leg may lose contact with the floor for a moment and the result is a floating sensation, a kind of hop. This hop facilitates bringing your right leg back forward. Do not exaggerate it, though! It is far better to keep ever so lightly in touch with the floor, because that way you will be able to move suddenly if you have to – you cannot move when you are in mid-air. If you have to go further out to get to the ball, step out to the right and backwards, bring in your left foot until you are standing with your feet as much apart as before, step out to the right and backwards again. If necessary, repeat this gliding step. Do not lose contact with the floor with your left foot! Return to your basic position the same way, in reverse. Now do not lose contact with the floor with your right foot! Going out for the chop to the left you do the same, but have the left leg do what the right leg did going out to the right, and have the right leg do what the left leg did. Also turn your upper body more; because your arm has to move across your body now, you may actually have to turn your back to the table! Still, you should keep your balance, which means that, if necessary, you should bring your right foot in front of your left foot so that for a very brief moment the line of your hips is at rectangles with the back of the table – doing this, just touch the floor with your right foot, nothing more, while you are quickly and energetically performing the stroke, then bring the right foot back. Again, the vigorousness of the motion downward and upward as one whole should result in the little hop which facilitates returning to your original position. You will have noted that moving this way you will mainly, if not exclusively, move diagonally across the court – both towards the table and away from it. This is necessary, because it will put you in the correct position for the main strokes, viz. the push and the

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chop. It will, by the way, also put you into the right position for a fast loop or smash. Furthermore, the hop is an intrinsic part of the motion, again connecting the way you move and the way you strike the ball. Therefore, moving around the court and performing your strokes should form a single lively flowing harmonious whole! Of course, it will not always be possible to move diagonally in and out, returning always to your basic position. Sometimes you will have to stay back; in this case it is important to try and have at least one foot still in the rectangle described above. If you go or stay too far back, chances are that you will have to come in for a short ball so quickly that you can only run to get it, and you will lose the chance to get into the correct position for hitting the ball. The modern defender may, as has been noted, choose a different basic position, standing more to his backhand corner of the table. Some modern defenders stand as far to the left as do attackers. This, however, is only their basic position for serve and return of serve, or for attack. As soon as the rally is underway and they are going to defend, their basic position will be the central one of the classic defender. This means that for the modern defender the basic position is continuously shifting. Yet the pattern of movement remains the same; the modern defender will still move diagonally in and out. As the centre of motion shifts from left to right and back again, this diagonal motion becomes a criss-cross. It may seem, therefore, that the movement of e.g. Joo Se Hyuk, who at times attacks more often than he defends, is erratic; but actually he is moving systematically around this changing basic position. For the beginning defender following this extreme example would be unwise; it is best to start in the classic style moving around one centre, the basic position in the middle, and only after having mastered this completely, to step up to the next stage, viz. that of the modern defender.

Exercise 1. You can practice moving around the court very well at home; actually, it is advisable to do this every day until it has become a complete habit. Take 4 dishes and 10 table tennis balls; put 2 dishes 1 good step in front of you and about 1.5 metres apart on a table or on 2 separate chairs, put the other 2 on the floor 1 step behind you and also about 1.5 metres apart. Put 10 balls in the dish to your left on the table or the chair. Your basic position is in the centre. You get the idea: you’re mimicking an actual rally this way. Move in to your left as described above, pick up a ball, move back to the basic position, move out to your right, put the ball in the dish there, return to the basic position; repeat this 4 times; then put the other 5 balls in the dish on the floor to your left; take a short break; now in the same manner bring all the balls to the dish on the table or the chair to your right. Don’t forget the hop coming up from reaching down to the dishes on the floor! You can vary, bringing balls to different dishes. Start out simple, though, and in a moderate tempo; speed up and move in more intricate patterns as you get better at this. Try to float...

4. Basic strokes.

I will try and describe the basic defensive strokes here. There is a catch, though; as a defender, you are likely to use some sort of pips on one side of your bat. Some strokes need to be performed a little differently when using pips; some strokes may be ineffective

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with pips; I will indicate this with every stroke. Still, in my view, it is best that you learn this style of play using two inverted rubbers, not too thin, not too slow, on a defensive frame, since most likely you will not be able to execute a stroke with pips if you are unable to perform it with inverted and you will have to use inverted anyhow. To describe the point of contact with the ball I will use the terms 12 o’clock for the top of the ball, 3 o’clock for its back, 6 o’clock for the bottom, and so on. With the strokes that are part of the attacker’s stock, I will not go into much detail; this means that the main topic below will be the chop.

4.1 First zone strokes.

The three main defensive strokes to perform over the table are the push against backspin, and both the chop block and the backspin block against topspin. All of these are used to get the ball deep on the other side of the table, in order to provoke an attack, but carrying enough backspin to half-smother that attack. You want your opponent’s return to go into the third zone, where you can fully exploit the potential of your chopping game; therefore, it is important to return to your basic position immediately after performing these strokes, so that you are ready to move out and chop. For a good push you open your bat almost completely, catch the ball very shortly after the bounce, making contact at about 5 o’clock, and bring your underarm forward shortly and vigorously. Relax and withdraw immediately. For a forehand push, bring your right shoulder (if you are right-handed) down and forward, so that you can get your bat as comfortably under the ball as with the backhand push; leaning a bit to the right helps. Pushing with short pips is easier, because they are less sensitive to the incoming spin; you should keep your bat a bit less open. Pushing with long pips is a problem; if they are without much grip you may reverse backspin into topspin and give your opponent an easy ball to attack; if they have more grip you may produce some backspin or a lot of it, have trouble keeping the ball low or have no trouble at all; this depends on the kind of long pips you use. If you use long pips that reverse spin when pushing, you should probably not push at all, but chop-block against backspin – be warned, you may produce a fairly dead ball this way which for an experienced opponent is easy to kill. With long pips, the best solution is to twiddle when necessary and receive backspin always with the inverted rubber. Using the chop block is generally a safe way to deal with topspin over the table. Keep your bat somewhat closed, catch the ball on the top of the bounce, making contact at about 3 o’clock, and chop downward fast. Aim deep. You can add speed by going forward while chopping down or kill part of the speed by going backward (you should relax your wrist when doing this). Blocking with short pips is easier; you can keep your bat almost vertical. Some short pips may reverse the incoming topspin into backspin, so you can produce heavy chop this way. The outcome of chop blocking with long pips again depends on the kind of pips used, but in most cases you will be able to produce heavy chop. The backspin block against topspin is executed like a normal passive block with a closed bat, but you close it a little bit less and just before making contact with the ball (shortly

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before the top of the bounce) you press lightly down; on making contact you retract your bat, all in all moving it down and to your body; this motion must be minimal, but very quick. The ball will go up because of the topspin it is carrying in, but it will get backspin because of the quick downward/inward pressing gesture. This block is hard to do, but effective; it is also deceptive, since your opponent might miss that little gesture you make – if he does, his return will go into the net. You can perform a backspin block very well with short pips, but not with long pips. With long pips that reverse topspin well, however, you can push against topspin, producing a backspin ball. Attacking over the table will consist in performing a flip or, if the ball is especially high, a smash. Keep in mind that when attacking over the table you must be sure to win the point or you will be in difficulty – attacking will mean feeding a topspin ball to your opponent, which is the kind he likes best! Keep also in mind that a high ball coming from a push will carry backspin, probably even a lot; with your flip or smash you have to compensate for this. The motion of the bat should be firmly upward! Theoretically it is also possible to perform a backspin smash over the table, but you need an exceptionally high ball for this. As backspin smashes tend to drift over the table, you will probably be better off performing a normal smash.

4.2 Second zone strokes.

Balls bouncing off the table nearer to its end should be treated differently. You can chop-block against topspin more aggressively because you now have more room to chop down. Pushing against backspin can also be done more aggressively; I like to call this stroke a chop-push. For this, you cock your wrist, come in under the ball from the side, catch it when it is near the top of the bounce, make contact at about 5 o’clock and snap out uncocking your wrist and underarm. For a backhand push bring your right shoulder downward and forward and lean to the right; it should feel as if you are getting your whole body under the ball. The stroke resembles an almost horizontal chop. It is very important to get under the ball lightly, that is without forward motion, or else it will bounce up off your bat. The stroke effectively begins when the bat is under the ball. With short pips these strokes are more or less performed in the same way. With long pips they can be executed successfully too, but in chop-pushing you will get the maximum result only with grippy long pips. The second zone is ideal for your counter-attacks: loops or smashes. Smashing or looping with long pips is in most cases dubious; you are probably better of using your inverted rubber for this. But short pips will do just fine.

4.3 Third zone strokes.

Looping or even smashing in the third zone, that is, well away from the table, is only possible with fast short pips or fast inverted rubbers and/or a fast frame; adding sidespin to your loops will make them more dangerous. Blocking here is risky, since the ball will

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probably be too slow and therefore too easy to attack. Lobbing is generally ineffective with the 40 mm ball. All in all, the main stroke here is the chop. Chopping, you need to know how backspin is produced against topspin. Imagine a bike standing upside down, one wheel still spinning. If you want to increase the spin you have to grip the wheel and move it into the same direction it is rotating, without obstructing its rotation. This means your hand must move at least as fast as (better still, faster than) the wheel already is moving. This is the very picture for chopping with inverted rubber against topspin; the rubber grips the ball and has to yank it on, moving as fast as or faster than the ball is spinning. If the rubber moves slower, the ball’s topspin will make it bounce up off the bat; you will lose control. To ensure this doesn’t happen, the speed of your arm, wrist and hand chopping down must at least equal the speed of your opponent’s. Chopping with pimpled rubbers means having less grip on the ball; obstruction of the ball’s rotation will be equally less. Chopping will, therefore, be easier and safer with pips. With a smooth rubber this would mean that adding to the ball’s rotation would be more difficult, but this is not necessarily the case with pips. Short pips do not grip the ball, but sort of stab it with the pips’ edges, going in the direction of the rotation; the rotation will not be obstructed and the pressure of the pips’ edges will add to it. Long pips, on the other hand, bend in the direction of the rotation of the ball and then flip back, thus obstructing it (if they are grippy). Therefore, if you have a ball bounce off a grippy long pimpled rubber, the result will be a fairly dead ball. This will still be the case if the rubber is grazing the ball, equalling in speed its rotation. But if it grazes the ball moving faster than the ball rotates, the pimples will bend to the other side, and then flip back in the direction of the rotation, thus adding to it. In short, with inverted rubbers and grippy long pips you have to chop faster than your opponent spins. With short pips you do not have to do this; but if you do it anyway, you will produce heavy backspin. In order to perform a forehand chop you move out to the right and turn your body as indicated in paragraph 3. Remember to raise your arm, bending it more than 90 degrees, and cock your wrist. Wait for the ball to drop until it is about knee-high or at least well below the table-level; it should be beside you when it does that. Chop down, confidently and energetically, fast while turning your upper body back to face the table. Make contact with the ball as near to 6 o’clock as you possibly can and snap out your underarm and wrist. Follow through downward and forward before coming back up. Hop! In order to perform a backhand chop you do the same, to the left. This time turn your body even more and, if necessary, put your right foot before the left when chopping down. Follow through downward and forward before coming back up. Hop! Different things can go wrong with this. The ball may sail over the table. In this case your chop has been going too much forward, because you have made contact too early and too high. This is actually a mistake frequently made by beginners; they tend to feel a little awkward when going down and hopping, and as a result their chops are too shallow. Try and go really down after hitting the ball, before you are coming up.

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The ball may sail high (and be killed). Again, your chop is probably too shallow; go deep. Or you may have chopped with not enough venom, in which case the incoming topspin makes the ball bounce off your bat; chop energetically and with confidence. There is not enough backspin in the ball. Same story: your chop needs more vigour and depth. Go for it! The hop really helps here... A cause of these three defects may also be the wrong use of long pips. Only the grippiest of pips will produce significant backspin of its own, which means that you should not use your long pips if you are not quite certain that on the incoming ball there is a lot of topspin which can be reversed into a lot of backspin. If the ball lands on your side of the table, you will probably have made contact too much on its backside, or you have made contact with its bottom but you did not chop with enough energy. If your backhand chop isn’t going well (not enough backspin, landing short, or bouncing high) you may not be really putting your weight on your left leg and as a result chop too shallow. You may also run into another problem: the incoming ball may be so fast that it doesn’t drop in time and you have to deal with a high ball. This is awkward if you cannot smash, drive or loop it; attack is the best option here, but if you must defend you should perform a chop block. Chop right down with much force and try to graze the backside of the ball (at about 4 o’clock). Follow through as well as you can. Long pips offer another option in this case: block hitting simply straight forward; with grippy pips you will produce a fairly dead ball, with less grippy pips maybe some backspin; in any case be prepared for the next incoming fast topspin ball and chop this one! Finally you may have to deal with a ball aimed at your body. Step aside left or right, depending on whether you prefer to chop with your forehand or backhand (it is useful making this choice a permanent one, so you will not hesitate) and chop it. If there is no time for this, perform a backhand chop-block in front of you; make the downward motion very fast.

5. Equipment.

A beginning defender is best off (in my opinion) using slow, very spinny inverted rubbers on both sides of a defensive frame. In time you may come to prefer faster rubbers on the same frame, because they will upgrade your attacks. Using a medium fast short (or medium long) pimpled rubber (e.g. Friendship 799 or 802, 1.0 or 1.5 mm) on one side is a good choice too; contrary to popular belief chopping with short pips is easy and generates loads of backspin if done sufficiently fast. Long pimpled rubbers are (again, in my opinion) an option for the advanced player. They are a mixed blessing. More or less insensitive to incoming spin, they may minimize the risk of balls bouncing off your bat upwards, making it easier to keep your returns low, but with less grippy long pips you need to know when to make use of the side of the bat with long pips or you will be in trouble; and with grippy pips (most effectively on relatively thick sponge) the difference with short pips is small to non-existent. Their most useful quality is

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the relative ease with which they can vary your outgoing backspin, that is, their deceptiveness. If you want to use long pips, you should also learn how to twiddle (turning the bat in your hand, so you can use either side at will). If you want to use short pips, this is not necessary, as short pips can generate spin of their own.

