How were pendulum serves returned, before the backhand Flip was more established?

[gordonluvsu]

Title.
How to not flip and not give your opponent a big advantage.

Its about right handed vs right handed Player.

I know you can go to the left and return it with your forehand, but that has its downsides.

Returning with your Backhand is awkward and uncomfortable.

How did the pros return Heavy Spin ( All Spin Variation) pendulum serves to their backhand, without flipping with the backhand and giving their opponent an advantage to easily win the point?

Whenever my opponents return it by pushing, I either get an Ace or it comes floating up high to the backhand, which I imagine is an easy 3rd Ball Attack for anyone that has some footwork, good technique and the focus to execute it.

I could watch some older matches, which I might, but do you have an answer?

Whats your experience with this?

 

[lodro]

Whenever my opponents return it by pushing, I either get an Ace or it comes floating up high to the backhand, which I imagine is an easy 3rd Ball Attack for anyone that has some footwork, good technique and the focus to execute it.

not with my push you wouldn't. I gots my sticky H3 and always try to give as much backspin as possible then even when it goes back high and gets smashed it mostly ends up in the net

 

[blahness]

You can watch some Kong Linghui matches. He uses BH receive (particularly simple pushes or traditional flips) and it is very effective still.

 

[exotick]

Here is an example

at 4:00 .

 

[gordonluvsu]

On the topic of old matches:

Was it "easier" to play with the old ball?

Was it significantly slower so that you could react more easily?
Was it more forgiving if you didnt read the spin so accurately?

The footwork in these older matches looks much more smooth and in "flow" compared to modern very fast, sudden and quick movements.
In general, older matches look a lot smoother and more pleasing to the eye.

When they step around to hit a forehand, it seems much easier if you compare it to a step around of lets say Ma Long or Wang Chuqin.

I guess equipment also plays a role in that, but idk how much.

 

[Dominikk85]

Title.
How to not flip and not give your opponent a big advantage.

Its about right handed vs right handed Player.

I know you can go to the left and return it with your forehand, but that has its downsides.

Returning with your Backhand is awkward and uncomfortable.

How did the pros return Heavy Spin ( All Spin Variation) pendulum serves to their backhand, without flipping with the backhand and giving their opponent an advantage to easily win the point?

Whenever my opponents return it by pushing, I either get an Ace or it comes floating up high to the backhand, which I imagine is an easy 3rd Ball Attack for anyone that has some footwork, good technique and the focus to execute it.

I could watch some older matches, which I might, but do you have an answer?

Whats your experience with this?

You don't need a flip, just push it back with good quality (low over the net and either short or long and with good pace).

Watch some ma long matches. He does Use the flip sometimes but more often he pushes it back and it isn't always an easy point for the opponent.

 

[SleepyMaster]

It depends on what spin on the ball, and the amount of it. If it downspin the easiest way is just to push with quality to different parts of the table, just make it variable - short push if possible, long, etc.

If it is heavy side spin you can push too, but you need to touch right side of the ball. You can loop also with the backhand, but if you struggle with this kind of receive (backhand loop), don’t try to rush it, wait the ball bounce, focus on brushing without much power and give your opp his spin back - let him deal with it now.

The best way to receive should be the most stable one that you can execute, and also it should be uncomfortable for you opponent. Try different receives - check what works the best for you - and just keep practising it.

 

[NextLevel]

On the topic of old matches:

Was it "easier" to play with the old ball?

Was it significantly slower so that you could react more easily?
Was it more forgiving if you didnt read the spin so accurately?

The footwork in these older matches looks much more smooth and in "flow" compared to modern very fast, sudden and quick movements.
In general, older matches look a lot smoother and more pleasing to the eye.

When they step around to hit a forehand, it seems much easier if you compare it to a step around of lets say Ma Long or Wang Chuqin.

I guess equipment also plays a role in that, but idk how much.

Was it easier? No. At least, not the spin dimension. The spin slowed quite a few people down.

