Good luck, so you are using LP to chop or attack? And how to defeat LP because it's hard to predict the position when they chop over my table.

yes lah, we are talking about totally different thing. That is why this discussion has gone out of control. Since you already noticed that I am not talking about older kids ( look at the snip from my old post ), no way Ai Fukuhara when she barely reach table can beat anyone if opponent takes advantage of her height. Of cos when she grow older and taller, then we are talking about a different thing.

IF you agree we are talking about those small size, below 10 ( that was what I was talking about.. see my post snips below ), they can easily be taken advantage of by any players.

as for serve that bounces back, not difficult to do lah.. no need to be a Ma Lin to do it. Just hit at bottom inside part ( part facing opponent ), lift bat from bottom up, brushing upwards that part... let ball bounce near the net on your side of table, it will bounce over the net and once it touches the opponent side, it will bounce backwards towards the net and back to your side of the table. dont believe ? try it.

This type of ball is good for bullying small kids but in against adult it is just too dangerous because if opponent can reach the ball near the net, this serve is dead because can easily flick smashed/kill if he can reach the ball. But for small kids, they cant reach the ball. That is why you do not see Ma Lin do such serve in real tournament, he only does it in his practice session.

This post has been edited by tsd: Apr 27 2019, 04:25 PM

you can do sidespin with handshake bats, you will have to hold the bat with just 2 fingers. Thumb and second finger, that way you can be almost as flexible as the penholder. Actually its not that they cant return or cant read those spin, it is just that they are trying to do something that fails to work, so people think they cant return the serve. Alot of pro players dont really care what kind of serve, they just watch the flight of the ball to determine what kind of spin.

haha are you sure ?

it was a misunderstanding lah, I was talking about those small kids that barely reach half the table. He is talking about a fully grown up adult size Harimoto.

Nah, I'm talking about primary school kids. Skill and experience will help them shorter ones overcome this. Ball placement, spin and angle from the kids can also limit the type of returns you can do. But I get your point.

O, ok. Maybe I'll try shakehand one day. Thanks .

There are all sorts of sidespin style, famous tomahawk style by Ding Ning do not need what thumb n fingers u mentioned. Ding Ning sidespin can transition to top+sidespin with angle adjustment or pure sidespin.

TSD i believe when you mention your 'PRO'...they are really just amateur or novice.

Most people used PRO too lightly, I just participate in a local open beginner/novice tournament, the player quality is really very high.


Those who trained professionally will look 1st at the server bat angle and ball contact position (this is why ITTF ban illegal serve with body blocking view).
and the 1st land point(near or further from net) and from there they already can judge the power,type of spin and the 2nd landing point (very important to get into position).

To see the path of flight is already TOO LATE.

There's a hint here to learn to better return serve, watch your server bat angle and ball contact, mirror it when u received. this will be your 'safe' return.
The so call 'PRO' throwing high, swinging left n right like doing magic show is just to confuse you not to let you see the bat angle n ball contact. But once you know where to look it will help a lot to judge serve.

After my 1st local beginner/novice tournament im sticking to inverted both side. Not going to try LP.

it is not hard to predict. but need more practise.

1st scenario, when u see opponent at center close table position, any ball you return far angle to their BH LP they will only be able to return back to your FH half. The faster your ball and longer to their BH, the harder they can return sharp to your BH especially if it is a chop from you.

You can test by serving long quick underspin from your FH far angle to your opponent far BH LP, basically a straight fast underspin. If you find he cant control it beyond your center line. Then you are almost free to smash/drive/ or set up 5 balls.

vary your shots. i always prefer long dead center body balls and aim their long BH side with chop underspin. and keep in mind drive or smash center or to their FH. LP BH counter block from heavy drive is really devastating unless they r off position....

also there are 2 types of LP, sponge n without sponge. without sponge is the easiest to beat. sponge LP is quite challenging you will noticed their balls has 'power'. But power also mean they have much less control. Both side is pretty confused. but always keep a long ball distance, always chop their BH LP when you got the opportunity.

I'll try the tactics. Because of lp weird ball spin and placement makes me dare not to attack them and this is a dangerous to me because I'm using sp. And sp can't produce much spin so I will be easily smash by ppl using lp and more terrifying is he's using lp to flick smash me . Most of the time instead of attacking , I played defensively by slicing chopping the ball until he makes mistake. I know it's funny instead of looping and you go chopping with lp player.

oh so you join a novice competition good for you. Did u win ?

