How to play against a chopper with normal rubbers
darion888 asked 2 years ago
Hello guys,
I’ve recently lost a match against a guy who tried to chop almost every attack of mine with normal rubbers. Of course I could have won that match but had some little bit of bad luck at the end. I tried to give him long fast serves and to attack after, which worked to some extent. I also varied a service (short, long, backspin, topspin, etc.) The problem was when I tried to open up a backspin ball, he was often chopping it, and the ball which came back to me was often with backspin and I could not get harder. So what I did was opening rally, then push, again opening up and it was quite tiring and often led to the mistakes from my side. Usually he managed to chop my slow and spinny open ups. So could you give me some advices how to beat him and what to avoid?
Dan Academy Coach answered 2 years ago
Hey Darion,
Yeah choppers like that can be tough to play and force you into the topspin and then push one game as you said happened. What is important when playing these players is to mix up the tempo, spin and placement well when you do topspin. If you can get the chopper moving and out of position there’s more chance they will give you a weak ball so you can play another attack rather than having to push.
If you do have to push getting the ball low and short is very important to bring the chopper into the table and out again. Many players like this are good at moving from side to side but not in and out from the table.
Mixing up the serves is definitely good like you mentioned and placement of your attacks, when you get the chance to play faster it’s important to try to go straight into the body of the opponent to make it very hard to chop. Playing this tactic against choppers can work really well, you just have to be patient and get the right ball.
Dan 🙂
darion888Ok, thanks for the tips. I’ll definitely try them next time! 🙂