6. Basic tactics & exercises.

To outline the basic tactics for the classic defender: the objective is to wear down the attacker and expose his weaknesses, using them to win the point. You have to provoke attacks for this, but in such a way that you are able to defend yourself against them using your strongest stroke, the chop. This means that you must force your opponent to produce long, arched topspin balls; they must be long in order to get them in the third zone, where you can chop at your hearts desire; they must be arched in order to get them to drop quickly enough, or else you will be forced too far back and your returns will be less effective, having lost part of the backspin. In order to achieve this, you must place your returns deep on the table, close to the baseline, and keep them low; this way your opponent is forced to play heavy topspin strokes which have to lift the ball, arch its trajectory considerably and make it drop fast. Furthermore you will want to limit the amount of footwork you have to do in retrieving the ball; to keep it within reach, you must deny your opponent sharp angles and this means placing not only deep, but somewhere in the middle. If your returns go to the corners, for variation, you will have to anticipate a more angled attack. In practice you have to return a backspin serve deep with sufficient backspin; you push it into the body, because this will provoke a cramped forehand stroke, or to the forehand, to provoke a long topspin ball. You do not push it to the backhand, for chances are it will be pushed back to you and short play is not what you want. If the serve is no-spin, you attack it, of course. If it is long with topspin, you can start chopping. Your own serve should be a forehand or (generally easier) backhand backspin serve from your basic position, placed deep to the forehand or body. Another, more risky possibility is a topspin serve to the forehand, provoking immediate attack. Try and mix in some covert no-spin balls to the backhand which will result in returns that pop up and can be killed. If you have secured your chopping rally, try and draw errors. Place a number of balls deep in the middle, then one into the body, forcing your opponent to his backhand corner, then the next one to his forehand corner; he will have to move to get that last ball, so he may be to late to lift it properly, or hit less precise. You can also vary the depth, placing a ball less deep to the forehand (not to the backhand; it will be pushed), but take good care in keeping such a ball very low; the closer to the net, the lower your balls should be. Another way to draw errors is to start out chopping as hard as you can, then after two balls chop a little less hard, keeping the ball low nonetheless (for instance by taking it later, lower), then harder again.

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If you spot a weak return (less spin, too high), attack. For a modern style, you attack more often, not always waiting for the ball to drop, but looping it instead. Exercises should consist of parts of your game. Below are given some suggestions about how to become more comfortable with the style. It may be difficult for you to find a willing training partner, but if you cannot find a defender to practice with, you can promise an attacker his skills will be very much improved when training with you; and this is perfectly true. Being able to play against defenders is a necessary skill. While I am writing this down, the World Team Champions in Guangzhou (China) are being played. Yesterday Li Jia Wei of Singapore, a first rate attacker, was to play a match against Li Jie, a Dutch defender; sadly Li Jie had to give up after the first game because of a sprained ankle. Afterwards Li Jia Wei told reporters not only that she was truly sorry for her opponent’s misfortune, but also that she had prepared herself meticulously for the match, practicing play against backspin. Even the world’s top players have to practice like this. In my view, any attacker refusing the chance to spar with a defender is, to put it mildly, not exactly furthering his interests...

Exercise 2. Push aggressively for at least 5 minutes every training session, placing the ball anywhere on the table. Come in to the table and step back to your basic position time and again. You should do this in order to keep up your skill in short play; no one should be able to out-push you!

Exercise 3. Against a backspin serve to your backhand, move in from your basic position, push deep to the forehand, move back to your basic position, then out to the right to chop the topspin return to the backhand corner, from where it should be pushed to your backhand; and so on; repeat this cycle a number of times. Then vary the cycle. For instance, against a serve to your forehand, push back to the forehand, and so on. Or against a serve to your forehand push back to the body, chop left to the backhand, and so on.

Exercise 4. Serve no spin and have it attacked; see how fast and how close to the table you can perform an effective chop-block which enables you to chop the return. Have the attack aimed at your forehand; then at your backhand; then at your body.

Exercise 5. Do exercise 3, but now attack after 2 chops, coming in to loop aggressively; loop no more than twice; if you did not win the point, move out and chop. Repeat this cycle. Vary the line of attack (diagonal, parallel, into the body).

Exercise 6. Serve backspin, attack the pushed return. Find out how good you are at attacking backspin and gain a realistic idea of what kind of push you are able to attack. After that, return a backspin serve to the forehand, chop to the backhand, and attack the pushed return; now you have to move more before you can attack. Make sure you move in the right way.

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Exercise 7. Multiple ball training is very useful. Ask your partner to hit fast topspin balls to your forehand; they should be so fast that you have difficulty in reaching them; return the first one with a quick loop or topspin block (if you have to reach out really far), chop teh second one, loop the third, and so on. Then do the same with your backhand. Ask your partner to hit his next ball when your return lands on his side of the table, so you will have to react faster than normal; this will increase your reflexes.

Exercise 8. Do exercise 7, but now instead of alternately looping and chopping you chop the first ball at hip height, than move out to chop the next at knee height, move in again to chop fairly high, and so on

Frictionless StrokesWritten by Mathias   

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

 Frictionless rubber and reverse spin

Classical frictionless rubber such as Neubauer Super Block or Hallmark Super Special has two unusual properties, the pip rubber is hard and extremely smooth, or 'frictionless'. The hard pip rubber prevents the ball generating any friction by bending the pips and their 'frictionless' smoothness prevents the ball from gripping. The hardness of the frictionless pips is not often appreciated but it minimizes the amount of rubber in contact with the ball because if the ball can bend the pips there is an increase in the surface area of rubber in contact with the ball and hence more 'friction'. The overall effect is the incoming spin from an opponents stroke does not 'stick' against the rubber as it would normally, but 'skids' across the surface of the rubber, having the effect of mirroring the spin back to the opponent. 'Mirroring' spin is technically known as reverse spin, although the mechanism of reverse spin in soft pips can be different to frictionless rubber. Thus if the opponent topspins the ball, the return spin is also topspin using regular inverted rubber, however using reverse rubber the return spin is backspin. Likewise, if the opponent chops the ball, the return spin is also backspin using regular 'inverted' rubber, whilst using reverse rubber the return spin is topspin. [Technically a mirror doesn't truely mirror an object but laterally inverts it but you get the gist of the metaphor]

Summary of stroke definitions

Punch block - this uses an open faced blade to drive into the incoming ball resulting in a fast return. It is particularly effective against backspin and creates a faster sink ball against topspin. The ball is placed with the last 6'' of the table.

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'Drop shot' - this uses an open faced blade and cushions the incoming (usually topspin) ball to return the ball just over the net. The closer and lower to the net the return ball placement the better the stroke.

Sideways swipe - this can use an open faced blade or blade angled slightly upwards and slashes against the incoming ball either left to right or right to left. It is a very effective stroke for both soft and frictionless pip players. The ball is placed within the last 6'' of the table.

Attack - really a vertical block, with little forward movement using an open faced blade and is unique to frictionless.

Chop block - a classic table tennis stroke for pip and inverted players, an open faced blade is used and brought down sharply over a short distance immediately before contact. Block - simple just hold the bat still!

Lift - this is a loop based stroke against backspin but the spin from the resulting stroke does not contain topspin - it is either backspin or else no spin. The term originates from its ability to 'lift the backspin back to the opponent'.

Summary of return ball spin definitions

Reverse spin - already described the spin is mirrored back to the opponent using pip rubber. Hardbat players call this spin continuance, a more transparent term, however non-hardbat players would not understand what this meant.

Inverted spin - the spin is inverted back to the opponent (opposite direction) using inverted (smooth and sticky) rubber.

Sink ball - this is a confusing term but results from reverse spinning a topspun ball. It is in any other language the same backspin as a chop but without executing a chopping stroke and can result from a drop shot, punch block, sideways swipe etc... basically any stroke that doesn't require a chopping motion.

Cutter (informally called Speedplay turn) - this is a term that we agreed upon because there is no equivalent in table tennis. It is reverse spun topspin, i.e. produced using frictionless rubber against incoming backspin and the resulting topspin return will often sharply deviate ('cut') on bouncing to the left or right depending on the angle or return against the incoming stroke (described below). In this sense it has a similar effect to 'corkscrew'.

Corkscrew - this is a spin purely for inverted rubber, the stroke is played as a topspin stroke but the blade angled to angled left or right producing a ball that on bouncing will

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sharply deviate left or right depending on which side the ball was hit. It is different from a sidespin loop (not described).

Wobble - a ball carrying no spin which can exhibit a strange flight path trajectory. 'Deviating effects' This is an informal non-technical term sometimes used to describe the strange flight path trajectories that pip rubber can produce. The term should be avoided because different flight paths can have very different underlying causes.

Strategy Frictionless pip play involves large variations in stroke execution to achieve reverse spin variation. In other words the pip player can change the spin on the ball but only by using clear differences in the strokes. In sharp contrast soft pip players can achieve large differences in spin using the same stroke.

The advantage of frictionless pips is the large amount of reverse spin produced so almost every ball is carrying some spin. Soft pips in contrast particularly with sponge will often return a 'no spin' ball which if identified is vulnerable to attack by the opponent.

Key strokes

The two 'bread and butter' frictionless pip strokes are the 'drop shot' for defensive players and the 'punch block' for attacking players. A frictionless pip player will not rigidly stick to a single stroke, all 'drop shot' based pip players will use a punch block and likewise all 'punch block' based player will use 'drop shots'. In fact some players will not have a preference to either stroke and play an all-round game.

Drop shot' and frictionless rubber

The 'drop shot' is one of the most powerful strokes in defensive table tennis. The 'drop shot' cannot deceive an opponent simply but when executed precisely it forces the offensive opponent into a defensive stroke, or else they seriously risk losing the point. Secondly this defensive return by the opponent will carry backspin that the frictionless pip player can readily attack. The mechanics of the 'drop shot' are as follows: 1. An offensive player will loop the ball, resulting in the ball carrying heavy topspin. 2. The frictionless pip player will return the ball very short and just over the net, resulting in a ball carrying heavy backspin, which low, and close to the net. 3. The ball is now too low to attack, will double bounce on the table and more importantly carries heavy backspin. The opponent must overcome the backspin on the ball otherwise it will hit the net and they will lose the point. However, they can not 'flick' the ball (use wrist movement to attack a ball that will double bounce) because it is too low, nor can they wait till the ball drops off the edge of the table where they could generate sufficient top spin to over the backspin because it will double bounce. At this point the only realistic option for

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the opponent is to halt the attack and by pushing the ball using inverted rubber returning an attackable back spun ball.

A second application of the 'drop shot' is against backspin. Again the return is again low and close to the net, the ball is now however carrying topspin. An unsuspecting opponent will try and push under the ball, which would be a standard response if their initial stroke by the inverted player carried topspin. Now however the ball will kindly 'pop-up' for the frictionless pip player, who can smash it. However, a more experienced opponent using inverted rubber can aggressively push the 'drop shot' against backspin stroke with their blade angled downwards and use the topspin the frictionless player produced and add their own to land the ball at reasonable speed (for a push). A classical defender on the other hand could reverse spin the topspin 'drop shot'. Generally speaking frictionless 'drop shots' carrying topspin allow the opponent more options and will not stay as close to the net, but are very useful stroke nevertheless, which can be readily used for example as a return of serve.

The 'drop shot' and soft pips

The question is why can't soft pips perform the same stroke? Well off course they can but it is no where near as effective because in summary there are two components to the stroke 1) exact placement and 2) strong back spin and without either the stroke doesn't work well. Firstly soft pips are generally faster so it harder to place the ball just over the net which will then double bounce and secondly soft pip rubber can not generate as much reverse spin, so the back spin is not sufficient to cause real problems. A skilled chopper using soft pips could reproduce the overall effect of the 'drop shot' using a chopping stroke, but it is a difficult stroke, whilst the 'drop shot' is comparatively straightforward.

Punch block and frictionless rubber

Against topspin

The punch block is a common stroke for all frictionless pip players and is very effective against medium to slow topspin, such as a serve, resulting in a medium to fast 'long' return which carries backspin. This is the choice return of an attacking frictionless player. The power of the stroke is the unusual spin, because virtually all other medium to fast strokes carry either no spin or, in the majority of cases, topspin. An unsuspecting opponent will often hit a punch block into the net and the faster pace of the ball minimises their reaction time.

Placement The stroke is mostly played backhand to backhand and varied with backhand to forehand aiming at the corners of the table or backhand to 'cross-over point' (right hand elbow for against a right-handed player). The ball should drop within the last 6' (ideally) of the table to encourage an opponent who is close to the table perform a return stroke straight off the

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bounce and thereby maximizing the chance of a very short return.

Punch block and soft pips

The stroke is by no means restricted to frictionless rubber but the key strength is the amount of backspin the ball will carry. The key weakness of the frictionless punch block is the difficulty in generating spin variation.

Stylized punch blocks

A 'slow' slightly flighted punch block against medium to slow topspin can result in very visible 'disturbing effects' resulting from a sink ball (or a cutter). This is more of a stylised stroke though which could be used to warn your opponent you are using frictionless rubber and depends on the amount of spin your opponent generates, the amount of reverse spin the frictionless rubber can generate and the thickness of sponge that is used.

In summary mechanics of this stroke are simply:

1. A medium to slow topspin stroke by the opponent is driven at the pips. 2. The ball is hit firmly for example cross court and the ball lands within the last 6' of the opponents table. The ball is now carrying reasonable backspin. 3. The opponent must now deal with a medium fast, full length ball which is often targeted at their backhand. If the opponent has inverted rubber on their backhand they must be careful to topspin over the backspun ball.

Execution The major issue of a punch block against topspin is the timing of stroke and is split between two key variations either immediately after the bounce or when the ball reaches maximum height after bouncing. The angle of the bat must be slightly upwards when taking the ball immediately off the bounce and against topspin the timing of the stroke enables maximum reverse spin.

The Punch Block against backspin

The punch block is also a very effective attack against backspin and causes heavy 'deviating effects' namely a 'cutter' described above. The stroke works well and can be hit pretty hard because the reverse spin topspin (from your opponents chop) will bend the ball over the net in the same way that a looper uses topspin. Thus ball can be bit much harder without it flying off the edge of the table. Again we use the term cutter or 'cut' to describe the opposite spin to a sink ball. This however is not what confuses an opponent it is the bounce deviation they will get caught out by.

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Basically the bounce deviation of a cutter is nothing more than a 'corkscrew' (where a top-spun ball deviates sharply in direction on bouncing) however there is no apparent indication of the direction of the 'corkscrew' from the angle of the blade for frictionless rubber. A loop based 'corkscrew' is easy to spot from an inverted rubber because of the extreme angle of the blade must be held. The 'cutter' against backspin simply alter the angle of the incoming stroke, for example if a backspin stroke is coming straight down the middle of the table and the frictionless pip player punch blocks to the right hand corner of the opponents table the ball now carries topspin and sidespin equal to the deviation from angle of the incoming stroke. Thus in this example the ball will 'corkscrew' (change direction of its path) to the left on bouncing. Alternatively if the ball had been punch blocked to the left hand corner it would 'corkscrew' to the right as the frictionless pip player is looking at it. Finally if the ball is back-spun cross-court, for example backhand to handhand for a right-handed players and the frictionless player punch blocks 'down the line' (to the opponents forehand) the ball will sharply 'cut' to the right, this being the maximum difference in angle that can be generated between the incoming ball and the return. The more backspin on the ball the bigger the sudden 'kick' on the return bounce. If this sounds confusing then try heavily backspinning against a frictionless pip player and find out just how much more confusing it can be to play against!

The Weakness and the Golden Rule

The key weakness of frictionless rubber is the inability to readily change the spin on the ball in sharp contrast to soft pip rubber. A consequence of this weakness of frictionless pip rubber is the need for the player to stay close to the table. The power the rubber confers is accurate ball placement and sudden changes in speed combined with large amounts of reverse spin. The strokes described here are played either very short and slow, or (relatively) fast and very close to the edge of the opponents table. Once a frictionless pip player is pushed away from the table they have greater difficulty in placing the ball accurately and varying the speed of the return. At this point the reverse spin becomes predictable and the frictionless pip player is readily out played if their opponent repeatedly loops. The only strategy the frictionless pip player has in this scenario is if their reverse spin overcomes their opponent’s topspin, which doesn't happen against more experienced opponents.