Back then though, the use of extremely fast equipment like has been built for the new balls wasn't in vogue. Yes there was speed glue and the game could be fast, but definitely not the kind of speed you see today.

It was always believed a bigger ball would mean a slower game without serious consideration of how the manufacturers and athletes would.compensate.

Whatever you think of modern table tennis, it is a good question: has letting manufacturers do almost anything they want to increase speed and spin has been good for the sport?

 

[kapahoo]

It is only a problem if it is hard to read whether it is sidespin-underspin or sidespin-topspin. And if it is topspin it is very hard to "push with quality".

 

[blahness]

On the topic of old matches:

Was it "easier" to play with the old ball?

Was it significantly slower so that you could react more easily?
Was it more forgiving if you didnt read the spin so accurately?

The footwork in these older matches looks much more smooth and in "flow" compared to modern very fast, sudden and quick movements.
In general, older matches look a lot smoother and more pleasing to the eye.

When they step around to hit a forehand, it seems much easier if you compare it to a step around of lets say Ma Long or Wang Chuqin.

I guess equipment also plays a role in that, but idk how much.

Check out the amount of spin and speed they generate with such little input power from the body (comparatively speaking), if they did those strokes with the new ball it would be slow af and not even that spinny, and thus very vulnerable.

 

[iammaru]

Title.
How to not flip and not give your opponent a big advantage.

Its about right handed vs right handed Player.

I know you can go to the left and return it with your forehand, but that has its downsides.

Returning with your Backhand is awkward and uncomfortable.

How did the pros return Heavy Spin ( All Spin Variation) pendulum serves to their backhand, without flipping with the backhand and giving their opponent an advantage to easily win the point?

Whenever my opponents return it by pushing, I either get an Ace or it comes floating up high to the backhand, which I imagine is an easy 3rd Ball Attack for anyone that has some footwork, good technique and the focus to execute it.

I could watch some older matches, which I might, but do you have an answer?

Whats your experience with this?

I think we need to separate backhand banana flick from backhand flip. When banana flick was not mainstream yet, of course players like to receive with their fh, but if they want to return with Bh:

For sideunder: push. If it has underspin, push will always work.
For side or sidetop: backhand flip. Wang Liqin did it a lot.

 

[blahness]

It is only a problem if it is hard to read whether it is sidespin-underspin or sidespin-topspin. And if it is topspin it is very hard to "push with quality".

With BH the new left to right sideswipe(strawberry like?) technique allows you to deal with some ambiguity in the pendulum serve spin by going against the spin and produce a very spinny outgoing ball that is long, but not so easy to attack strongly due to the sidespin generated. I noticed Sun Yingsha doing it a lot recently, as she just wants to enter the rally where she is always favoured, doesn't want to deal with too much 3rd ball nonsense. The dwell time is huge and allows for a lot of control and safety in the shot. It works perfectly against sidetopspin serves too.

Perfect demonstration by Sun Yingsha below - you can see extremely few pushing mistakes when she uses this technique and there's nothing her opponent can do to hurt her. Occasionally she goes the other direction (right to left) push to do a short push which makes it even harder positionally for the oppinent.

Cheng I Ching got so sick of that receive as she was getting absolutely nothing out of her serve, just boring topspin rallies where she was always losing, that she switched to hook serves to avoid that pattern lol. Which won her the 3rd game.

 

[blahness]

But with the old ball, sideswipes like this just invites the spinny opening loop which was probably very scary to deal with due to the spin quality.

 

[dingyibvs]

Just watch Ma Long play, he rarely uses the banana flick. Even in the World Cup he mostly flicked serves to his FH and not to his BH.

 

[JJ Ng]

Old balls (38mm celluloid) is so much spinnier than the current balls (40+mm plastic).

Therefore, back then, with heavy backspin serve, you simply pushed it back heavy and that can negate a lot of third ball attacks.

The serves were much spinner back then so backhand flip was often not as effective.

