Mats Bandstigen, the Sports President and Chief Executive Officer of STIGA, was delighted with the agreement.
“STIGA is very happy and proud to become the Official Table Supplier of the World Team Cup 2013 and 2015”, he explained. “This important STIGA sponsorship is the latest of many efforts by STIGA to support table tennis worldwide.”
While you should vary your spin serves to all parts of the table – at least until you find out what gives your opponent trouble and what doesn’t – there are certain spin serves that are generally more effective when done to specific parts of the table.
The main principle to remember is that, in general, opponents will have more trouble returning a serve that spins away from them than one that spins into them. For example, when a righty serves a forehand pendulum serve to another righty (so that the ball breaks to the server’s right, the receiver’s left), if the ball is served to the wide backhand, the ball spins away from the receiver, and is usually harder to receive than the same serve to the forehand, where it breaks into the receiver. Similarly, a backhand or tomahawk serve to the forehand is generally more difficult to receive than one to the backhand, since it also breaks away from the receiver (to the server’s left, the receiver’s right). There are three reasons for this.
Where do most players block best? On the backhand. Where do most players attack the most? To the opponent’s backhand. This never made sense to me.
When attacking there are three places you should normally go for: the wide forehand, the middle (the opponent’s crossover point between forehand and backhand, usually around the elbow), and the wide backhand. Most beginning and intermediate players probably attack to the backhand twice as often as to the forehand, and almost never to the middle. We’ll call it the 1-0-2 rule, i.e. they proportionatly go once to the forehand, zero times to the middle, and twice to the backhand.
Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang talk about their road to London in this Bay Area TV interview. Ariel Hsing & Lily Zhang are two exceptional table tennis players with Olympic Dreams. We are very proud of our young stars. What a great example of youth in our sport. Good luck to our Olympic hopefuls!
Video: New STIGA Sense 7.6 Table Tennis Blade is Made for Power. Jonas Wilen, product manager for STIGA, describes the new blade’s technology.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Hold a piece of paper so you hold the top with one hand, the bottom with the other. Now twist the top. Notice how the entire piece of paper twists? Now twist the bottom. Same thing. How does this relate to table tennis?
Now imagine holding a table tennis player in your hands. (You are either very strong or the player is very small.) Hold his playing hand in one hand and his feet with the other. Twist his playing hand and his entire body twists. The same if you twist his feet.
The ball goes to your forehand, you lean that way, and . . . suddenly you can’t move. And so you lean more, and perhaps you are able to making a flailing, off-balance return. Then you watch a top player move to the ball, and while in perfect position, he makes a perfect forehand. What goes through your head? “He has a better forehand than me.”
What’s wrong with this picture?
Everyone has a “biggest weakness” in their game, almost by definition. Beginning and intermediate players may have many weaknesses, but there’s probably a biggest. Even great players don’t do everything great – it’s all relative, and their biggest weakness might be something that would be a powerful strength for an intermediate player.
So what should you do about this “biggest weakness”? FIX IT!!! So how do you go about doing that?
The first step, of course, is really identifying this biggest weakness. Is it a stroking technique problem? Footwork? Weak serve or receive? Choking under pressure? Analyze your results and figure it out. Perhaps watch videos of yourself playing, and compare what you do with what top players do. A coach or top player might be able to help out in this analysis.
STIGA, Escalade Sports, and Paddle Palace are proud to announce their sponsorship of the ICC Elite Table Tennis Team
At the highest levels, many top players don’t even bother to smash – even if the ball is eye-level high, they loop. However, for most players, a smash is a must. Here are some keys to developing a good smash, forehand or backhand. First, get some coaching or watch the top players.
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