Remaining strokes

The general philosophy in frictionless pip play is to achieve spin variation using exaggerated variation in strokes played results in a the following strokes all having their part to play in any long pip game, viz. sidespin swipe, chop block, 'attack' and 'lift'. Again the ball is taken at the top of the bounce using an open-faced bat (Neubauer style). The 'drop shot' and 'punch block' can be played just off, or immediately after, the bounce with just enough angle in the bat to get the ball over the net, although the sidespin 'swipe' can be played like this the other strokes need to be played off the edge of the table.

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Sideways swipe

The sideways swipe is in effect a punch block played by swiping across the face of the ball using a left to right motion for a right-handed player on the backhand. The ball in this case will arc from right to left, however on the bounce instead of continuing along this path it will ‘cut’ (against backspin) in the opposite direction to what is expected. It is a little like the drift and turn that a slow bowler gets in finger spin deliveries. In essence although the ball is arcing in the direction of the 'swipe' it retains and reverses the original incoming spin. The 'arc' is really a feint to make the return look like a sidespin loop style return. The stroke is usually played against backspin but will also work against topspin and can be played both on the forehand and the backhand. It is a very versatile stroke and is easy to perform and place within the last 6'' of the opponents table.

Chop block

The chop block is a vertical chop played close to the table against topspin. It is easy to perform once you get the hang of making contact with the ball using a vertical chop motion and is used to mix the backspin on the return stroke as part of the general frictionless philosophy. An attacking frictionless player will rarely use this stroke.

'Attack' 'Attack' this is a vertical 'chop block' played with an upwards moving stroke played against topspin close to the table. There is not much power in the return and should be used reasonably infrequenctly but is an easy stroke to perform and mixes the play well.

‘Lift’ 'Lift' this is a 'loop style' stroke played against backspin. The 'lift' can be performed with inverted rubber and is meant to ressemble a topsin loop but in fact carries either no spin or backspin. The concept is that you are 'lifting the opponents backspin' back to them. It doesn't produce the same spin using frictionless rubber and is simply a case of getting the ball back to your opponent using a loop style stroke - which is difficult because the ball will tend to slip off the bottom of the bat. With inverted rubber, or soft pips, a lift is about altering the angle of the blade and hitting into the backspun ball rather than brush stoking it back. The upshot is a ball which would be hit into the net if the spin was misread. It is a very strong stroke using an attacking soft pip style, but it is a weak stroke for frictionless rubber particularly as the ball will be moving at medium pace despite being hit very hard and will bounce high (frictionless pip rubber is slow). This stroke may work with attacking frictionless rubber such as Neubauer Monster and more or less works using TSP Curl Combi. However even here it is a stroke that should be used sparingly and is weakened by the difficulties in shifting topspin on the return using frictionless rubber.

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Wobbles I have already described the 'cutter' or to a lesser extent a sink ball where the ball can have one return path but be spinning in a different direction and this produces a strange trajectory across the table, which inexperienced opponents find unsettling. The second area of 'deviating effects' is called 'wobble' but is really a stroke that soft pip players can produce, although the old TSP Curl Bamboo is one frictionless rubber that could do this. Soft pips are able to grip the incoming ball and remove all the spin from it, particular by just blocking the ball. The return ball can have difficulty retaining its flight path trajectory and can deviate to the left or right mid-flight at the last minute. If the opponent is not expecting this they will lose the point, however in my opinion it is unpredictable when it will happen.

A frictionless player can produce a wobble ball by hitting in the opposite direction as the incoming spin, i.e. if the opponent chops you chop if the opponent topspins you try to loop. It is only a stunt though and should not be a main stroke. The term 'wobble' is often used very loosely to describe a sink ball or a cutter, for example the Neubauer training videos (below) describe 'cutters' as wobble balls and this is simply wrong. A wobble can only be produced from a return ball carrying no spin.

Playing against frictionless

The classic attack on a frictionless pip player is to serve flat (no-spin) and hard into the long pips and thereon removing the spin in your strokes and playing hard at the pips is a recognized strategy. In fact this is a general approach against both soft and frictionless pip players. However, against a good pip player this doesn't work because, for example I would immediately twiddle (flip the bat around) and loop the return using inverted rubber. In my case I use very spinny inverted rubber (Geospin Tacky) which although it is sensative to incoming spin is ideal against no spin, so in effect I'm waiting for exactly this sort of serve or approach. A soft pip defensive player would probably try and chop a no-spin ball. The other strategy a frctionless pip player has is to punch block for a no-spin wobble (described below) against a flat hit/ serve. If a frictionless pip player can not twiddle however no spin balls become a major source of difficulty.

However, if you understand how frictionless pips work you can simply play your normal game and compensate for the less than orthdox spin returns you will receive. Personally I would be reluctant to heavily backspin the ball against an opponent playing with frictionless rubber because of the cutters that will be returned at which point you have to play off the table to account for 'unpredictable' cuts. I am quite happy to topspin against frictionless rubber because the backspin return is predictable, unless the opponent can perform a 'drop shot'. If the frictionless player moves too far from the table this shot becomes difficult and strategically the frictionless player is at a major weakness. To avoid

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a predictable spin return the classical frictionless player must keep varying the stroke to present a range of spin variations and thereby introducing uncertainty to the opposing player.

In summary, against a frictionless pip player try no-spin flat hits into the pips and see how well they deal with this, or try pushing the pip player away from the table using loops. For a defender, avoid taking the ball off the bounce despite is slower speed return, wait for the 'cut' and chop return as you would against an attacking inverted player by chopping on soft pips or inverted. The defender will of course not be able to out-spin the frictionless pip player but can readily win by waiting and then attacking because of the moderate to slow speed of the reverse spun topspin returns. All-round players, those that both chop and loop, often have difficulty against frictionless rubber because it is harder for them to understand the predictability in the return due to the lack of consistency in their spin attacks.

Sponge The more sponge used in any pip rubber game the less reverse spin is produced but the faster the return. Most frictionless pip players use either no sponge (OX) enabling maximum reverse spin, or else 0.5mm sponge. Sponge thicknesses of 1mm and above both reduce the amount of reverse spin and also the amount of 'control' in the return stroke. 'Control' in this context has a specific definition and you'll only understand it when you try different sponge thicknesses. Some of attacking frictionless pips players, viz. Monster (Neubauer) will use 2mm sponge to enhance the speed of return. This may work by beating the opponent on speed combined with a much reduced amount of reverse spin, but the strategy is very different from the approaches described here and would be seriously exposed once the opponent masters the amount of reverse spin the rubber is returning.

The Long Pip Ban

A ban on frictionless pips has been more or less announced by the ITTF, however some frictionless rubber such as Hallmark's 'Super Defence' has survived. In addition new frictionless rubber such as Hallmark's 'Super Nova' has been specifically developed to get around the ITTF ruling and it is likely that Neubauer will follow suit in due course. Thus the art of frictionless pip play will continue for some time.

My primary concern about the 'long pip ban' is that it is motivated by ignorance about how the basic principles of reverse spin rubber work. As I described here there is nothing particularly mysterious, frightening or supernatural about the way frictionless rubber works, it has two simple tricks, one is large amounts of reverse spin which are common to all long pip rubbers to a lesser extent and the second is accurate ball placement, which when combined allow 'drop shot' and 'punch block' combinations. A formal letter of complaint was been submitted to the English Table Tennis association (ETTA) on this subject with

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numerous signatories and although the matter has been discussed they did not formally respond - which is disappointing.

Exponents A training video showing the basic frictionless pimple strokes by Herbet Neubauer can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NVmoJY2UMY

Neubauer uses a defensive style of frictionless pip technique in matches, based around the 'drop shot' against attacking players. In this style slow strokes, such as backspin, are usually attacked and attacking strokes are 'drop shotted' ad nausea. Against an attacking player it is pretty boring to watch actually to the extent I don't think anyone has uploaded any of his matches onto YouTube etc..

An exponent of the offensive style of frictionless pip play is Amelie Solja. The following clip by AS demonstrates excellent frictionless technique by mixing strokes to shift the spin on the block using a 'punch block' (attacking) based style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ7K43l4284

In the first rally AS executes a punch block, then a 'lift' type stroke, or rather an frictionless 'loop style' attack and follows up with an excellent 'drop shot', which wins the point by the increase in 'sink' (backspin) the 'drop shot' achieves. In the second rally AS executes a cross court punch block, backhand to forehand punch block, floated chop on inverted and the opponent delivers a 'pop-up' thinking there's more backspin on the ball than there is where upon AS smashes to win the point. Some of the 'punch blocks' appear to have similarities to the Carl Prene stroke, but without seeing a slow motion replay its difficult to tell. I have not played with this particular rubber, Joola Razor, so cannot tell how readily topspin/ backspin manipulation can be performed using comparatively minor shifts in stroke technique. Personally I doubt it will be particularly pronouned as Razor is classed as frictionless.

ReviewsWritten by Alex   

Monday, 29 January 2007

In this section you'll find a large collection of reviews of pimpled rubbers. The reviews are from a variety of players of different levels and styles, so you may experience the rubber quite differently yourself.

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Reviews will continue to be added, and if you're willing to contribute, please contact us. Cheers!

Reviews Butterfly Feint SoftDawei 388DDawei Saviga VDr Neubauer Scalpel OXGlobe 979 0.6mmHallmark Friction SpecialHallmark Friction SpecialHallmark FrustrationJoola RazorJUIC Leggy DefenseJUIC Leggy OXKokutaky 911Meteor L 8512Milkyway NeptuneTony Hold Virus IITSP Curl P-1 BambooTSP Curl P-2TSP Curl P1-R 0.5mmTSP Curl P1-R 0.5mmTSP Curl soft P-1RYasaka Phantom 009

Short pimples

Should I use Short Pips Written by Andrew Gooding   

Sunday, 20 May 2007

Should you play with short pips? - by Andrew Gooding

A lot of people wonder if they should play with short pips. Before I discuss this question, let me give a little background on myself. I began playing as a shakehander, but soon switched to penhold style, initially as a single-sided Japanese/Korean-style player with inverted and more recently as a Chinese style penholder with short pips on the forehand and inverted on the backhand. Since I switched to short pips my consistency has gone up and the quicker style and shorter stroke feels more natural, but they aren’t for everyone. Keep in mind that I switched from inverted rubber and someone who is going from long/medium pips to short pips may need other adjustments.

I see people who are considering switching to short pips as falling into one of two camps. The first camp are those who are trying to cover up a weakness in reading spin and think

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short pips is an easy way to return serve. For this first group I don’t think short pips are a very good option as short pips still react to spin and misreading say topspin to underspin will still lead to a pop up and easy kill. Short pips take a good deal of concerted effort to play well and shouldn’t be seen as an easy way out. They have strengths, but also some weaknesses. The second group of those thinking of switching to short pips are those who smash rather than loop to finish the point and base their game on quickness rather than on spin. They will generally block in defense rather than backing away from the table and topspinning the ball. They will look for opportunities to add to their opponent’s spin, rather than simply cancelling it. Hitters, quick close to the table players and hardbat players are good candidates for short pips.

The number one thing short pips are good at is hitting through spin. Take advantage of this by setting up and preparing for high balls which you should hit straight through with only enough topspin to keep them on the table. Always be ready for the high ball and keep in mind that with good timing and footwork as the ball doesn’t have to be that high for a winning shot.

The second thing short pips are good at is blocking as they are less affected by incoming spin. If you block with short pips you’ll need to open your bat (compared with inverted) and push forward. The ball will come back very flat and you can vary spin as well, putting sidespin or underspin as well as topspin. The best two blockers in the U.S. both use short pips, David Zhuang many-time U.S. champion and Gao Jun #11 in the world. He Zhi Wen, a 43 year old short pips penhold blocker eliminated defending World Champion Werner Schlager in 2005.

A third thing short pips are good at is serve return. However, if you try to use short pips like either long pips or inverted you’ll be disappointed. Short pips are affected by incoming spin, so you can’t just stick your paddle out there (as with some long pips) to return the ball. You’ll need to be more active. Conversely if you try to cancel the incoming spin (pushing a push as with inverted) that will give your opponent a relatively spinless ball that may be easy pickings.

With this in mind, what short pips are good at is adding to spin, so you should use this ability in your service return. Instead of pushing underspin, try flipping it. If the serve is long enough you can loop the ball by combining your stroke with the incoming underspin resulting in a surprisingly spinny ball. With sidespin, instead of simply canceling the spin, try adding to it and send back the spin for your opponent to then try to deal with.

So to sum up what short pips are good at: Hitting through spin, blocking and adding to spin. What short pips aren’t so good at are generating spin, so you’ll need to change your strokes and your position from the table to minimize this weakness. Strokes should use a more open racket face and be more forward. Instead of looping low balls you’ll need to roll them over the net with an open racket face, so it’s better to catch balls at the top of the bounce and smash them. So you can’t be lazy with your feet at getting into the right position.

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Serves will take some time compared with inverted, but with practice you can generate lots of spin with short pips. Just watch the former World Champion Liu Guoliang who many have called the best server ever. Keep in mind though that variation will get you more points than heavy spin alone and your goal should be to force a weak ball to follow up on versus an error.

Different types of short pips will be better and worse at generating spin. Very spinny pips, like Joola Tango Ultra, Friendship 802-40, Globe 889-2, Butterfly Raystorm, Stiga Clippa and Nittaku Hammond FA act almost like inverted, particularly when they are speedglued. A special category of these are what I call “sticky pips” which can provide a great deal of spin over the table, including Andro Revolution COR, Stiga Radical and Dawei 388. However these will also react more to spin.

Other short pips like Friendship 799, Butterfly Speedy P.O. and TSP Spectol have smaller pips optimized for hitting through spin, blocking and adding to spin and will be less forgiving of “inverted-type” strokes. They do give a flatter ball and more spin variation than the first group. Some short pips are narrow, hard and stiff, and and act almost like medium pips, with some spin returning properties like Double Happiness 651, Spintech Stealth and Andro Logo.

Whichever pips you choose, keep in mind Wang Tao’s suggestion to get the softest sponge possible. It will ease the transition from inverted rubber greatly. 1.5-1.8 are standard sponge thicknesses for short pips, anything more than 2.0 is overkill and will hinder your blocking more than help your spin and speed. Blade speed plays a bigger role than sponge thickness with short pips. Most players will use a harder and faster blades, either a 7 ply wood or a carbon blade.

If you live to loop winners 10 feet behind the table and bend them around the net with vicious sidespin, don’t even bother with short pips as you’ll never be able to do this effectively. Likewise if you want vicious spin on your serves and pushes, short pips aren’t the way to go. Of course if you play short pips on one side you’ll retain those options on the other one. If you like the speed, rather than the spin game short pips are worth a try. They will take some time and effort to play with effectively, so don’t look at them as a “quick fix” but for me they’ve made my game both more effective and more fun to play. And in the end, that’s what counts, isn’t it?