As for speed, I think back then it was faster too.

The spin and speed are especially noticeable when the ball hits the table. With plastic ball, once the ball hits the table it loses a lot of spin and speed right away.

I think that's why you see lower level players with advanced techniques nowadays because they don't have to read (or care about) the type of and the amount of spin as much.

 

[Tinykin]

Old balls (38mm celluloid) is so much spinnier than the current balls (40+mm plastic).

Therefore, back then, with heavy backspin serve, you simply pushed it back heavy and that can negate a lot of third ball attacks.

The serves were much spinner back then so backhand flip was often not as effective.

As for speed, I think back then it was faster too.

The spin and speed are especially noticeable when the ball hits the ball. With plastic ball, once the ball hits the table it loses a lot of spin and speed right away.

I think that's why you see lower level players with advanced techniques nowadays because they don't have to read (or care about) the type of and the amount of spin as much.

Agree fully. Especially about lower level players today playing more varied strokes. But a big reason for that is YouTube. The average amateur players today are much more aware of advanced techniques than even in the nineties.
A major feature of the 38mm was that a topspin stroke would carry its spin much further. Thus the distance would be greater. To this day I still struggle to get to topspin balls as the ball drops off (in front of me) earlier than I expect. I believe that's a big reason why we don't see true all round players anymore. Previously, an all rounder meant that the player was near equally good at both chopping and topspin attack.
I remember that the first 40mm ball tournaments caused scheduling problems for organisers. The standard calculation was for 15-20 mins per match. Today it's minimum 20mins. But definitely we observed that the rallies were immediately longer with the 40mm ball. Basically, at the height of the 38mm ball era, it would be serve and the player that got in the first strong topspin won the point.
The combination of hidden serve + speed glue + funny rubbers + carbon blades made tt very boring 😔 to watch at amateur level. And this is coming from me, a life long enthusiast.
Bring back the 38mm or 40mm celluloid ball 😊.
Sorry what were we talking about again🙄?

 

[JJ Ng]

Agree fully. Especially about lower level players today playing more varied strokes. But a big reason for that is YouTube. The average amateur players today are much more aware of advanced techniques than even in the nineties.
A major feature of the 38mm was that a topspin stroke would carry its spin much further. Thus the distance would be greater. To this day I still struggle to get to topspin balls as the ball drops off (in front of me) earlier than I expect. I believe that's a big reason why we don't see true all round players anymore. Previously, an all rounder meant that the player was near equally good at both chopping and topspin attack.
I remember that the first 40mm ball tournaments caused scheduling problems for organisers. The standard calculation was for 15-20 mins per match. Today it's minimum 20mins. But definitely we observed that the rallies were immediately longer with the 40mm ball. Basically, at the height of the 38mm ball era, it would be serve and the player that got in the first strong topspin won the point.
The combination of hidden serve + speed glue + funny rubbers + carbon blades made tt very boring 😔 to watch at amateur level. And this is coming from me, a life long enthusiast.
Bring back the 38mm or 40mm celluloid ball 😊.
Sorry what were we talking about again🙄?

Agree. YouTube seems to be a good source of info.

I mean, the rallies are longer nowadays. Back then Liu Goliang was not that much fun to watch. Serve and smash. Point is over.

I mean the recent final, it was fascinating to see Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu duked it out. However, the lack of variety in the shots and the lack of choppers do make things a bit boring. Oh well....

 

[IB66]

Regarding spin, sure the 40+ ball has reduced spin, mainly because of the size, aerodynamics etc
However in very simple terms, removing the aerodynamic effects etc.
the larger ball spinning at 3000 rpm has more, how to put it, spin energy than a 38mm ball at 3000 rpm does.If they are moving at the same velocity.
The outer edge of the 40+ ball is moving faster.
the aerodynamics and surface area at contact negate the effect of the spin energy carried by the larger ball.

All said and done the 40+ ball is less ‘spinny’