Playing against a player with two antispins rubbers
darion888 asked 2 years ago
Hello guys,
I’ve recently played a weird match against a player with antispin rubber on both sides during the tourament. I didn’t know how to beat him. I know more/less how anti spin rubber functions but playing against someboy who uses them on both sides was kinda weird. He was also an extremely attacking player and sometimes when I pushed the ball with some backspin on it he then attacked it agressively and oftentimes won the point. So the question is how to play against such a style? What serves can be the best? So normally I tried to serve long backspin serve, then attack. I noticed that he sometimes struggled with short sidespin serve and missed the ball. After my topspin attack I noticed that the ball had some backspin which I tried to lift, he usually tried to counterhit it. But the qustion is what can be cause them most troubles? Topspining everything or maybe pushing from time to time to relieve the pressure? Is it good to topspin all the time? Or will I get harder ball everytime I topspin after rally exchanging with him? Some people suggest attacking with forehand/backhand drives but they are not so powerful actually as topspins. :(.
Tom Academy Coach answered 2 years ago
Hey! Yes that’s a tricky style to play against for sure and not easy to find the right tactics. I would say in this situation variation is key, so keeping them guessing with sometimes playing topspins, sometimes slower drives, sometimes pushes. This means they can’t get into a rhythm or routine and also forces them to make a lot of decisions.
The same when you serve, it’s important to change often, so like you said long backspin is good sometimes, also the sidespin you mentioned, short float into the middle or forehand can be another effective one.
If you really give them a slow ball and can keep it low, with the anti it’s hard to generate a lot of speed, so this can be good sometimes too, trying to be patiand slow the game down until you can get a chance to play a strong topspin. Then the last thing to focus on is when you do play your stronger attacks really try to find the middle/elbow of the opponent. This makes it much harder for them to control back and return as they have to move into position.
Let us know if you have any questions on that and how you get on! 🙂
darion888Thanks a lot for the quick answer. Your tips sound really good, I will try to use them the next time I play against anti-spin rubber :).