Single-sided Pips-out Penholder Play –

1. IntroductionWritten by Kees   

Friday, 02 November 2007

Forum thread discussion:

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http://forum.oneofakindtrading.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=1616 

1. Introduction.

The single-sided style of penholder play is its oldest form; in the East (China, Korea, Japan) it is regarded as traditional. In Eastern cultures tradition is held in high esteem; tradition is looked upon as the well-ordered compilation of everything that has proven its practical worth. Single-sided penholder play most certainly proved itself; great Chinese champions played in this style: Chen Long-Can, Jiang Jia-Liang, Liu Guo-Liang. When Liu won his world title in 1999 (having already won the Olympic gold in 1996), the little taciturn genius, currently coach of the Chinese National Men’s Team, gave a rare interview, in which he complained about the declining interest for single-sided pips-out play in his country. Young players and coaches alike were too impatient, they wanted fast results and were disinclined to invest the time needed to master the traditional style, he said. True enough, playing with inverted rubbers is more quickly acquired. Chinese top coaches reckon they can teach their pupils to play well with inverted rubbers in about five years; to play well with pips as a penholder, however, takes seven years, because a player has to master not only the attack but also the defence. But practicing hard for seven years does pay off. Gao Jun, a great example of traditional controlled counter-attack with single-sided pips-out, in her mid-thirties still can compete with the best. He Zhi-Wen, in his mid-forties recently proved he can still aggressively hold his own against Timo Boll. And of late young players have appeared who again have adopted this style with great success; Lee Eun Hee of South Korea, a nimble all-out female attacker, is one them. As for myself I simply am in love with this style – to my mind it combines elegance and intelligence in a fast purposeful dance. Below I have tried to write down more or less comprehensively what I have come to know of its basics. I think that an understanding of the physics involved, the actual chain of cause and effect, really helps in learning the required techniques and tactics. It is of use to understand how topspin brings the ball down or backspin will make it float, how the ball reacts to the pips, how it is actually directed, and how the height of the bounce plays a decisive role in the kind of stroke to use. Therefore the basic physics involved will be covered before the basic techniques and tactics will be described.

2. Basic Physics Written by Kees   

Friday, 02 November 2007

2. Basic physics.

2.1. Trajectory and spin. Friction and pips. Distance to the table.

A ball moving forward will follow a trajectory which curves downward, for although its speed will keep it moving forward in a straight line, gravity will pull it down. It will lose speed due to air resistance. The less forward speed, the faster it will drop.

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Air will flow over and under a ball which is moving forward. A rotating ball drags air with it; if its backside rotates upward (topspin) the ball will drag air in that direction; it will drag the air away from under it and push it into the air that is flowing over it. As a result there will be denser air above it than under it and the pressure of the air will force the ball down. This is how topspin makes a ball land sooner on the other half of the table. Faster rotation means more air pressure, so an even sooner landing. Faster rotation also means a more stable trajectory, since a rotating object will tend to keep its axis of rotation at the same angle. If a ball is rotating the other way (backspin), it will drag the air flowing over it downward at its backside and push it into the air flowing under it, thus forming a cushion of denser air below it. As a result the ball will float, pushed upward by the denser air. This is how backspin will make a ball drift over the table if it is hit too hard. Faster backspin means more air pressure under the ball, so more drifting. And again faster rotation means a more stable trajectory. Rotation is imparted by friction. Friction depends on surface contact. With a short pips-out rubber the ball will make contact with the pips. The surface of the pips, taken together, is much less than the surface of a smooth (inverted) rubber. The amount of rotation that can be imparted even by a grippy pips-out rubber is, therefore, also much less than the amount that can be imparted by an inverted rubber. Normally a pips-out rubber can not impart enough rotation to make a ball land significantly faster than a non-rotating ball. This means that, when playing with pips, the normal trajectory of the ball will be practically a straight line, only curved slightly by the influence of gravity. If a ball drops down on the table it will bounce. It will make friction with the table. If it is rotating with topspin it will make friction pushing itself forward; once aloft again, it will still have topspin and therefore it will follow a fast sinking trajectory. All in all, this ball will bounce lower than a non-rotating ball. If it is rotating with backspin it will make friction with the table pushing itself backward; it will bounce up still having backspin and therefore be slow in falling down again. All in all, this ball will bounce higher than a non-rotating ball. It is convenient to measure the height of the bounce using to the height of the net as a standard. This is why. If you want to hit a ball from your baseline directly (that is, in a straight line – the fastest way) onto the other half of the table, the ball must be at least twice as high as the net is. Even then it will land only just on the table. It would follow a straight line from your bat over the edge of the net to the baseline of the other half of the table, but gravity will pull it down, no matter how hard you hit it, so it will actually land a few centimetres before the baseline. It would land significantly closer to the net if a significant amount of topspin would be imparted on it; however, with short pips you will not be able to achieve this. Therefore, to a pips-out player any ball bouncing twice as high as the net or lower is a low ball which has to be lifted over the net; any other ball is a high one and can be hit directly over the net onto the other half of the table. As a ball which has to be lifted cannot be hit hard (it would go over the table), this limits the distance a pips-out player can be from the table: he must never be further away from it than the point where he can hit the incoming ball before it starts to drop after its bounce on the table.

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2.2. Mechanics of short pips. Angle of the blade. Forward and upward motion.

In order to impart spin with pips one has to make the surface of contact as great as possible; this is achieved by having the ball make contact both with the surface of the pips and with their sides. If the rubber is moved along a tangent of the ball’s surface, that is, if it grazes the ball, the pips will bend (more or less, depending on their length and flexibility) and their sides will make contact with the ball. With pips, the ideal angle of the blade is, therefore, the face of the blade being at rectangles with the trajectory of the ball leaving the bat. From this it follows that, at the point of contact, the so-called “sweet spot” of the blade must face directly the point where the ball is intended to land. It also means that, when hitting with pips, keeping your bat at the correct angle and aiming accurately with it come down to the same thing. The faster the rubber is moved along the ball’s surface, the more rotation will be imparted. As mentioned above, more rotation will make the trajectory of the ball more stable (this is also true of sidespin), so even when hitting high balls with pips, imparting as much spin as you can is generally needed. However, spin cannot be used to lift incoming low balls; a pips-out rubber is incapable of producing enough friction to move the ball upwards by friction alone. In other words, if you close your bat the ball will drop off it – unless it is already rotating fast towards you; for an incoming ball with a lot of topspin will produce enough friction when making contact with your pips to bounce off slightly upwards when you hold your blade exactly vertical. But the amount of incoming topspin is hard to judge. Also, you do not want to be dependent on the spin produced by your opponent, since he may decide to hit with less spin. The only sure way to lift a low ball, then, is by making use of the inevitable upward motion it has when it bounces off the table. The ball goes up fastest when it is comes off the table; when it has reached the highest point of its bounce its upward motion is nil. A ball with backspin will bounce fairly high, but on account of the direction of its rotation it will also want to drop off your bat; therefore it must be contacted as early as possible, when its upward motion cancels its tendency to drop off. A ball with topspin can be contacted later (even on the top of the bounce) because it will tend to bounce off your bat slightly upwards. In order to make the best use of the upward motion of the ball, the face of the bat must be held as vertical as possible. Having the sweet spot of the bat face directly the point on the table where you want to land the ball will again make certain that your bat is in the correct position. The trajectory of the bat is, geometrically speaking, always in the plane of its face; that is, the blade must move at the same angle its face makes with the table; or to put it in another way, the blade must move at rectangles with the desired trajectory of the ball. It will therefore seem mostly like a grazing wave and you may be fooled into thinking that little forward speed can be generated this way. But the bat contacts the ball always at its centre; by this solid contact the forward component of the motion of the bat, even if it

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seems small compared to the upward component, is completely transferred to the ball, whereas the upward component, by grazing the surface, is transferred to it only for a small part. In fact, the ball will leave the bat always at rectangles with its face, that is, directed completely forward. Therefore, by making solid contact you can hit the ball with great forward speed even when your stroke is mostly going upward. It is very necessary to keep this in mind, for almost every player when under strain is inclined to make his bat go forward too much; as a result, the ball will go into the net (because it is not lifted) or over the table (because it is hit at the wrong angle).

2.3. Mechanics of muscle. Mechanics of mind.

Direction and speed are only transferred to the ball at the moment of contact. The part of the motion of the arm (or rather of the whole body) before this moment, the “upswing”, and the part of the motion after it, the “follow-through”, do not contribute anything whatsoever to the direction and the speed of the ball. Therefore, they should be as short as possible, in order to avoid loss of energy and loss of time. However, they do have their own function.

The upswing is the part of the motion of the arm in which the angle of the blade and the direction of the motion is established. It is also the part of the motion in which the speed is generated. In order to control angle, direction and speed well it is necessary to start this part of the motion slowly and accelerate towards the ball. Otherwise, the motion will be hasty and less controlled. At the start of the motion body and arm should be loose and relaxed; force should come rushing in just before contact is made with the ball. At the point of contact the motion should always be well controlled, yet very fierce, even with delicately played balls. This is called the “one inch punch”, a term employed by the great and unique three times (1961, 1963,1965) consecutive world champion Zhuang Zhedong, which in Kung Fu indicates a sudden burst of power generated by a small motion. Only in this way, all of the intended speed and direction is actually transferred to the ball. The follow-through is the part of the motion in which the muscles of the arm and the rest of the body are relaxed. You should let go of the fierceness immediately after the point of contact. Otherwise you would spend valuable energy in vain. Relaxing is also needed to feed new energy to your muscles; they cannot take up new energy as long as they are contracted. Finally relaxing is necessary to be able to bring your arm back in a position from which you are ready for the next move. There is, therefore, a rhythm to the motion of your muscles: build op force, make contact, let go. With every stroke you should go through all of these three stages. Do not underestimate the importance of relaxation. If you do not relax time and again in this rhythm, adrenaline will build up in your system and your muscles will start to contract randomly, impairing your accuracy, and finally they will cramp. There is also a mental rhythm. You must be concentrated from just before the serve to the moment when the point is made; immediately after that moment you should relax. As is the case with your muscles, your mind needs energy and it is taking up new energy best when (relatively) resting. Also as is the case with your muscles, your mind will cramp when it

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cannot relax timely. So when the point is won (or lost), immediately turn away from the table and relax. Relaxing your body will help to relax your mind. The most effective way to bring about relaxation of your body is to relax your shoulder muscles; let your shoulders sag. It also helps if you relax the muscles of your abdomen; let your belly sag too, breath with it (that is, keep it loose and have it expand when you inhale). The most effective way to bring about relaxation of your mind is by relaxing the many muscles of your face; keep your mouth closed, but let your jaw sag, keep loose your lips, relax your eyes by unfocusing, and relax the muscles of your forehead and ears. In short, have your face lose all expression. You may have noticed that many Chinese and Korean players have expressionless faces between points; this is the reason why. After relaxing you have to focus again. Many players use a word or a short phrase said aloud to do this. Lee Eun Hee uses a little cry, sounding like “Pep”, which is her own pep-talk, I guess. Ma Lin shouts something resembling the French “Allez!” Others, like Gao Jun, remain completely silent in order to gather their inner strength. Whatever you do, take the time for it. Never give in to anger, never become even irritable. If angry, you can be provoked; if you can be provoked, you will be predictable; if you are predictable, you will lose the match. If irritable, you can be made to lose focus; if you lose focus, again you will lose the match. Be a master of your emotions.

3. Basic techniques. 3.1. The ready position.

You must be loose. Have your weight equally divided over your legs and stand very lightly, on the ball of your feet. Bend your knees and stand slightly bend forward, so you can see over the net about a third of the other half of the table. This will make it easier to judge the trajectory and the height of the bounce of the incoming ball. Stand with your left foot about half a foot further forward than the right foot, feet as far apart as your shoulders are wide, left hip more or less in line with the left sideline of the table, about as far back that you touch the baseline with the tip of your bat when you reach out with it. Your right upper arm hangs down; your underarm is raised forward, at an angle of about 90 degrees with the upper arm. Hold your left arm in the same way. The elbows are about 15 centimetres from your side. Your right arm wrist is loose. Your bat is pointing forward and is well above the surface of the table. Think of it this way: you must be ready to move your bat as fast as possible into the path of the incoming ball (before it drops) without hitting the table and you should be equally ready to return the ball at your left side as at your right side. If you prefer the style of controlled counter-attack, you will stand closer to the middle line and your left foot will at the most be an inch or so further forward than your right foot.

3.2 Left-hand defence, right-hand attack.

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Apart from the serve, there are two main techniques used by the single-sided pips-out penholder. As the same side of the bat is always facing forward, there are no backhand techniques in this style. What is called forehand with a shakehander is called right-hand here; what is called backhand with a shakehander is called left-hand here. The main left-hand technique is the block; the main right-hand technique is the hit. The left-hand block really is the backbone of your game. Beginners should start with learning this technique. Roughly put it consists of punching the face of your blade against the incoming ball very aggressively (do not mistake defence for inactivity); generally you will do this with any ball you cannot hit at the right-hand side, which more or less means any ball that comes left of your right-hand hip. The block is executed as follows. Be in the ready position. Make the bat face forward. Flip the tip of your bat quickly with your wrist so that it points at about 7 or 8 o’clock. Bring your hand back and down somewhat, bending your arm and drawing your elbow back, but keep your bat facing straight forward, choosing the place at the side of the table where you will land the ball and pointing your sweet spot directly towards it. Remember that you must make use of the upward motion of the ball after its bounce; decide on taking it early (incoming backspin) or somewhat later (incoming topspin), but be prepared to take it before the top of its bounce, so move your upper body towards it. Now accelerate your underarm forward in a punch-like manner towards the ball, but on contact move the bat quickly left and downward to impart backspin and sidespin; this last part of the movement is called by some “cutting the ball”. Observe that the trajectory of the bat is not a straight line, but a curved one. Never punch quite straight, always try and cut the ball, because this way you will impart spin and gain much more control over speed and direction. Make contact when your underarm is at an angle of 90 degrees with your upper arm; when hitting extra hard, make contact at about 120 degrees; just before 90 or 120 let force rush in. Never make contact before 90 or after 120. Avoid over-stretching; do not stretch your arm beyond 150 degrees. Immediately after contact relax your arm and wrist and have your bat “fall back”. Contact is made at the centre of the ball and before the top of the bounce. If the incoming spin is topspin let the ball come up fairly high, so you can land it closer to the net if you want to, and impart mostly backspin (this way you will reverse the incoming topspin into backspin, so keep your punch short, or the ball will float over the table). If the incoming spin is backspin take the ball as early as possible and impart mostly sidespin (this way you will reverse part of the backspin to topspin/sidespin; if your pips reverse well, you can punch with real power, because the topspin will land the ball on the table fast). The direction in which the tip of the bat should point depends. If the ball is near your right hip, the tip should point more or less to 6 o’clock; if it is far to your left, the tip should point to 9 o’clock. The block is not confined to your left-hand; as the ball comes further to your right, the tip of your bat should point more towards 3 o’clock. However, at your right-hand side the punch will change into a very short striking motion, resulting from an upward flick of your wrist or a small upward motion of the underarm. This change is gradual. It is important to keep in

