advice-to-beat-my-nemesis Voldermort and Short-pip nightmare
Danttgeek asked 2 months ago
Hi Guys,
My team reached the semi-finals in our fixtures and I am facing my two nemesis.
My strengths are backhand topspin attack, forehand counter, blocking on both sides and forehand spinny open ups with accurate placement. My weakness is opening up earlier with more speed and dealing with no spin pushes and blocks.
1.) Voldermort
He has great feel and can’t be unsettled by spin on serve, but he never opens up on long pushes unless they are high, in which case he smashes them for 95% chance winners. He can push with variation and slow the ball down crazy (normal inverted rubbers)
It always messes up my timing and the ball often has no spin – so super slow often no spin pushes that I end up missing when opening up or if they go anywhere he can reach, he smashes them.
My best strategy has been to do heavy spin open ups which he struggles with, and to attack the elbow where he is weakest – going wide is hard as he has a large wingspan and plays very close to table.
When I get in a groove, he somehow manages to change the pace, disguise weird spins and suddenly I have lost 6 points and don’t know what happened – that’s why I call him Voldermort.
What can I do? How can I keep control of the match. I need to still serve some variation even though long underpin and variable spin to backhand work best.
2.) short pip nightmare
penholder with short pip on backhand and strong inverted smash/loop on forehand. The dynamics are similar, keep getting weird flat balls on blocks and pushes that I inevitably pop up and then get anhialated.
How can I keep control and a winning strategy?
Hope I gave you adequate information – if not I understand.
Danttgeek answered 2 months ago
PS: the biggest issue is the super slow balls – it messes up my timing until I play like I am experiencing some kind of medical episode. Sometimes this complete discombobulation carries onto the next match!
Tom Academy Coach answered 2 months ago
Hey Dan! Not sure what happened to my answer here, I had responded but looks like it’s not showing now. When you said these slow balls make you feel like you are having a medical episode that made me laugh! I can totally understand this feeling as lots of the players I coach also struggle with this. So for both of these players when playing the really slow, flat or no spin balls the biggest two things that cause mistakes are rushing in too quickly and indecision. So trying to find that balance between not rushing in too quicky but still choosing your shot early is the challenge. A really good tip for these shots is to still focus on getting good spin on the ball but think of brushing the ball forwards rather than brushing more upwards like you would when playing an open up against backspin.
Against Voldemort it will be very important to focus on playing good quality pushes and keeping them low and deep in the table so he can’t attack and it gives you time to force him into the elbow or get in your heavy spin loop you said he struggles with. Also to avoid losing 6 or 7 points in a row try to slow down and take your time if you lose a few in a row, take your towel if possible and just give yourself time to regroup and think a bit. It’s easy to rush through a few points and then realise you’ve lost 6 in row without making any changes.
Last thing with the slow balls, if you do spot it early really focus on taking a second, pausing and then playing your shot, often players struggle if you actually give them a slow ball back to them, as long as you can keep it low enough of course. When pushing try to think of holing the ball on the bat longer to avcoid it popping up high and giving them an easy attack.
I hope this all makes sense and any questions on it just let me know!
thanks, Tom
DanttgeekThat’s great Tom – thanks.
I will try to keep it in mind against these types of players
