Cliffedale Chandlers Table Tennis Club

More articles and Table Tennis related information can be found on the excellent Denis' Tennis Tennis World website.

1: Forehand Chop
2. Lift Strokes
3. Backhand Flick
4. Ball Spin
5. Forehand Smash
6. Serve Reception
7. Basic Stance
8. Legs Movement

9. Shakehand Grip
10. Slow Forehand Top Spin
11. Forehand-Retopspin (2)
12. Forehand-Retopspin (1)
13. Footwork
14. Forehand Flick
15. Serve Execution
16. Backhand Topspin

The forehand chop is a completely defensive stroke used for the return of the topspin strokes. If the defensive player wants to play a successful chop he will have first calculated the direction of the ball, the height of the ball after it bounces, and the type and amount of spin on the ball. At the same time, he must step backwards with his right foot giving the player time to execute the stroke and time for the speed and spin of the ball dissipate slightly.

Changing the speed of the arm and the manner in which the player approaches the ball can give great variety to the stroke. Good defensive players, even when countering a good topspin, can vary the racket angle and use their wrist at the time of the contact to increase or decrease the speed and spin of the ball thus deceive the opponent.

Description
The player is 2-3m (6.6-9.8ft) far from the table. The feet are bent and open such at a shoulders' width. The left leg is a little in front of the right leg. The left foot points forward while the right is angled slightly to the right. The body weight falls mostly on the right leg. The racket is placed almost at the shoulder height and the right arm is bent at a 90° angle. The left hand helps maintain balance.

As the racket moves downwards and towards the front to hit the ball the elbow angle increases to 110°-120° angle at the time of contact. The contact of the racket and the ball takes place at waist level. After hitting the ball the right arm continues its forward movement and stops almost in front of the body. The hips turn towards the left to help the movement. The feet maintain their starting position but the body weight gradually shifts from the back leg to the front leg.

Lift Strokes The following article was provided to DTTW by Samson.T.Aghaye-Dudu from Nigeria

Introduction.
This is a very technical stroke that is very deceptive. It is difficult to execute and also difficult for opponents to recognise and managed. It is only performed against relatively heavy underspin. The primary objective of a player performing this stroke is to "lift" the opponent's underspin back to him with little or no spin at the point of returning it.The whole idea is to play a fast trick on your opponent, making him to believe what is not true. Because table tennis is a fast game that relatively depends on speed and spin, it requires quick decision making and fast reflexes .You must act fast considering your opponent's stroke.

Executing Lift strokes:
In the process of performing lift stroke, a very experience player pretends as if he wants to loop an opponent's underspin but will only place his racket almost if not completely horizontal (see diagram above) and lift the underspin ball across the net. One important principle applicable is the fact that the stroke is by force and not by friction. If there is friction, it should result to partial underspin. The player's racket contacts the ball by taping it in an upward direction. what this means is that the player must assume the position of looping an underspin (down - up motion). If the opponent is deceived by this motion, he blocks the partial underspin or a close to motionless no-spin and the resultant effect is that the ball hits the net. Remember that you can only block top-spin drive/loop strokes with speed and not underspin or "no-spin no-speed" stroke.

Explanation of "no-spin & no-speed" stroke Take a look at the diagram above. When an opponent plays an underspin to you by chopping (preferably deep chop), you lift the ball by taping upward; what you are planning to do is to neutralise the spin, then the ball moves to your opponent's court with a "slight" underspin. This situation retards the speed to a great extent. The table surface drags the ball down and any attempt to block the ball will result to hitting the net.

How to return lift strokes:

What you need to do is to:
* watch the player and observe if the stroke is by force or by friction. If it is by force do not block.
* watch the ball and observe the no-spin situation. Quickly counter. If you are close to the table smash.
* watch the ball and observe the slight under-spin situation. Quickly push. If you are close to the table counter or smash.

The only remedy to successfully return 'Lift' stroke is to perform any other strokes except blocking.

The backhand flick is an offensive stroke like the forehand flick, used against serves or short balls like the drop shot or a push played from the backhand side.