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mind that you can block any ball anywhere, since the same side of your bat will always be facing forward. This is one of the major strengths of single-sided penholder play and it will allow you to take control over the game. You can vary the spin you impart. It is quite possible to counter incoming topspin with just sidespin, or incoming backspin with just backspin. Varying your spin is an essential part of your game, as it will keep your opponent uncertain, which enables you to take the initiative. When learning the block, you may run into and have to deal with the following problems. Stepping in with the right foot to get at the ball. This will destroy your balance, as you have to bend forward, reach out and punch forward at the same time. Try to be in place in time (with both feet) and move your shoulder and your upper body only. Your ball goes high or over the table. Maybe your bat was open; keep it at the right angle by aiming with the sweet spot. Or maybe you took a topspin ball to early; heavy topspin must be taken late, at the top of the bounce. Then again, the incoming ball may have simply been to fast to block this way; from very fast balls some of the speed must be taken away – you can achieve this by not punching the ball, but blocking it passively, relaxing your wrist on contact. With very fast balls you may even move your bat an inch back at contact (the reverse of the "one inch punch"; this will kill most of the speed). Your ball goes into the net. Maybe you closed your bat too much or you took the ball too late, after the top of the bounce, or you took on heavy backspin not early enough. Playing with pips your timing must be accurate. You hit the ball but experience loss of control of direction. You haven’t hit with enough venom, and imparted too little spin. Punch fiercely always, even when placing the ball short over the net. You make contact with the ball before your underarm is at an angle of 90 degrees. You are probably too close to the table, or you have made contact too late. Adapt your position behind the table: you should be a bit further back when the incoming ball is very deep or very fast. However, never go so far back that you cannot contact the ball before it drops. You make contact with the ball when your underarm is beyond an angle of 120 degrees . You may be too far off the table. Or you may have forgotten to bend forward, bringing your upper body towards the ball. The incoming ball is out of reach on your far left. Take it more early, over the table. The incoming ball is too high to punch. Take it more early, over the table. The last two problems occur when you are playing too passively. You should always move towards the ball when playing with pips. It has been said that penholders are vulnerable to high and/or deep balls directed to their “backhand”; actually a high ball on the backhand side is difficult for a shakehander too; but no player should ever let a ball come up high at his backhand side – he should get to it in time. Blocking accurately and fiercely will give you control over the game, so you will not lose, but that is not enough to gain victory. To win, you must attack. The right-hand hit is your means of deploying your offensive. It is executed as follows. Stand in the ready position; then reach down just a bit, arm crooked at about 150 degrees and loose beside your body, tip of the bat now pointing to 6

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o’clock, bat facing forward. After this, your hand is going to move in a curve: it is beside your right hip and will be before your face just beneath your chin (that is, it will rise to about shoulder-height; never higher). Your arm, going up, will bend from 150 degrees to about 60 degrees. Always keep your elbow pointing down and at about 15 centimetres of your side; this is very important, because you cannot keep the bat at the right angle otherwise. The bat must face forward all the time; its tip will go from 6 o’clock via 3 o’clock to 12 o’clock, so your thumb will point downward at the beginning and upward at the end. This rotation will help greatly both to keep the bat at the right angle and to impart spin. Wind back your hip and shoulder just a little to cock your body. Swing up while unwinding, accelerating your hand toward the ball, first by moving your upper arm up (picking up the speed of the rotation of your body), then by snapping in your underarm. Let force rush in, aim with your sweet spot, and contact the centre of the ball before it drops; hit with venom, even if you do not want to hit hard. If the incoming ball is low, contact the centre of the ball when the underarm is at 90 degrees with the upper arm. If the incoming ball is high, contact the centre of the ball when the underarm is at 120 degrees with the upper arm; in this case the curve your arm makes will be wider and the speed of your bat greater, therefore more speed will be imparted on the ball, which is possible because it can be hit directly over the net without lifting. Never close your bat on contact; keep it at the right angle, aiming with your sweet spot. Also resist the inclination to hit forward; your arm should always move in the plane of the face of your bat, even when you smash at full force. This is of the utmost importance. Keep in mind that the ball will leave your bat in a straight line perpendicular to the face of your bat; if you hit forward, the ball will always go over the table. Feel the bat, feel its angle, and let it guide your arm. After making contact, relax immediately. The follow-through should bring the bat down and back to you; finish somewhere in front of and stand at the ready position again. You have to hit the ball when it is in front of you and at your right. But you can also hit balls which are directed to your left side if you do not want to block them. For this, step out to the left with your left leg, keeping your torso as upright as possible in order to retain your balance. You will lose time in stepping out, that is, the ball will be nearer to the highest point of its bounce, so you can only do this with high balls. Balls coming to your far right may be difficult to hit because you lose too much time in getting there; don’t lose more time than necessary by reaching down, but just snap your underarm in and hit it. If you haven’t the time for that, block it. When learning to hit, you may run into and have to deal with the following problems. You hit into the net. You have hit the ball too late (after the top of the bounce) or you have closed your bat before or on impact. The latter is a common mistake with players who have turned from inverted to pips. This involves a change in attitude. You have to move fast toward the ball to be in time, you can't wait for it while getting ready to spin. If you are too late to hit the ball before it has reached its highest point, you have to use a different stroke: a small topspin stroke. Essentially this means your stroke is more upward (in order to make a more brushing contact) and you use the snap of your wrist to produce much more friction between the ball and your rubber. Even so, keep the stroke pretty short. You

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can see Gao Jun do this often when she is picking up backspin balls just behind the table. On http://lucioping.altervista.org/Filmati.htm you will find some videotaped matches of Gao you can download. You may have also encountered too heavy backspin; see advanced techniques below (lifting backspin). Or you may have hit the ball too close to the net; for this, see the techniques for over the table play. You hit over the table. You have hit a topspin ball too early. Or you have held your bat too open. Or you have hit a low ball too hard. Or you have hit too much forward; this also is a mistake frequently made by players who have turned to pips from inverted. The ball is coming up too close to you. A ball directed at your body should normally be blocked. If you do not want to do that or have made the wrong decision, make the best of it: bend your torso to the left quickly (if you have time, also step out to the left), and perform the stroke, keeping your elbow closer to your side than normal and going up with your hand sharper than normal.

4. Serving with pips.

Serving with pips is technically alike to serving with inverted rubber, but you have to put more venom into it in order to generate lots of spin. This is achieved by using your wrist and underarm; snap your wrist most aggressively when serving, and make the blade rotate for three quarters of a circle if you can. It is also very useful to try and deceive your opponent; if you can get him to read the kind of spin wrong, you do not have to put a lot of it into the ball. Perhaps the easiest way to deceive and the easiest way to put spin on the ball as well is the backspin/sidespin stab Jiang Jia-Liang was fond of using. It is executed as follows. Stand behind the left-hand corner of the table, the line of your hips at an angle with the baseline. Hold your bat tip down. Toss the ball up, lift your bat at the same time but keep the tip pointing down, and when the ball is coming down make contact when it is a couple of centimetres above the surface of the table. Do this by stabbing hard downward/inward with your bat, using your underarm, brushing the back of the ball just below its centre and a bit to the left side. At the same time snap your wrist inward. If you keep the bat vertical, backspin will be heavy; if you turn the tip of the bat slightly up when stabbing down (your opponent will not be able to notice this if you keep the face of the bat facing him), backspin will be moderate; if you mostly snap your wrist on making contact you will generate sidespin and if you do this while turning the tip of the bat slightly up, you will generate hardly any backspin at all. So with roughly the same movement you can vary very easily and be very deceptive. You should, of course, know beforehand where the return will come. Land the ball short and far on the forehand-side of your opponent’s half of the table when you use sidespin; if he reads it wrong, the ball will go over the side at your left. Or land it less far on the forehand-side so you will get the return most likely somewhere in the middle of your half of the table, where you can hit it for a winner. If you use little or no backspin, be ready to smash the return.

For beginners: when you have learned these three basic elements, block, hit, and serve, you are ready to play. Actually I think it is well to play a while before learning more. This also applies to those who have turned from inverted to pips. Take time to blend left-hand

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defence and right-hand attack into a style you are comfortable with. When you are ready to go beyond basics, learn one technique at the time. First learn techniques for over the table play; then advanced techniques.

5. Over the table play.

5.1. Pushing.

Against backspin balls you can instead of block also push. Against heavy backspin balls that bounce low and close to the net you should.

You can push slow by simply putting your bat (face up at an angle of about 45 degrees) under the ball, very shortly after the bounce in order to make good use of the upward motion of the ball; hold your bat still, that is, avoid imparting forward motion and do not lift it yourself; just have the ball bounce off your bat over the net. Make contact fairly high on your bat, that is, between the middle and the grip; this makes it a lot easier to produce flat returns. The ball should go almost straight forward. Because it just bounces off without much friction, the ball may keep most of its original rotation, which to your opponent now will be topspin (this is called spin reversal). However, this depends on the kind of pips you use. Softer and longer short pips will bend and tend to make the ball dead or even return it with mild backspin. Try this out when practicing, so you know what to expect. Also vary the angle of your bat (very flat to just slightly open) and see what happens. If you are unable to predict the outcome, this is a risky shot.

Pushing fast is more reliable, because the result is predictable. Do the same as with the slow push, but now really push against the ball. The motion should be forward, and slightly downward, not upward. This way your pips will brush the underside of the ball, imparting heavy backspin. Again, try this out in practice, varying the angle of the bat; also vary the speed you are pushing with. Find out how to push the ball deep or short, and keep it low. Generally if your returns pop up, you have to hold out your bat less open or take the ball higher on your bat.

5.2. Flipping.

A short ball can also be attacked by flipping it. The flip is a short, almost completely upward stroke. With pips you cannot drag the ball upward and over the net, so you have to use its own upward motion again. Keep your blade vertical. Lift your arm to shoulder-height, then bring the blade down just before the ball when it bounces; then go straight up with it again, closing your bat a fraction to help the bal over the net. If you want to produce a fast, deep ball, you go up and slightly forward, making a brushing contact with the centre of the ball; if you want to produce a slow ball, do not go forward at all, just aim and go up. Coming in at the ball from shoulder-height must be done in order to avoid imparting too much forward motion on the ball (you would hit into the net if you came at it horizontally). Chances are that your pips will reverse the incoming spin to some extent when you flip. Again, you have to find out to what extent exactly. If your pips do reverse backspin to

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topspin, you are able to attack backspin balls with a pretty fast flip, because they will land fast on the table.

5.3. Sidespin block.

Even with pips incoming spin is best avoided when it cannot be turned against the opponent. The best way to minimize the influence of backspin or topspin is making contact with the ball at its side, as the side centre of the ball is one end of the axis the ball is rotating around. A point close to the axis will move far less than a point far from the axis as you will see when watching a spinning wheel. As you play penholder style you can only make contact with the right-hand side of the ball (a shakehander can also make contact with the left-hand side, viz. with his backhand). You can do this in flipping, but also in blocking. A sidespin block is executed as follows. Keep your bat vertical and point it towards the ball; come right at it, then make contact shortly after the bounce as far at its right-hand side as you can; so “cut the ball”. Have the ball bounce up and off your bat, at the same time stabbing at it (in order to produce sidespin) and (guiding the ball a bit) bringing your bat up and slightly into the direction you want it to go. This is a touch-shot, so perform it delicately; yet the upward/forward (brushing) motion should be sharp and with venom. You can also bring your bat downward/forward to impart backspin; you should come in to the ball a bit more from the side for this and also open your bat slightly. The sidespin block is a suitable technique for cutting the forehand sideline returning a short serve from the backhand side.

5.4. Open sidespin block against backspin.

Incoming heavy backspin on your left-hand side (e.g. from a half long serve) can be countered with an open block. This technique is a combination of a fast push and a backspin block. Block the ball, cutting it, with a fairly open bat, moving the bat forward (to impart backspin) and to the left (to impart sidespin). Take the ball very early after the bounce.

6. Advanced techniques.

Advanced techniques are meant to allow you to be more versatile, turning attack into defence and vice versa. This will make it easier to change the pace and to be less predictable.

6.1. Right-hand defence.

The chop is executed as follows. Point the blade downward, open your bat to about 100 degrees and make contact with the centre of the ball stabbing downward with force. This technique resembles a fast push, but it is performed behind instead of over the table. You can counter heavy backspin with it and use it also against topspin, generating heavy backspin in both cases. Make contact with the ball after the highest point of its bounce, when it is dropping. The chop can also be used to return a ball you have misjudged and reached too late. The same is true for the stroke used for lifting against backspin, the small loop. This stroke resembles a flip executed behind the table. Reach down, open your bat

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slightly and bring your underarm sharply up, making a brushing contact with the dropping ball. Close the bat slightly at contact to maximize the friction.

If you find yourself where you should not be, far behind the table trying to recover a dropping ball, you can turn this small loop into a lob, opening your bat even more and following through high above your head. This is a desperate measure and results will be dubious, for the ball if hit correctly will bounce very high on the other half of the table but virtually without spin. You may prefer to try and get back into the rally by performing a sidespin loop. Reach far down, keep your bat slightly closed and make contact just below the centre of the ball and a bit to its side while moving your bat very fast in a narrow curve to the right and forward. The brushing contact will be prolonged slightly because of this curve (you sort of catch the ball in your moving rubber) and you will be able to produce a considerable amount of sidespin. I have seen Chinese chopper-attackers playing with short pips hit balls this way and produce very flat and curved trajectories that brought the ball actually around the net on the other half of the table. After using desperate measures like these you should be back at the table as fast as you can.

6.2. Left-hand attack.

The left-hand hit is a very useful stroke, but hard to perform accurately. It is only used for attacking fairly high balls or for hitting balls while you come back to the ready position from far to your right. As the standard tactic against penholder players aims at making you move from left to right, you may find fairly frequently use for this stroke. It is performed as follows. Bring the bat to your left hip while turning your body to the left, making your right shoulder point to the incoming ball and leaning forward. Point at 6 o’clock. Keep your bat at about 80 degrees and swing in the same plane fast up, accelerating towards the ball, using only your underarm, which should pivot around the elbow. Do not use your body. Do not use your upper arm, unless the ball bounces fairly high and you can strike with maximum force. Use your wrist to rotate the blade from 6 o’clock towards 12 o’clock. Make contact with the centre of the ball before it reaches its highest point. Follow through relaxing, bringing the bat to your right shoulder. The stroke is the mirror image of the right-hand hit except that you cannot use the rotation of your body, because this would seriously impair your balance. In the 1960’s you could see Chinese pips out players kick back their left leg when performing this stroke; they could hit with great force this way. Nowadays, with play being much faster, this is inadvisable, since kicking back may improve your balance but it also prevents you effectively from moving behind the table; if your hit is blocked, you are caught with one leg up in the air.

