The Best State of Mind Is Relaxation: Tips from Former National Players
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in a Q&A format. The mystery experts answering questions are two former national team players who are now veteran coaches. They prefer to stay anonymous and live a quiet life.
A reader asks: I often find that when I face a new opponent, I need to finish one game and then think for a few days before I really figure them out. The second time I play them it’s much easier. Is there a way to read someone faster in the very first game? I remember Waldner once saying he uses the first game to probe and only sets his strategy from the second game onward. I feel my in-match adjustment ability isn’t strong enough, and it’s hurting my performance.
Answer: That is mostly a mental-process issue. In the first game, stop thinking about your own game plan. Instead, watch the opponent — what are their strengths? In the second game, you avoid feeding those strengths. In other words, you need at least two distinct tactical approaches in your repertoire.
The best state of mind is relaxation — mentally and physically. After a game, think briefly about how the opponent scored their points. By the next game you should have a clear picture of how to stop giving them easy scoring opportunities. In the first game you were too focused on your own game and too determined to drag the opponent into your rhythm. But a match is like a chess game — your opponent has their own system and they want to dictate the pace too.
That’s what “probing” means in the first game: vary the angles, the spin, the speed, the tempo as widely as possible. Try everything except raw power — everyone is scared of power. Remember how they score and what patterns they use, so you can counter them in the later games.
Q: In a match, isn’t side-topspin serve return harder to handle than pure backspin return? It seems easier to pop the ball up high.
A: Pure backspin has no real power behind it — you just need to neutralize the spin. With side-topspin you also have to judge how much side and how much backspin there is, meaning you’re reading two rotational axes at once. Get it wrong and the ball either flies off the end of the table or pops up.
Q: When I face a player who is good with short pips, everything I serve gets flicked or attacked to a line I didn’t expect. The ball feels fast and heavy and I can’t handle their next shot.
A: What are the characteristics of short pips? Fast, insensitive to spin, unable to generate much spin. They only feel heavy when you’ve given them a high ball. Serve a long, fast backspin to the baseline — what can they do? A lower-level player will push; a higher-level player will top-spin float it back. Either ball coming back should be easy for you to deal with. If you still can’t handle those, that’s a skill issue on your end. If they’re flicking aggressively, and you keep serving short, of course you’ll lose.
To counter a short-pips player, your best weapon is a heavy looping topspin — keep it low and push it deep to their baseline. If you loop to the mid-table, they’ll smash it. One spin breaks short pips: they can’t generate pace. Short pips fear rhythm changes — slow one moment, then heavy spin the next. The opponent will go crazy. The key word is “deep” — everything long.