The starting position for playing the backhand flick is the same ready stance previously described. As the opponent executes a short serve to the player’s backhand, the player keeps his left foot to the ground as he moves the right leg to the right towards the ball. At the same time he brings his right hand in front of his chest but the wrist is bent and the elbow is at the same height as the racket.

At the moment of the stroke execution, the body weight falls forward and on the right leg. As in the case with the forehand flick, the racket contacts the top of the ball when the ball reaches its summit after it bounces and at an angle appropriate for the spin on the ball. The upward movement is done with the wrist, and the elbow is used as a pivot point. As with the forehand flick, direction of the ball from the backhand flick can change even at the last moment if the angle formed by the wrist and the forearm changes.

Ball Spin The following article has taken from "Table Tennis: From A to Z" book
Copyright © 2000, by Dimosthenis E. Messinis

The spinning of the ball plays an important role in table tennis. There is spin almost in each stroke. Because of the sport nature and the equipment (rubbers etc), the spinning of the ball is inevitable. It has been found that the ball spinning in table tennis fluctuates from 0 to +140 rotational frequency (1/s).

Determinant factors of spin influence
The determinant factors which influence the spin of the ball are divided in: (a) external and (b) internal.

A. External factors
The main external factors are the following: a) The mass distribution of the ball and its surface properties. The largest part of the total ball mass is on its surface while its inside is empty. Table tennis ball has 19 mm radius, 0.4 mm thickness, and 2.5 gr weight. If we replace it with another ball of the same radius but with solid inside such as the golf ball, we will notice that the kinetic energy from the stroke can not be converted in spin. b) The type of the table surface and the floor material. These two elements influence a lot, the amount of spin and speed of the ball. c) The speed glue which used prior the match. d) The air resistance. The air decreases the amount of spin. Its action is proportional to the ball speed and the type of spin. e) The racket and the interaction of the ball with the rubber surface. The rubber material and the sponge influence the amount of spin. The offensive rubbers which are characterized for their ability to give more spin on the ball, satisfy at least two conditions: The amount of produced spin is proportional to the amount of friction between rubber and ball during the stroke. The kinetic energy, produced during the impact of the ball on the bat, is converted to spin and speed proportionally to the sponge thickness and rubber softness.

B. Internal factors
The amount of spin depends also on internal factors which are related to the point progression. The main internal factors are the following: a) The contact point between ball and racket and the degree of the formed angle. b) The speed of the stroke execution. The increase of the speed during the stroke execution is proportional to the amount of produced spin. c) The special conditions of the game. The possibility of giving greater spin on the ball with our stroke is theoritically proportional to the quickness of the ball coming from our opponent. d) The trajectory length of the ball during the stroke. The ball loses its spin because of speed reduction due to air resistance. This means that its trajectory length is conversely proportional to the amount of its spin.

Forehand Smash The following article has taken from "Table Tennis: From A to Z" book
Copyright © 2000, by Dimosthenis E. Messinis

Some important technical details during the execution of a forehand smash are the folowing:

* The stroke starts with the movement of the larger muscle groups (the muscles of the legs and trunk, followed by the muscles of the shoulder).
* The center of gravity of the body is closer to the right leg which is placed behind the left (for the right-handers).
* The elbow is bent at an angle of 90º.
* From the starting position in the first part of the movement, a horizontal backward motion of the shoulder takes place. This backward motion is replaced by a horizontal forward motion during the second part of the movement. The horizontal movement of the shoulder is the result of the action of the chest muscles as well as the deltoid.
* During the movement the right leg is straightened out and the left leg is bent.
* The center of gravity of the body shifts forewards and upwards towards the left leg.
* At the moment of the ball impact with the racket, the strengthening of the kinetic chain takes place with isometric contraction of the active muscles (forearm, shoulder etc).The torso twists to the left as a result of the racket motion along the line of the ball.
* The position of the legs and the pelvic axis is at 45º angle in relation to the baseline of the table.
* This relative position does not change during the movement.
* The racket moves along a straight line while at the time of the impact it is in vertical position.
* The axis of the shoulder and the striking arm is at a right angle to the direction of movement of the oncoming ball (85º-95º angle).
* The impact takes place at the highest point of the ball.