7. Basic tactics.

7.1. Cover the field. Attack the middle before attacking the wings.

You have to know what you can and what you cannot do playing single-sided pips-out penholder. Because of your pips you will not be bothered much by incoming spin, but the downside of this is that you cannot generate much spin either; therefore you must remain rather close

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to the table, in order to be able to return the ball before it drops. Your further weakness is a relative lack of reach at both sides, at your left because you do not have a backhand, at your right because the penholder grip takes off about 10 centimetres of your reach. You must compensate for this by taking in a basic position at the left-hand side of the table, as close to the corner as possible; to be able to reach the far right side and come back again in time you must be very quick on your feet. The necessity of staying close to the table can now be turned into an advantage; for you have to move less to reach a ball on your right if you catch up with it above or closely behind the table, than if you catch up with it away from the table (the ball will have travelled further to the right). The same is true for your left side. Therefore, in order to successfully cover the field, your first tactical rule is to take balls as early as possible, preferably over the table.

The second tactical rule must be that you hit balls in such a way that your opponent will be unable to return them where you cannot reach them. For instance, if he serves from his backhand corner to yours, you should not return the ball to the middle of the table or to the forehand side, because from there your opponent can cut the sideline at your far right. You should not return the ball to his far backhand either, trying to cut his sideline, because he may be able to return that ball cutting your left-side sideline, forcing you to move far to the left, which would leave your far right wide open for attack. In general this means that you have to “attack the middle”, that is, aim for the elbow of the hitting arm of your opponent; that way he will never be able to attack your far sides comfortably.

Attacking the middle you will force your opponent to move left or right to return either with his forehand or his backhand more comfortably. If he has moved far enough, one of his wings will be open to attack. Therefore the third tactical rule is that after attacking the middle, you attack the wings.

If perchance your opponent is a penholder too, you cannot not in the same way attack the middle in order to force him to move. Since you cannot safely attack his wings, you must force him away from the table; attacking the middle now means that you hit the ball deep and into the body. If your opponent moves back, you can attack his open wing (this will mostly be his right-hand side), because he will have to move further to get to the ball.

7.2. Vary the attack. Choose your moment. Adapt.

If your opponent knows where to expect your next ball, he will be prepared. You must not allow this. Keep him in the dark, so that he will always be unprepared and cannot use all his energy for a single effective line of attack. Deception (or unpredictability) is the key to victory. You must attack the middle (if you cannot outright attack the wings), but you must vary your attack, hitting now fast and now slow, now with spin and now without, now deep and now short. Move him in and out. Wrong-foot him. Varying the attack is the fourth tactical rule.

You cannot attack before you have effectively brought down your opponents defence. Be patient. Yours is a fast game because you must stay close to the table and hit in a more or less straight line, not because you must hit a winner with your first ball. Keep the field

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covered by maintaining your basic position, keep up the attack of the middle, vary your attack to make it most effective, attack the wings when you can and not before. Choosing your moment is the fifth tactical rule.

You should not adhere to these rules blindly. It may be profitable to attack the wings early if one of them is weak (because of a relatively weak backhand or forehand). It may be possible to win the point by attacking the middle. It may be necessary to turn to the defence to lure your opponent close to the table. Adapting to the circumstances is the final tactical rule.

8. Basic equipment.

The best less spinny rubber for an allround pips out hitting game is, to my mind, the Friendship 799 in 1.5 mm. It is not too hard, not too fast (yet it produces enough speed) and offers outstanding control. It is capable of putting spin on the ball; serves can be made very spinny when you use your wrist well. Choose red if you favour attack, black (which is just a bit more spinny) if you favour control. Put it on an allround frame, like Friendships 6040 ALL.

The Friendship 802-1 in 1.5 mm in black would be my choice for a typical controlled counter-attack game like Gao Jun plays; it is quite a bit more spinny, great for blocking, and hits well. In fact, it resembles the Butterfly Challenger Attack Gao uses. Put it on a medium fast frame, like Friendships Black Whirlwind.

The Friendship 802 in 1.5 mm in red is probably the best short pip for a real tough all-out attack hitting game, but it is so fast that you have to be quite accomplished to use it well. An attacker should put it on an allround blade to begin with.

If you get beyond basics and want more speed, especially in your punch, I would advise to keep your rubber, but change your frame. Keep in mind that you will always need a lot of control for your left-hand, so do not go for the fashionable very fast blades. A good choice would be a blade like Friendships Bomb.

1. History and characterization.

Covering your frame with short pips, no sponge, as the tradition-conscious hard-batters still do, once was the only way of playing table tennis. Then somebody had the idea to attach the rubber upside down; the term “inverted” refers to this. Table tennis was upturned indeed. The net became less of an obstacle, which it had been intended to be, because now you could loop the ball over it. As a consequence, you could hit with much more force. As rubbers became capable of imparting more spin and sponge was used to enhance this effect, elegance, delicacy and speed gave way to raw power. Gone are the days of the rapier, we live in the age of the broadsword. The metaphor is, I think, informative. The basic stroke with inverted rubber resembles the swinging stroke used to wield the double-edged broadsword, whereas with pips the basic stroke is essentially a punch resembling the pointed rapier’s thrust. The former needs

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power to be effective, the latter precision. Striking a powerful blow takes time; a precise thrust can be made quickly. With the light rapier you cannot hope to parry the blows of the heavy broadsword; the only hope you have is to deflect them and slip in your point fast between the blows, or make the kill before the sword has been even raised. Likewise, defence with short pips is precarious, since you can only block the incoming ball and have no means of landing it on the table using spin, so you have to attack as fast and frequently as possible, denying as much as you can your opponent the time he needs to perform his own attacking stroke. The typical two-winged pips-out player is, then, someone who prefers using quick and precise action over the exertion of force. Not surprisingly, pips are used much more by women than by men. And in fact, a woman with pips stands a better chance against a woman with inverted, than a man with pips against a man with inverted, because women have less power and are therefore less able to exploit fully the possibilities of inverted rubber. In this century, all male World Champions have been power-spinners, but as yet there has been no female World Champion who used the power-spin style of play. The greatest female player of all, little giant Deng Ya-ping, three times World Champion, had pips on her backhand side – long pips, true, but she attacked with them the way short pips are used. The best female pips-out two-winged player ever, Geng Li-juan, lean, lithe, and lightning-fast, won the silver medal in 1985. No male two-winged fast attacker ever reached so high. Yet there have been successful male pips-out shakehand players, too; not many, but then there are few male pips-out shakehanders around, and excellence is rare anyway. Any boy or man who thinks of taking up this style, but hesitates to become a member of such a small minority, should take a good long look at the play of Johnny Huang, perfectly poised fencing-master behind the table, epitome of two-winged fast attack. In his mid forties now, he still is virtually unbeaten in the America’s. When in 1996 the Olympic Games were on his adopted home-ground, he peaked, reaching the quarter finals, beating with 21-15, 17-21, 21-16, 21-15 the great Waldner. Nowadays, the style has become virtually extinct, although it lives on in the highly effective hybrid style displayed by, amongst others, Li Jia-wei, currently nr.6 of the world, who has inverted rubber on her backhand, pips on her forehand, as had Teng Yi who in 1987 won the men’s World Cup. The introduction of the 40 mm ball, which resulted in shorter and faster play with much more varied lines of attack, has been much to the advantage of the power-spin style. Using modern equipment a power-spinner can loop the ball close to the table with great force. As a consequence, a pips-out player has to be faster and more precise than ever before. The use of either an inverted rubber on the backhand or pips-out rubbers capable of producing much more topspin, are logical developments; the resulting hybrid styles are more forgiving. These days, the pure pips-out two-winged fast attack style is, though it appears to be technically simple, a very difficult style to master; more difficult even than the single-sided pips-out penholder style. Taking it up anyway requires courage, patience, and true love for beauty over power. Below, the basic techniques and tactics of shakehand pips-out play are discussed, in stages, so that, I hope, a beginner can start to play almost immediately and develop his or her style going from one level to the next.

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The style is also known as “pips-out hitter”, but as “hitter” may to some wrongly suggest the application of force as a main characteristic I prefer the Chinese designation “two-winged fast attack style”. Although there are similarities between this style and the single-sided pips-out penholder style, the differences are more important. The penholder grip offers great defence at the backhand side, where blocks can be used to manipulate spin in a number of ways; in contrast, the block with the shakehand grip is less well suited to manipulate spin, but the grip allows all attacking strokes on both wings - even so, attack must be fast indeed to compensate the lack of defensive possibilities.

2. Basic elements of play Written by Kees   

Monday, 31 December 2007

2.1. Mechanics.

It is important to understand how, in this style, the use of pips determines the basic stroke and the basic position behind the table. Therefore, the mechanics involved are explained first.

2.1.1. Angle of the blade. The flat stroke.

A normal pips-out rubber is incapable of producing enough friction to move the ball upwards by friction alone. If you close your bat the ball will drop off. If you open it, the ball will go high and be easy to attack. Therefore, the bat is held vertical most of the time and contact is made with the backside centre of the ball. This angle is only adjusted when dealing with heavy incoming spin, closing the bat slightly against heavy topspin, opening it a bit against incoming heavy backspin. Driving the ball you cannot impart a significant amount of topspin with pips, therefore grazing the ball is useless and should be avoided, the more so since it tends to impair precision. To maximize precision and speed, your main stroke must be executed with the blade square to the ball and the motion of the blade must be in the same direction as you wish the ball to go. As such, it is a thrust, not a swing. Since, however, thrusting the blade forward is an unnatural movement for your arm, it is made part of something resembling a swing: the flat stroke. With inverted rubbers the drive is a swing going upwards; with pips it is a swing that is almost horizontal.

2.1.2. Dealing with spin. Using the wrist. Distance to the table.

Even if you will not impart much (top)spin to the ball yourself, you will have to deal with it; you must know how it affects the trajectory of the ball. This trajectory consists of two parts: the trajectory before the ball lands on the table, and the trajectory after that. In the first part a ball moving forward will follow a curved trajectory, for although its speed

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will keep it moving forward, gravity will pull it down. It will lose speed due to air resistance. The less forward speed, the faster it will drop. Air will flow over and under a ball which is moving forward. A rotating ball drags air with it; if its backside rotates upward (topspin) the ball will drag air in that direction and push it into the air that is flowing over it. As a result there will be denser air above it than under it, which will force the ball down. This is how topspin makes a ball land sooner on the other half of the table. Faster rotation means more air pressure, so an even sooner landing. Faster rotation also means a more stable trajectory, since a rotating object will tend to keep its axis of rotation at the same angle. If a ball is rotating the other way (backspin), it will drag the air flowing over it downward at its backside and push it into the air flowing under it, thus forming a cushion of denser air below it. As a result the ball will float, pushed upward by the denser air. This is how backspin will make a ball drift over the table if it is hit too hard. Faster backspin means more air pressure under the ball, so more drifting. And again faster rotation means a more stable trajectory. If a ball does not rotate at all, or only slightly, it will neither be forced down, nor will it float; it will go forward until it loses its forward motion due to air resistance, and then it will very suddenly drop – like it is falling from the air. This is called a dead ball or knuckle ball. The 40 mm ball loses its forward speed relatively fast (compared to the old 38 mm ball), which means dead balls are produced relatively easy. Knuckle balls or dead balls do not only “drop dead”, they may also have an unstable trajectory because of the lack of rotation. If a ball drops down on the table it will bounce. It will make friction with the table. If it is rotating with topspin it will make friction pushing itself forward; once aloft again, it will still have topspin and therefore it will follow a fast sinking trajectory. All in all, this ball will bounce lower than a non-rotating (dead) ball. If it is rotating with backspin it will make friction with the table pushing itself backward; it will bounce up still having backspin and therefore be slow in falling down again. Therefore, this ball will bounce higher than a non-rotating ball. Short pips are generally not very sensitive to incoming spin, but it does have an effect. If you hold your bat vertical, a straight incoming topspin ball will bounce up from it slightly, a backspin ball will drop off it; a dead ball will just bounce back. There is more. Rotation is imparted by friction. Friction depends on surface contact. With a short pips-out rubber the ball will make contact with the pips. The surface of the pips, taken together, is much less than the surface of a smooth (inverted) rubber. The amount of rotation that can be imparted by a pips-out rubber is, therefore, also much less than the amount that can be imparted by an inverted rubber and will normally not be enough to make a ball land significantly faster than a non-rotating ball. However, if there already is spin on the ball, a pips-out rubber will not stop it, because the lack of friction on surface contact. Incoming topspin continues therefore to some degree as backspin when the ball is returned; incoming backspin continues as topspin. This is called spin-reversal and it is an essential part of your play. As you will want to attack and, therefore, to produce fast balls that are going low over the net before they land on the table, you have to find a way to deal with the incoming spin. An incoming backspin ball will drop off your bat, but if you take the ball early, when it is

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coming up from the table, you can use its upward motion to cancel its tendency to drop off. The backspin may to some extent reverse into topspin, which will help the ball land fast on the other half of the table. As your stroke is flat, you cannot facilitate spin reversal by swinging upwards; therefore you can only use your wrist. A penholder-grip is perfectly suited for this; a shakehander-grip is not, but you must make the most of it. At the beginning of your flat swing you cock your wrist downward and you straighten it sharply when making contact with the ball. An incoming topspin ball will bounce up from your bat; in this case, if you take the ball early, the upward motion of the ball will be added to the upward motion caused by the topspin, and you would produce a high ball; to prevent this, you must take the ball just before or on the top of its bounce, using only the topspin-bounce to get the ball over the net. If you do not want the topspin to reverse into backspin too much, which might cause the ball to float over the table, you will have to scrape at least part of the spin off. Again, as you cannot do this by swinging upward, you will have to use your wrist, cocking it at the beginning of your flat swing and straightening it when making contact with the ball. This also limits the distance a pips-out player can be from the table: he must never be further away from it than the point where he can hit the incoming ball before it starts to drop after its bounce on the table.

2.1.3. The ready position. Grip. Footwork.

In order to be able to execute the flat swing with ease and precision you must be loose and well-balanced – all the time. Your neck, shoulders and upper arms should be completely relaxed. Have your weight equally divided over your legs and stand very lightly, on the ball of your feet. Bend your knees and slightly bend forward, so you can see over the net about a third of the other half of the table. This will make it easier to judge the trajectory and the height of the bounce of the incoming ball; it will also increase the reach you have for play over the table. Stand with your left foot about half a foot further forward than the right foot, feet as far apart as your shoulders are wide, left hip close to the left sideline of the table (top-players stand behind the corner, as they are so fast that they can reach the forehand corner in time), about as far back that you touch the baseline with the tip of your bat when you reach out with it. Your right upper arm hangs down; your underarm is raised forward, at an angle of about 90 degrees with the upper arm. Hold your left arm in the same way. The elbows are about 15 centimetres from your side. Your right arm wrist is loose, ready to be cocked. Your bat is pointing forward and is well above the surface of the table. Think of it this way: you must be ready to move your bat as fast as possible into the path of the incoming ball (before it drops) without hitting the table and you should be equally ready to return the ball with your backhand as with your forehand. Hold your bat in such a way that its grip is about parallel to your underarm. Use your wrist only for imparting spin to gain control over the ball or for facilitating spin-reversal; that is, you can use your wrist to move your blade up and down, but not back or forth. It is very important in this style that you do not use your wrist to impart speed to the ball, because when you do you will not be able to control the angle at which you make contact. Speed

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(or the lack of it) must come from the movement (or the lack of it) of the body and the underarm alone. Every attacking stroke must resemble as closely as possible a thrust straight forward, that is, your blade must hit the ball squarely. It is a simple straight head-on collision between bat and ball, which is made part of a flowing curved motion of the underarm. Good footwork is essential, because you do have to get to the ball in time – always. Keep your feet apart even when moving from side to side behind the table, stay on the balls of your feet, stay low, and keep in touch with the floor when you go from one side to the other. If you move gracefully, you will be in control; if you jerk and jump, you are not. Elegance is a sure sign of success with this style.

