These Raised My Win Rate This Year
1
When I changed my forehand rubber to “every two months” — not the model, but a fresh sheet. We keep saying the biggest meaning of fresh rubber is raising error-tolerance and attacking efficiency. Because its friction is better, the give-and-take clearer and more transparent. This makes you more grounded in on-the-fly adjustment. And when the sponge is fresh, the give-and-take is better, you dare to fire more, with fewer errors. Before, my forehand T05 generally lasted four or five months. I brush deep, scaling faster than the average player. Actually, in about a month, the friction drops a lot. But before, I thought of saving money. T05’s sponge built-in energy is fairly durable, but the surface really scuffs easily. Once scuffed, thin-brushing seems not spinny enough. Used long, the sponge’s give-and-take goes dead, and you cannot fire freely. (The Heima-tuned Max ZFC launches this Friday.) When you face an evenly matched opponent, each game comes down to one or two balls. If your rubber is fresh enough, those one or two balls land, with a touch more threat — enough to win the match. So basically, after changing my forehand T05 to every two months, my mood is much better. Indeed, money can solve some problems. The backhand need not be so frequent, because my backhand’s active scoring ability is not that high — more medium-quality rallying and transition. German rubber is similar. Many players say they want a longer-lasting model than their current German rubber. Actually, all about the same. The better the pre-factory built-in-energy processing, the more easily the surface even scuffs. And the more often you peel it, the faster the sponge shrinks. Changing rubber more often, besides costing money, really is a fairly easy way to raise the win rate. Oh, an aside: the Frame inorganic glue on the market, given by someone, I find decent. Easy to film, easy to brush, not prone to balling up. Not thin and not too thick. Importantly, the price everyone cares about is quite cheap.
2
Simplify. These two years, even for many years, I practised much backhand on and off. But mostly it was useless. Against 2000-plus opponents, the backhand is basically scrapped — more just defense and pace-borrowing flicks. Against around 1900, it is mostly zombie-jamming. Only against those 100 points below me can I use the backhand to attack fairly freely, giving the illusion of a strong backhand. I forget when late last year, I suddenly wanted to play simple. I do not know if a retired pro master got through to me. He originally told me: anything half-long, even middle-toward-forehand, flick it up, at least punch it up, then rally. Actually, this way my first ball was not stable, with low quality, easily counter-ripped. Later, I instead chose the opposite direction. The final simplification: anything off the table, even half-long balls I can watch, all forehand loop-drive. Although I have always been more talented at forehand attack than backhand, whether to receive-and-rip was always a wavering state. I always felt practising backhand was safer. But every match against someone hard to beat, with no choice, I resorted to this last resort: pivot as much as possible, including on the receive, and settle the first three balls more aggressively. This turned me into a shakehand Xu Xin. But for now, this “simplification” suits me well. Besides costing stamina, it really raised my win rate, beating some nearly unbeatable opponents. And after a few months’ practice, because you are always in a possible-pivot-rip state, the opponent’s serve gets very cautious. This indirectly helps you receive more easily. Besides, “simplification” also happened to my serve. Now the serve spin is more simplified — besides the main spin/no-spin pattern, there is a backhand short side-underspin. Indeed, as the national veteran said, after this serve, amateurs under 2000 basically struggle to return it off the table. Then just stay ready to attack. And each serve set pairs with corresponding follow-up tactics. In a match, whenever it is my serve, just play these few serves and follow-ups. Especially in daily training, deliberately practising and strengthening these pattern balls got good results.