more on serves, chiquita backhands and pushes

I watched Wang Hao's match against Ryu Seung Min of 2004 Athens. He basically won the whole match because of his incredible service, which incorporates a lot of jagged motions, which translates to extreme spin differences in his serves. Ma Lin's main serve now has the exact same principles as Ryu's serve(might be copied...LOL) . I find that all serves with smooth motions are overly easy to read, including the tomahawk service. I find it not so good now, especially when opponents start to get used to it. I'll find a way to improve it some time later. Also Wang Hao lost a lot of points because his serve was too long, enabling Ryu to unleash his devastating forehand loops, which Wang Hao had no easy answer to. Controlling the serve to do exactly a double bounce, but yet not too short is very important. However, it's still important to serve long and fast sometimes, and not necessarily with topspin. This is to disrupt the rhythm of your opponent. But Wang Hao, though only 21 years old at that time, showed incredible cool even when down 4-8 in the 5th game, while being down 3-1 in sets. He played point to point until he actually won it 13-11. He didn't even give up at the 6th game, when he was down 4-8, he dared to perform extremely difficult shots, like his RPB flips of Ryu's heavy spin services. Although he still lost in the end, this near comeback deserves much applause. I wonder if Ryu would be able to go back to his form in the 2004 Olympics. He was just perfect. 

A guy working in the table tennis shop came today to play. Although I won 2-1 in sets b'cos he can't really read my serve, he did give me some valuable tips. Firstly, go down... and really go down. It worked wonders to my footwork. How much down? It's basically until your eye level is just above the net. After every shot, remember to go back to this ready position. The next thing is relaxing when I play, as I tend to stiffen up a bit sometimes. And start slow. Always search for control, not power. He also said I should control the placement and height of my serve better. A lot of my serves are overly long, enabling ppl to attack them. And my long serves are not long and fast enough. Keeping it short and low is going to be a big challenge. I think that would be the next thing to work on for my serves. 

I successfully trained Alvin in just a few hours, how to stroke properly with both the backhand and the forehand, so I was able to have a good training partner for 2-3 hrs in the late afternoon. I think I'm still a better teacher than Tay, who tried so hard to teach a simple topspin serve today. :P  So,  my new chiquita backhand got some much needed practice today. The feeling of turning my waist to produce power instead of down-up still needs to be get used to, since I still have the old habit of using the upwards motion. 

Another thing I tried is the Chinese pushes. Currently, I push with heavy downspin with my forehand and almost no-spin on my backhand. I think I know why already. It's basically just tweaking your mentality. On the backhand I always think about lifting it up, which usually results in no-spin. Funny thing is that, no matter how hard I try to make the spin heavier, it's still a negligible amount of spin. In the end, my opponents tend to overestimate the spin and overcompensate, looking at how hard I "cut" the ball. LOL, it actually resulted in more experience in deception. On the forehand I always think about cutting it downwards and hard, which results in very heavy spin. I'll train to amplify the spin difference between these 2 types of pushes. The next step after this is pushing with down-side spin or even top-spin, again using side spin to conceal the spin similar to services.  These short game techniques are the hardest among all in table tennis. Too many players tend to underestimate their importance, especially european players, who have very sucky short games. I'm looking at you Timo Boll and Samsonov! Everybody knows how to attack strongly, but very few people know how to prevent others from attacking while creating opportunities for themselves by forcing errors through spin deception and placement. That's the short game. It requires really delicate motions. I find it all too similar to slow lyrical playing in piano. Many people do not find them impressive, but it is yet the hardest to master. Anyone who plays piano at a high level will testify to the nightmares of trying to shape the hauntingly beautiful melodies of Chopin, making them speak to the audience's hearts. Every note has to be played at an exact loudness, with exact timing and exact texture. Like what my former teacher Chong Lim said, every single note must mean something. Without any of these, the melody line would be all but destroyed. I spent the most time practising these when I was going for competition. In my opinion, those who can control well are the true masters, not those who have brute strength.