3. Beginning play: blocks and strokesWritten by Kees   

Monday, 31 December 2007

The following techniques can best be learned in succession, as they are presented here, since every next stroke is, as regards the required motion of the arm, a more extended version of the preceding stroke and therefore based on it.

3.1. The backhand and forehand block.

Essentially, blocking is having the incoming ball bounce off your bat in the direction you want it to go. Blocking, although you should use it either to attack or to set up an attack, is passive; you move your bat into the path of the ball and keep it there. You do not strike the ball. For a backhand block, drop your right shoulder (supposing you are right-handed) somewhat, so you can easily move your underarm, lean forward towards the ball, and move your bat into its path. Try to be behind the ball whenever you block it. For a forehand block it is not necessary to drop your shoulder, nor should you block the ball in front of you; you block it somewhere in front of you and to your right. Keep your bat close to the surface of the table. Make contact with the backside-centre of the ball very soon after it bounces up from the table, but give it time to come high enough to make contact with the sweet spot of your bat. You direct the ball only by choosing the angle of your bat. If there is no or little sidespin on the incoming ball, a ball that comes straight at your bat (that is, at an angle of 90 degrees) will bounce off it at the same angle (right back, again at an angle of 90 degrees). If it comes in at an angle of 90 minus 10 degrees, it will bounce off at an angle of 90 plus 10 degrees; if it comes in at 90 minus 20, it will bounce off at 90 plus 20; and so on. In all of the following exercises try never to stand still; keep moving, because you will have to in your matches; ask your partner to force you to move by aiming at your change-over point (which is somewhere below the elbow of the arm you use to block with) and at your

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wings (your far left and right); also ask him to vary the length of the balls. Keep in mind always that you are not only learning a stroke, but speed also. Exercise 1: Block medium-paced no-spin or light topspin balls from anywhere on the table right back to your partner, aiming at the elbow of the arm he hits with; then try out changing the angle of your bat and aim for the corners of the table; after that aim to cut the sidelines. Be light on your feet and try not to reach out to your left or right to get to the ball, but instead try to be behind the ball when using your backhand, behind and closely beside it when using your forehand. When you can do this, try blocking balls incoming with sidespin; watch how they bounce off at an angle, and adjust the angle of your bat accordingly to compensate. Exercise 2: Block medium-fast balls and ask your partner to increase the topspin. Try and make all balls go low over the net, aiming at the elbow of your partner. It will be necessary to close your bat somewhat; more against heavier topspin. If you can do this, aim for the corners; then try cutting the sidelines. Then ask your partner to hit fast balls. You will discover that you are unable to get really fast balls with heavy topspin to land on the table; they will go over it. As you cannot close your bat more (you would block the ball into the net that way), you have to take off the pace of the ball; you do this by relaxing your wrist when blocking. Against very fast balls, even pull back your bat a centimetre or so on impact (“pull-back block”). Try to get a feel for this so you will be able to change the pace of the ball at will when returning it. Exercise 3: Block slow backspin balls. Again, try to keep them low. You may have to open your bat somewhat, or even a great deal with heavy backspin; for this, you shove your bat under the ball directly after it has bounced off the table (this is an “open block”).

3.2. The backhand punch.

This stroke is simply an active backhand block. Instead of holding your bat still on contact, you make a very short, fast movement straight forward. For this use only your underarm, pivoting around the elbow; do not ever use the wrist, although this may be very tempting. Drop your right shoulder a bit and lean forward towards the ball, so that you have room to move your underarm to your belly; bring it down slightly, going towards your belly, then up and forward, in a semi-circular motion, accelerating towards the ball when you are about an inch before making contact with it. Keep your blade vertical (against backspin) or slightly closed (against topspin). Hit the ball at the backside-centre with force, but relax immediately after making contact and follow through as little as possible, in the direction of the ball. The stroke must really resemble a short, dry punch. Against incoming heavy topspin, you must close your bat. Exercise 4: Punch medium to fast incoming topspin balls, first to the elbow, then to the corners. Make contact just before the top of the bounce; that way you can punch them over the net more easily. When you are comfortable with that, find out how much more early you can punch them and still land them on the table. The heavier the topspin, the more early you can take them on. But heavy topspin will also reverse more easily because

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of your pips into backspin; balls will get the tendency to float and you cannot punch them hard. Find out how hard you can punch them anyway. Exercise 5: Punch incoming backspin balls, holding your bat vertical. Make light and fast contact; this may reverse the incoming spin into topspin so that you can land the ball on the table sooner and punch with more force. Make contact on the top of the bounce. If you would do it earlier, you would have to open your bat more and therefore not be able to punch at all (the stroke would be a push).

3.3. The forehand drive & hit.

This is your main stroke, for now. It is your means of attack. It must be flawless, or you will miss with it. The ball must be struck when it is to the right and in front of you, a bit more than half an arm’s length away; this means you must get ready to hit it when it is still at the other side of the net. Rotate your upper body slightly by bringing your right hip and shoulder backwards; take care: do not lean to your right to do this, and do not drop your shoulder, but stay balanced as you are. Keep your elbow rather close to your side (about 15 centimetres away) and raise your underarm, bringing it beside you, making an angle of about 90 degrees with the upper arm. Stretch your arm to about 120 degrees while going quickly down a little bit (maybe 10 centimetres); doing this, cock your wrist, bringing the tip of your bat downward; bring your arm up and forward, now unwinding shoulder and hip, and get the bat behind the ball on or before the top of its bounce. This small curved motion replaces the upswing you would make when using an inverted rubber; it gives you time to adjust the angle of your bat and to build up some speed. Make sure your bat is coming really straight towards the ball in the last centimetres of the semi-circle. Accelerate in an almost horizontal line fast towards the ball when your bat is an inch or so away from it. Only use your underarm for this, pivoting around the elbow, swinging from an angle of about 120 degrees with your upper arm to an angle of about 60 degrees. Straighten your wrist, hitting the ball dead-centre; hit it with venom, even if you do not want to produce a fast ball – all the force you use must be generated in the short and straight part of the motion, that is, in about an inch or so. Even so, never open your attack at more than 70% of your power and never hit at more than 90%. Follow through, relaxing, by swinging your underarm to the left, still only pivoting around the elbow. Stop somewhere in front of you and have your arm fall back. The follow-trough will be slightly upwards because you are relaxing your muscles. Against heavy topspin you have to close your bat. In general, you must prevent the upper arm from following this motion; instead, when you hit a higher ball hard, increase the rotation of your upper body, winding further back and faster forward. Keep your upper arm to your side, do not allow it to go backward or forward, for this would impair severely the accuracy of your stroke. The best way to achieve this is to keep your neck, back, shoulders and upper arms completely relaxed when rotating and hitting. Let your underarm do all the work. Feel light, fast and precise. Also, appreciate the beauty of the movement, of how the small vertical curve flows with fierce elegance into the wider horizontal one; experiencing the beauty will help to cancel the basic impulse to use raw power. You must be the fencing-master, both elegant and

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lethal! In the following exercises, ask your training-partner to aim more or less at your forehand, but start moving from side to side yourself as soon as you are somewhat comfortable with the stroke. Stepping around your backhand (that is, moving to the left in order to take a ball with your forehand instead of with your backhand) is an important part of your style of play. Take care and watch the ball, because you should hit it before it drops; this isn’t easy when stepping around your backhand, since stepping around takes time. Also watch the result. Against topspin a well hit ball will be almost without spin (knuckle ball) and go low over the net, then drop suddenly on the table. Against backspin it will go low over the net and drop fast, bouncing low. Experiment with varying the angle of your bat and your stroke. A vertical bat will produce maximum spin-reversal when you refrain from using your wrist; when you do use your wrist you will more likely produce knuckle balls. Higher balls, if hit with a somewhat closed bat will go faster down to the table, provided your stroke is somewhat more upward. Exercise 6: Drive medium to fast incoming topspin balls, first to the elbow of your partner, then to the corners. Make contact just before the top of the bounce; that way you can hit them over the net more easily. When you are comfortable with that, find out how much more early you can contact them and still get them over the net and land them on the table. The heavier the topspin, the more early you can take them on, because they will bounce up from your pips. But because of your pips, heavy topspin will also reverse more into backspin; balls will get the tendency to float and you cannot hit them very hard. Find out how hard you can drive them anyway. Keep in mind that taking the ball on early is necessary for your fast style of play. Exercise 7: Do the same with backspin balls. Backspin may be reversed into topspin by your pips, so, again, try and find out how low, how early and how hard you can hit. If you have used inverted rubbers for topspin before you adopted pips, this stroke will feel very strange, awkwardly short and flat. You may even feel cramped because of this. It will be very difficult to unlearn the upswing toward the ball, but you have to get rid of that. Keep in mind that the stroke with inverted rubber serves two purposes: it has to produce speed and it has to produce spin. With pips you only have to produce speed. So you can do away with half of the stroke, so to speak. Furthermore, with inverted rubber you have to produce a lot of speed, because the spin curves the trajectory of the ball, so if you want a fast ball, it will have to go real fast. With pips the trajectory is straight and a ball will be fast even with not too much speed. That means you can do away with another quarter of the stroke. Really, what remains is a quarter of the stroke you would make when using inverted rubber. Now with this in mind try the following exercise. Ask your trainings-partner to drive and loop medium fast balls diagonally over the table to your forehand and return them this way: keep your elbow about half a foot from your side, keep your arm crooked at about a 100 degrees, be very loose all the time, and bring your bat (barely closed) without any kind of upswing behind the ball, then, making kind of softly contact with the ball to your right and in front of you, try to catch the ball on your rubber, and "drag" it over the net by moving your bat not too fast in a semi-circle about ten to fifteen centimetres wide, going no more than five centimetres upward (your arm will do this by itself, if you do not hit

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upwards). Use your underarm only, pivoting around the elbow! The ball should land somewhere in the middle of the other half of the table. If you can do this consistently, pick up speed and make the movement somewhat longer, but keep it as flat as before. Place the ball deeper. Make the stroke snappy. But always try to retain the feeling of "dragging" the ball, more than hitting it.

3.4. Serve.

Serving with pips is the same as serving with inverted, but since your style demands speed it pays off to use a kind of serve that will allow you to have your bat ready for attack in no time at all. This means you should not alter your grip for serving. It also means you want your bat to go forward when serving, not backward. The simplest serve to start with is the backhand side-spin serve. Stand behind the left half of the table in your normal ready position. Hold the ball in front of you on the palm of your left hand and hold your bat between you and the ball, somewhere in front of your left hip, blade vertical or slightly open. Toss the ball up and when it drops graze it from left to right with your bat. Keep the ball low and short, so have it bounce on your half of the table pretty close to the net. Because of the sidespin the ball will bounce off your opponent’s bat to your right, if he doesn’t adapt. If you serve short and to the right, the ball may even go off the table when returned; this is the safest way to start with. Serving short to the left is inviting your opponent to return it to your forehand, so that you can make a 3rd ball kill. You can vary this serve by varying the amount of side-spin (grazing the ball fast or less fast); if you open your bat more, it will also have some backspin. Make your movement hard to read by keeping it small or by deception (for instance, graze the ball fast but touch it very lightly to produce less side-spin than your opponent will think you do). Surprise your opponent by sometimes serving fast down the line. It is possible to produce lots of spin with pips when serving, but to achieve this you have to practice long and hard. You can do this anywhere, because you just have to learn to use your wrist and underarm. Practice daily for at least a quarter of an hour. That way, behind the table, you can concentrate on keeping the ball low and short.

3.5. Tactics for beginners.

Even with a very few techniques, viz. the backhand block and punch, and the forehand block and drive, and a simple serve, it is quite possible to start playing competition. In my opinion, you should. The strokes are technically not that difficult to master, but the need of speed and the necessity to be the first to attack demand an understanding of the reality of the game, so that you will be able to anticipate (which facilitates speedy and precise reaction) the moves of your opponents. Experience is very important; so is reflection. Start playing competition with this style as soon as you can and keep track of the way matches are going for you. Consider every match to be a training-session. Winning is not important – your development is.

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If you have learned the techniques described above, you are ready to play. It is well to keep in mind that playing against opponents who use inverted rubbers you will be at a disadvantage at first, because developing your style will take time. Do take that time. The main idea of your tactics is denying your opponent the time and the balance he needs to produce spin. Your main line of attack is directed at the vulnerable middle (his change-over point); think of it as going for the heart. Keep things very simple initially, but try and play fast from the beginning. Dictate the pace. Be loose and light on your feet when you play; strike fiercely; relax and rest between points. When receiving, return the ball fast and deep into the body; if it comes back high enough, attack it, into the body again, or go for the corners or sidelines if your opponent is out of position enough so he will have difficulty in reaching the ball. When serving, keep it short and unpredictable, serve a fast one down the line sometimes, and try to have your forehand ready for the return so you can start to attack. Step around your backhand when you can, but bring into play your backhand punch if you must. Blocking is essential and a lot of beginners block too little or too much. Block a ball if it is too fast to attack, and use the time you gain by this to get ready to attack the next one. Think of blocking as deflecting the blow of a broadsword with your rapier – even the best swordsman will need a moment to retrieve his blade and his balance after that blow, and in this moment your rapier must slip into his heart.

4. Advanced play

You will know that you are ready to go to the next level when you can perform blocks, punches and drives comfortably in your matches and when your footwork has developed to the point where you do not miss any balls anymore because you are too late; this means you will now, when playing, have the time to execute more intricate techniques. In this chapter will be discussed advanced attacking techniques; after that, the defensive strokes, which you will use as little as possible. In the final paragraph will briefly be discussed advanced tactics and the way in which you should develop a personal style.

4.1. The backhand drive & hit.

This stroke is the mirror-image of the forehand drive, but ideally is executed right in front of you. The ball must be struck when it is still a bit more than half an arm’s length away; this means you must get ready to hit it when it is at the other side of the net. Step out so that you will be behind the ball. Drop your right shoulder slightly and bend a bit forward to make room for the movement of your underarm, but stay balanced as you are. Bring your arm in front of you as you would do with a backhand block. Go quickly down and back a little bit (maybe 10 centimetres), cock your wrist, moving the tip of the blade downward, and bring your arm up and forward again, bringing the bat behind the ball on or before the top of its bounce. Make sure your bat is coming really straight towards it in the last centimetres of the semi-circle. Accelerate in a horizontal line fast towards the ball when your bat is an inch or so away from the ball. Only use your underarm for this, pivoting around the elbow. Straighten your wrist when you hit the ball, dead-centre; hit it with venom, even if you do

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not want to produce a fast ball – all the force you use must be generated in the short and straight part of the motion, that is, in about an inch or so. Follow through, relaxing, by swinging your underarm to the right, still only pivoting around the elbow. The follow-trough will be slightly upwards because you are relaxing your muscles.

