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multi-ball drills
for advanced players
Please
read the two articles below first before reading this and attempting
these multi-ball drills.
Unorthodox
& Advanced Strokes Understanding
& Attacking Side Spins
Most of the multi-balls you may have done thus far focuses
mostly on repetitive strokes against a single type of spin such
as “Looping against straight up top-spin” or “pushing against
straight up back-spin” etc.
These drills are good as initial starting point and are
still necessary but additional multi-ball training is required to simulate
the actual spins during match-play.
During a
match you are likely to encounter combination spins almost in all serves and
varying amounts from 0% to 90% during rallies in a match. While even advanced
players have to consciously think before acting upon an incoming combination
spin, most professional players can react to these spins almost
subconsciously. How do they do it ? Some are gifted and others have learned
it by training hard to force their muscle memories to react without thinking
much to such combination spins
Ok what do I mean by combination spins ? A combination spin is either
1. a combination top-spin with (horizontal plane) side-spin
or
2. A combination back-spin with (horizontal plane) side-spin
or
3. a combination top-spin with (vertical plane) cork-screw-spin
or
4. A combination back-spin with (vertical plane) cork-screw-spin
Since you can encounter combination spins for more than 50% of the match
(especially a lot during serve receive a well) , it would only make sense to focus your
multi-ball training against these combination spins as well.
Also keep in mind that there is no pure horizontal or pure
vertical side spin. It is usually a combination of both in addition either
back spin or top spin
The goal of these trainings of course is to
recognize the direction side-spins & cork-screw spins when presented
along with top-spin or back-spin and train yourself to act sub-consciously as
much as possible, without having think much about incoming spin and increase
your confidence level approaching that of a professional player and be able
always either loop or flip your returns so as to seize the offensive
advantage and rarely ever having to push the ball back regardless of how
short or how long the incoming serve is. As a mix up you can throw it some
push chops as your returns as long as they are vicious and / or extremely
short (at least 3 or 4 bounces if allowed) on the receiver’s side.
A robot,
if it can generate these kinds of spins, can be a very valuable tool for such
a multi-ball drill. Since you will have to react by watching the ball only
and which way it breaks , in addition to top or back-spin without having your
opponent to watch to see what (s)he is doing. This is much better
training with an opponent.
Though this is seemingly quite advanced drill,
mentally you can simplify the whole process and thus helping yourself to
subconsciously counter-side-loop against incoming counter-side-loop that are
either breaking away or into your body. This is what pros can do
instinctively but amateurs have to think thru until it becomes instinctive a
swell like the pros. Regardless of
whether you are a lefty or righty, to play a safe loop or flip return ,
assuming you are the receiver, if an incoming ball (regardless of from your
opponent’s side-spin server or side-loop or side-chop or side-lob etc) is
breaking away from your body, you want to contact the inside of the ball
(this against most players’ natural instincts to contact the outside of the
ball) and play it down the line (rather than cross-court). Conversely if a
ball is breaking into your body you contact the outside of the ball and your
return should be cross-court rather than down-the-line (this is the easier of
the two as you can play it almost without thinking about the side-spin as you
are almost playing a stroke that is comes naturally comes to you) .
Of course another level of difficulty is added when
you are receiving no spin balls . You need to again sub-consciously know that
these balls need to whacked dead on at the top of the bounce. Looping against
no spin balls after the ball has
reached its apex is more riskier.
---------------
Last but definitely not the least is the most neglected but the most
complained about aspect of table-tennis. This involves performing multi-ball
drills against an actual combination racket but with the trainer using an
one-color racket (meaning same color both sides preferably black & black
because it makes it harder to read spins if based on looking at the
opponent’s racket visually if attempted and forces the trainee to learn to
read spins based on ball’s behavior only ). This also helps to prevent many
young players from learning to read the spins based on bounce patterns rather
than getting psychologically traumatized by long-pips and turning into a
life-long hatemongers who focus more on making the opponents’ equipment an
easy scapegoat & excuse for their own failures . The trainee should learn
to understand the lack of spin when the logo can be read easily and existence
of heavy spin when the logo cannot be read. (If the ITTF is complaining about
lack of rallies due to this issue, they could help address this issue by
making all balls to be soccer ball type with two colors so players can read
spins better).
You repeat the same sets of
multi-ball drills as described earlier creating combination spins but with
the trainer using a one-color combination racket. The trainer plays the
generates the same combination strokes as before but by randomly flipping the
racket (not in any pre-determined order) and the trainee needs to attack
(loop or flip) these serves or loops. The trainee needs to recognize that
while an incoming chop serve from smooth side will be a chop but an exact
looking serve from long-pips side will be actually slight top-spin and a
top-spin serve coming from smooth rubber will have heavy top spin while an
exact stroke executed by long-pips side will be a sinking dead ball and so
on.
Robotic single spin ( straight
top-spin or back-spin ) may still be required to a certain extent but have
limited use in modern table-tennis where even many beginner level players can
generate serves with vicious side-spins. Therefore it would only make more
sense if a player even moves to drills against combination spins
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