Serve reception has the same importance as the serve execution. The returns against the opponent's serves will decide the development of the point. In order to take the initiative in a rally we have to be able to return the serves in such a way which will give us the opportunity to attack. So, if we want to make good attacks in our turn of serve receptions, we have to make good returns against the opponent's serves. Nowdays the return of a serve is difficult enough because of the complexity of the serves. The improvement in the serve technique including the different rubbers has lead the players to invent new reception techniques. Top level players spend a lot of time (may be the same as in serve execution) to build stronger returns. There are many varieties of serve returns. Some of them are drives, shorts chops, topspins (if the ball is far from the net near the bottom line) etc. However the most common and important one is the flick return. Flick returns consist of two different types: a) with a little topspin b) with no spin. It depends of the type of serve which type of flick we will use. However one think have to be always on our mind. The succesfull flick is the unexpected flick. This can bring the opponent out of his balance and give us the opportunity to win the point immediately or with an attack. We have to send the flick to the weak side of the opponent and if it is possible near the bottom line and never in the middle of the opponent court.

Training for flick techniques:

a) Multi ball practice (with the trainer).
b) Single ball practice (with another player). We can practice both serve execution and reception with this method. There is not a ideal way to make a flick return because of the serves' variability. However in general for right-handers the right foot is moving towards the ball during the return regardless of the position of the ball. The opposite stands for left-handers.

The basic stance is represented by the serve reception porture from which a player makes a start to deal with the opponents's serve. He may have to make an attack or produce a chop depending on the kind of serve he receives. Therefore, a correct basic stance is absolutely necessary for his flexible movement as well as strokes.A good basic stance should be the one from which the player can make a quick start, therefore, stances can differ from player to player depending on their playing styles. Also, the basic stance ought to be flexible, however, many players have wrong ideas on this point. Hitting the ball at a low impact point with open stance is important in producing a stable chop, on the other hand, however, a close stance and high striking point are required for a quick attack. Choppers nowadays must fill these opposite requirement at the same time. Therefore, the basic stance for choppers will normally be settled as a compromise between the two different factors. Of course, slight differences in stance, body angles and racket positions among players are allowed. The basic stance must be natural. A bad basic stance will create bad movements. On the contrary, a natural basic stance will lead to smooth movements. Therefore, you should not try to make yourself look better. For a good basic stance, you must keep your upper arms close to your body. At the same time, you ought to preserve your composure of mind with great confidence in your own ability that you are perfectly ready to answer any possible shot.

Recovering the basic stance
The faster you recover your neutral stance, the easier you can deal with your opponent's following shot. In other words, by returning to your basic stance quickly, you will have more time in watching your opponent's movement so as to know what kind of shot he is going to make. As the best way to take a quick return to the neutral position, it's better to do shadow swings as well as some complicated movements. However, beginners are to be excessively absorbed in recovering their neutral stances and as a result, their swings will get out of gear easily if they start their ball striking practice too early. This is because their swings often become incomplete ones without enough follow-through.

Legs movement during the return of serve is the most basic factor in the technique. The legs movement is directly related to the player's style (offensive, defensive), his strong strokes and the server's position.

Offensive players
The offensive players that prefer to start their attack from the forehand side stand more to the left of the table with their right leg diagonally behind their left. These players use their right leg to return a close serve from the backhand side. The legs move accordingly when the serve is long. In this case, there is an opportunity of attack, so the right leg is always behind the left after the third step. The players preferring to attack from the backhand side bring their right leg approximately inline with the left and come closer to the center of the table taking advantage of the space on the backhand side. The legs movement is almost the same as that used during the execution of forehand strokes.

Defensive players
The defensive players' legs movement when returning a close serve is similar to that of the offensive player who prefers to stand at the center of the table. This movement changes when the defensive player tries to return a long serve. When the serve is executed from the backhand side the left leg moves first. Whereas when the serve is executed from the forehand side the right leg moves first.