Exercises: adapt exercise 6 and 7 – perform them with your backhand.

4.2. The backhand and forehand flip.

The flip is a short active block absolutely anywhere over the table, against backspin, no-spin or topspin. Against backspin, it should continue the spin on the ball, reversing it; by executing this stroke you avoid playing a defensive block or push. It is a short, almost completely upward stroke, used as the main stroke in fast, short, over the table play. With pips you cannot drag the ball upward and over the net, so you have to use its own upward motion again. Lift your arm, then bring the blade down to catch the ball when it bounces; keep your blade vertical, or, against heavy backspin, open it slightly, go straight up with it again, closing your bat a bit to help the bal over the net. If you want to produce a fast, deep ball, you go up and slightly forward, making a brushing contact with the centre of the ball; if you want to produce a slow ball, do not go forward at all, just aim and go up. Coming in at the ball from above must be done in order to avoid imparting too much forward motion on the ball (you would hit into the net if you came at it horizontally). When you perform a forehand flip you have to bend your wrist backwards considerably to get your blade squarely behind the ball.

Exercise 8: Ask your partner to do backspin and no-spin serves, anywhere on the table, and flip them back, first aiming at his change-over point, then going for the corners and the sidelines.

4.3. The backhand and forehand smash; the backspin smash.

The smash is a drive or hit at full force (which with pips means never more than 90% of what you are able to muster), possible because the ball has bounced high enough to return it directly, that is, in a straight line, onto the other half of the table. If there is heavy topspin on the ball, it doesn’t need to bounce as high, because the spin will help bounce it up off your bat; with pips you can smash relatively low balls. The stroke is performed as a normal drive, but the first, vertical semi-circle is made wider, though not much, and you have to rotate your upper body further and unwind it with more force. The second curve, the follow-through, is also wider. You must, however, avoid over-hitting. Applying too much force will impair your aim and is not necessary with pips. Build up tension by rotating your upper body back, and unwind, then swing in your underarm. Always hit the ball dead-centre; this means that high bouncing balls must be hit coming in from above. With your pips you can help reverse incoming topspin in backspin; with smashing, this is done by pulling your bat downward when hitting the ball, so that it grazes the backside of the ball. A ball hit this way will still go down in a straight line, but has at the same time the tendency to float, so it will be a bit less fast; you have to hit it with less force and you have

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to aim carefully, or it will go over the table. If it lands on the table, however, it will be very difficult to lift for your opponent.

Exercise 9: Ask your trainings-partner to produce balls that bounce about three times the height of the net and smash them. Then try out how low a ball you can still smash.

4.4. The roll and the traditional lift against backspin.

Attacking backspin balls, dead balls, or very low topspin balls, that are just long (that is, just bounce off the table) can be done by rolling. Rolling is important, because one tactic that will be used almost certainly against you is intended to force you to go away from the table by feeding you deep balls; you can stay close to the table by rolling them back. Together with the flip, the roll is your main stroke in short play, used to open up your attack with. Essentially a roll is a flip behind the table instead of over it; in this case, however, you do not have to bring your arm up and come down behind the ball in order to avoid imparting to much forward speed, since you are far from the net. Open your bat a bit, catch the ball and bring your bat quickly up, in a short curve, while closing it a bit. The roll is well suited to open up your attack with; do not hit with too much force, though (never go above 70% of what you can muster).

Exercise 10: Ask your trainings-partner to serve long, producing backspin, no spin, or mild topspin, and roll the balls back; again, aim for his elbow first, after that try to get the ball in the corners and cut the sidelines.

Heavy backspin is better lifted and attacked in the traditional way, by bringing your bat deep down, opening it slightly, then bring it fast high up by swinging in your whole arm from knee-high to over your head, snapping in your underarm just before you make contact with the ball, grazing the ball just below its centre. It helps if you actually bend your knees and straighten them when you swing up.

Exercise 11: Ask your trainings-partner to hit heavy backspin balls, and use the stroke described above. Aim for the elbow, the corners, the sidelines. Spin-reversal with this stroke should be good and as a consequence you will be able to attack with short, very fast balls.

4.5. The backhand and forehand sidespin stab.

Even with pips incoming spin is best avoided when it cannot be turned against the opponent. The best way to minimize the influence of backspin or topspin is making contact with the ball at its side, as the side centre of the ball is one end of the axis the ball is rotating around. A point close to the axis will move far less than a point far from the axis. You can do this in flipping, but also in blocking.

A sidespin stab is executed as follows. Keep your bat vertical and point it towards the ball; come right at it, then make contact shortly after the bounce as far at its right-hand or left-hand side as you can. Have the ball bounce up and off your bat, at the same time stabbing at it (in order to produce sidespin) and (guiding the ball a bit) bringing your bat up and

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slightly into the direction you want it to go. This is a touch-shot, so perform it delicately; yet the upward/forward (brushing) motion should be sharp and with venom. You can also bring your bat downward/forward to impart backspin. The sidespin stab is a good technique for cutting the forehand sideline returning a short serve from the backhand side.

Exercise 12: Ask your trainings-partner to serve heavy backspin from both the forehand and the backhand corner and return the balls out of his reach using the sidespin-stab.

4.6. The smother-block.

Incoming speed can be curbed too. Blocking a smash or lob, smothering the ball, is a useful technique if your opponent is far from the table. Perform a pull-back block with a closed bat.

Exercise 13: Hit a ball to your trainings-partner which he can return either with a smash or with a lob. Smother the ball. Concentrate first on taking the pace out of it by keeping your wrist very relaxed and pulling back your bat a centimetre or so. If you are able to kill the speed, concentrate on the angle of your bat necessary to land the ball closely over the net, or at least out of the reach of your opponent.

4.6. Serves.

On an advanced level you will serve with your forehand from your backhand corner, because this will offer you the whole breadth of the table for your forehand attack. Any good serve will do, but keep in mind you will want the ball returned to your right; you serve to set up your forehand attack.

4.7. The backhand and forehand push.

Against backspin balls you can instead of block also push, although this is a defensive technique. Against heavy backspin balls that bounce low and close to the net you should push when you are not certain that your flip will be dangerous enough. You can push slow by simply putting your bat (face up at an angle of about 45 degrees) under the ball, very shortly after the bounce in order to make good use of the upward motion of the ball; hold your bat still, that is, avoid imparting forward motion and do not lift it yourself; just have the ball bounce off your bat over the net. Make contact fairly high on your bat, that is, between the middle and the grip; this makes it a lot easier to produce flat returns. The ball should go almost straight forward and spin should be reversed to some degree.

Exercise 14: Push slow against backspin serves. Try out your pips to see how much spin they will reverse. Also vary the angle of your bat (very flat to just slightly open) and see what happens. If you are unable to predict the outcome, this is a risky shot.

Pushing fast is more reliable, because the result is more predictable. Do the same as with the slow push, but now really push against the ball. The motion should be forward, and slightly downward, not upward. This way your pips will brush the underside of the ball, imparting heavy backspin.

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Exercise 15: Push fast against backspin serves, varying the angle of the bat; also vary the speed you are pushing with. Find out how to push the ball deep or short, and keep it low. Generally if your returns pop up, you have to hold out your bat less open or take the ball higher on your bat.

4.8. The backhand and forehand chop.

The chop also is a defensive shot and not normally used. Chopping with short pips can be done very effectively, but is generally hard because the rubbers and the frame are so very fast. Bring your hand up to shoulder height and have the tip of the bat pointing upwards. Chop down at the ball in a curve, moving downward and forward, making contact with the ball at hip height, grazing it well below its centre, snapping in your wrist just before you make contact.

Exercise 16: Chop fast backspin and fast topspin balls. This stroke is an emergency measure; after you have learned it, perform it under difficult circumstances – force yourself to reach, to do it on the run, etc.

4.9. The lob and forehand sidespin loop.

If you find yourself where you should not be, far behind the table trying to recover a dropping ball, you can lob, catching the ball on your half-open bat, hitting upward while closing it to a vertical position and following through high above your head. This is a desperate measure and results will be dubious, for the ball, even if hit correctly, will bounce very high on the other half of the table but virtually without spin. You may prefer to try and get back into the rally by performing a sidespin loop. Reach far down, keep your bat slightly closed and make contact just below the centre of the ball and a bit to its side while moving your bat very fast in a narrow curve to the right and forward. The brushing contact will be prolonged slightly because of this curve (you sort of catch the ball in your moving rubber) and you will be able to produce a considerable amount of sidespin, curving the trajectory of the ball.

After using desperate measures like these you should be back at the table as fast as you can.

Exercise 17: Stand at the backhand side of the table and ask your partner to hit a fast one down the line at the forehand side. Try and get to it, going away from the table, and lob or sidespin-loop it back. See if you can sidespin-loop it bending it around the net and have it skid off the table...

4.10. Advanced tactics & developing a personal style.

Tactics on an advanced level are essentially the same as on a basic level, but attack should be much more diverse and unpredictable. Opening the attack aggressively over the table (flip) or close behind it (roll) is essential, in order to play fast and short, as you must. Only when the ball bounces up enough, you can start driving and hitting, to make the kill. You should be aware of your vulnerability for attacks aimed at your change-over point and fast deep balls at your backhand; develop flawless footwork so you can side-step such

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attacks. The feint should be an important part of your play now, to mess up the balance of your opponent; pretend to hit hard when you do not, to hit to the left when you hit to the right, change the rhythm of the game; always follow up a good feint with an attack. But it is maybe even more important to develop a personal style. A personal style is built around the stroke (or strokes) you are especially good at, the strokes you like. You may like to hit the winner with your forehand or with your backhand and set up the attacks accordingly. You may even like blocking and use it cunningly to gain time to hit with real force. However, keep in mind that you should not be predictable and that you should be ready to attack along every line that presents itself.

A personal style also includes a personal choice in equipment, for instance concerning the thickness of sponge (you may like thickness less than the average 1.5 mm, or more than 2.1 mm), or the properties of your pips (less spinney or more spinney). Preferring speed over spin, you may nonetheless resort to using a certain degree of topspin to land faster balls on the table. The style should be made to fit you, not the other way round!

5. Equipment.

Although this is a fast style, beginners should use all-round frames, not offensive ones. A stiff frame brings out the special qualities of the pips more and especially helps with spin-reversal. Rubbers should be 1.5 to 2.0 mm thick. Advanced players generally prefer fast blades and thick rubbers (2.0 or 2.1mm).

It is possible to use medium long pips instead of short pips, although they are generally much less fast. Medium long pips can be used on the backhand, except when the backhand is favoured for making the kill. Medium long pips with characteristics resembling closely those of long pips can only be used with a thick sponge.

Excercises for short pip play Written by Kees   

Friday, 29 February 2008

As an addition to my two articles on pips out play I’d like to offer here some simple but very effective exercises intended for developing sideways movement behind the table up to the level required in these styles. Attacking penholders and shakehanders alike must be able to perform forehand strokes from the backhand side of the table; this leaves the forehand side wide open, so excellent footwork is needed to cover an area that otherwise would be extremely vulnerable. The idea behind the exercises is that in order to execute strokes with precision and force you not only have to get to the ball in time, but also maintain a perfect poise; therefore both speed and balance is what is aimed for. The best way to move sideways behind the table is with your feet apart (your shoulders should easily fit in between them). If you move to the left, you should step out with the left

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leg, and then bring your right leg in the same direction, until you stand as before; and your right foot should never lose contact with the floor. Moving to the right you do the same, in mirror image. All the time your weight should be on the front part of your feet, that is, on your toes and your insteps (the balls of your feet), and you should stand lightly, springy, balanced. If you step out to perform a stroke, your weight should be on that leg before you actually perform the stroke, and you should be balanced. Refrain from everything which might impair your balance or speed. This means primarily that you should refrain from starting your stroke too early (while you are still moving); it is necessary, therefore, to strike both fast and short. Beginning an upswing while you are still moving destroys your balance and makes your speed less. You can easily convince yourself off this by trying to move quickly sideways while making large “upswinging” gestures. Exercise 1. Rope-jumping. Keep it up for 1 minute to begin with. Hop very lightly with both feet simultaneously. Rest. Do it for another minute. This strengthens the muscles you need for moving fast sideways. Do the exercise every day for 5 to 10 minutes. I promise, before the second week is out you will be noticeably faster behind the table already. Exercise 2 a. Stand with your feet apart and bend forward (like you are eager to hit the next incoming ball!), find your balance, and start to swing gently from left to right, v.v., by bending your left knee, then your right, and so on. Make sure your weight is on the leg with the bending knee. Feel your equilibrium shift, like a pendulum. Do this for about a minute. 2 b. Do the same, but add sideways movement: step out left, bring your right leg in the same direction until you stand as before, then step out right, bring your left leg etc. Speed up. Repeat the cycles (one to the left, one to the right) 50 times for a couple of days. Then go for 100. Increase the speed until you are flying. You should actually have the feeling that you are afloat while doing this. 2 c. Now to finetune your balance, place a basket on your left and one on your right. You should be able to just about put your right hand in them when you do exercise 2b. Put 10 balls in the left basket. Do exercise 2 b, but every time you go left, you pick up a ball and take it with you when going to the right, and put it into the basket there. Begin slowly, then increae speed. If you can do it very snappy without missing a single ball, then fill the basket with 20. This exercise is fun for kids (you can even do matches: see who empties his or her basket first), but very good for adults too; for you are now combining speed with balance and dexterity of your hand. These exercises take up about a quarter of an hour. You can do them every day at home and/or make them a part of your training in the gym. You will make the most of them if you follow them up with the next exercises. Exercise 3 (prepares for exercise 5). Practice forehand strokes from the forehand corner, first diagonal, then parallel. Practice forehand strokes from the backhand corner, first diagonal, then parallel; finally practice them standing beside the table. Exercise 4 (prepares for exercise 5). Alternate between forehand and backhand strokes from the backhand corner (stepping around your backhand).

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Exercise 5. Now make series, graduately increasing your speed. For single-sided penholders: backhand fast push or fast block from the backhand corner (to gain the initiative), step around, perform a forehand hit (your first attack), move quickly to the forehand corner and again perform a forehand hit (second attack), come back to about the middle of the table turning your torso and perform a killing backhand hit (see 6.2. in my article on single-sided pips-out penholder), and start all over again. Two-winged attackers do the same, but their backhand hit from the middle might be a forehand hit.

As you are getting better at this, you will one day (pretty soon) suddenly feel balance kick in – you do not move anymore, you float. You do not move your feet anymore, for your feet are moving you! Suddenly table tennis is a dance, a fiery form of art! You will notice how much more in control you are and how much better you are able to oversee the table! Exhilaration will grip you! You will know for a fact that you are now on your way to become a great player... Well, something like that, anyway.

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