Yes, tomahawk serve can do side spin as well, but tomahawk is a very tiring serve to do, especially on the knee. I had a lot of experience with this serve during my younger player years. You can win points right from it or get killed by doing it, if you do not recover fast after serve especially when your knee becomes very tired. Even Ding Ning is reducing her tomahawk serve nowadays. Tomahawk is only good for top sidespin, very hard to do short side bottom spin with tomahawk, even if you managed to do it, it will be a lousy one. So, still the 2 finger grip on shakehand bat, forward pendulum or reversed pendulum can make very good side-spin of any kind.

Well, if you do not believe what I said about those ball flight reader, nevermind. Next time when you encounter them you will understand or when you learn it yourself, you will also understand. Of cos even if someone can read ball flight/bounce, he will still be looking at contact point of the ball because if the contact is too obvious, there is no need to read ball flight, because much easier to read contacts than reading ball flight.

Try watch closely on your youtube video on professional players, they only watch opponent body language during serve, then see how their eyes track the ball after opponent hit the ball, they are reading flight, they will watch it bounce ( you can see how they pause with their eyes fixed on the bounce )... then only move in for it.

ITTF ban hiding of ball during serve is to protect weaker players. Reading ball flight is difficult and even more difficult for older players with poorer eye-sight. Imagine if everyone have to learn to read ball flight in order to play table tennis, the table tennis game will be so unpopular and will be dead.

Heavy spin serve are slow, plenty of time to see ball flight. So for ball flight, learn it and all your troubles with spin and long pimples will be gone. IF you dont believe, next time you go and play again, stay focused and watch the ball closely after they serve. There is a fixed pattern in ball flight, just deal with the pattern. A lot of time people could not be bothered to learn how to read ball flight. Unless you are too old with bad eye-sight, then no choice but to skip this skill.

If anything, I think hiding the serves benefitted the elder more. A lot of the veterans rely on people misreading their serves and smashing it with their SP/LP.

You totally ignore the fact that it is the initial bat angle, ball contact and the the ball 1st landing position PROs are more interested than flight.
The flight a 15 yo kid who well trained already know by 2nd instinct. a strong sidespin will swerve left or right, but a PRO once they see the contact THEY ALREADY KNOW the serve FLIGHT pattern. even that is obvious to me. From THAT i get to judge where the ball will land on my side and move in to position.

Obviously you have never seen fast and wobbly flight serve before. Those are 'transition' spin top-sidespin, if you look at the flight you are too late. All has to determine even before ball take flight, server position, bat ball contact, 1st landing point, ball bounce....You speak of flight is just a general observation, there is no substance in your analysis at all.

LOL what a full load of bollocks when you says ITTF ban body block to protect weaker players. come on la, to this day the super PRO are still doing their best to confuse opponent with extra 'magic' show hand movement. You'd think they do it for fun? Watching flight is already too late, PROs generally serve according to their 3balls/5balls tactics, and i can tell you they dont serve short strong sidespin to let you 'admire' your so call 'flight'.

I dont know where you get the idea real PRO look at flight path. The flight path and landing point is for the receiver to 'JUDGE' beforehand. waiting to watch it flies is already too damn late.

This post has been edited by cede1975: Apr 30 2019, 02:16 PM

it is simple physics, when side spin anti clockwise looking from top, it will swerve banana to the right, vice versa for cw side spin.

The spin dynamic is nothing magic, all who trained know why top spin ball will dip and why under spin ball will float(gravity effect, if not the ball will fly upwards.)

anyway watching ball flight path is definately an amateur level observation, i cannot agree PRO will wait and watch ur so call 'flight' path and then only judge how to receive. Thats just some post observation from your point of view no doubt. It offers no insights and misleading. if ppl listen to you, they will forever stuck as a weak receiver.

There is nothing wrong learning from real world class players/coaches in youtube. You should try it yourself.

This post has been edited by cede1975: Apr 30 2019, 04:10 PM

How many times did you failed to return serve from your recent tournament ? Why did you failed to return the serve ? Let me guess, you try to see the serve contact point and failed to read the spin and failed to return the serve ?

To read spin you need real experience, be it contact point reading or ball flight and bounce reading. To me, contact point is very much harder, especially during serve because the contact is just too brief and too much fake body movement, you will end up with a lot of wrong reading. Reading ball flight is much safer because that is the real thing. Ball contact during serve can be faked, but ball flight and bounce cannot be faked because it is the real thing.

Reading ball flight and bounce needs experience and practice in order to make it effective... not theory. Like in your post you can tell me how the ball fly etc BUT can you read it in real game like what you said ? I can bet you will not be able to see any of the ball flight and bounce you mention in real game to determine the type of spin, unless you are willing to put in a lot of effort and practice to learn it. If you cannot do it, it does not mean I cant do it either, there are many ball flight and bounce reader out there.

It is a known fact that ITTF has to protect the game, because the gap has become bigger between players. I gap is too big, many will lose interest. So they make many rules so that weaker players don't give up the game. I can give you a long list but since you watch a lot of youtube, you can do your own, from 21 points to 11, rubber and sponge thickness limit, speed glue ban, 38mm to 40mm, Vertical toss rule... long long list... maybe one day, spin serve are not allowed.

This post has been edited by tsd: May 1 2019, 11:43 PM

It improved my receiving by leaps and bound when i read server bats angle and pattern more.

I DO not believe anyone who is serious into table tennis do not pay attention to server bat angle/swing.

This is a more concise observation of the whole serve and receiving dynamics, You are just trying to argue something you dont/cant understand fully.
Beyond any doubt you are already doing it and trying hard to be a hypocrite. When i was in primary school ive already learn watching bats for top or underspin serve. ; it was confusing when receiving side-spin, but once i got the idea of watching serve and mirror contact point. It was a great leap on receiving serve for me. The idea is so simple to grasp, you dont get confused by server who uses different swing/backhand/forehand but end up same spin serve. This is the main idea. Too bad you dont get it at all.


The path as i said is already 'EXPECTED' and burnt in the memory, you do not need to see the path to 'judge' the ball and get into position. It is already too late, do you not get it at all?

in a far table rally when i see my opponent pulling a power sidespin drive, from his swing i've already know i have to adjust further left or right due to the swerve and bite. YOU seriously dont know this? you wait and watch the path all day and fail to understand this simple logic. I give up. It is same as serve.


This post has been edited by cede1975: May 6 2019, 04:33 PM

anyone playing at puchong perdana ? i was told in puchong perdana can play on every mon, wed and fri night, but i do not know the exact location and if they sill accept others to play...???

information given is appreciated...

OF cos we do look at server bat angle and contacts, that is just a pre-observation.

If the serve is too obvious, especially from regular/easy players, then there is no need to watch flight and bounce.

BUT playing against higher level player ( I am not talking about our local state players level, serve is still quite easy ), maybe you have never played with them before... try to see contact point alone to decide how to return the serve, you will losing all your points. Bat contact point and angle happens so fast and can be almost impossible to see, You will have to depend on flight and bounce to decide how to return the ball. Anyway, after so many messages, I don't think you are ready to face reality and have no idea what I am talking about probably because you have never been to where I have been before. If you are unable to learn how to read ball flight and bounce, don't discourage others from learning ( I know a lot of people failed to pick up this skill and they will say that this skill is no use just to comfort themselves ).

During normal play like you say a swing with tell you what spin you will get, not all the case... when you are dealing with pimple rubbers. So many types of pimple rubber, contact point and swing does not translate to real spin coming in, again you depend on reading flight and bounce to deal with different types of pimples. Some players dont even use pimple rubber, they use modified smooth rubber to make unpredictable return. Although there are some regulations, they can escape the regulation easily. the only way is to watch the flight and bounce, because that one cannot be faked.

I believe both of you two have your points. Reading serves is more than just the facts you guys have provided and both you guys are right. Bat angle upon contact and the ball flight are just a fraction of what the receiver will be looking at.

Honestly to me, you two have learned how to receive serves in a manner that fits you best. Do remember that everyone have their own playing style and learning methods so keep coming with all the comments. As long as it is constructive and non-personal, feel free to provide your own point of view with your justifications.

Sorry guys, can I ask an absurd question? Can Ma long be defeated? What is his weakness?