Which of These Two Players Should Make the Provincial Team?
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in Q&A format. The mystery advisors are two former national team players (both veteran coaches) who prefer to remain anonymous. They just want a quiet life and a good night’s sleep — no interest in fame.
I think sharing these technical insights with everyone is genuinely valuable, and a nice complement to the regular content.
And so the “Reaching the Peak” column was born.
My opponent’s short-ball control is clearly better than mine. How do I break through it? If I serve a sidespin-topspin fast long ball, they can push it wide; if I serve short, they control it and I can never get into the attack.
You need to combine two things: first, a fast straight long ball with sidespin-backspin to their backhand baseline; then pair it with a forehand short ball with sidespin-backspin (more side, less back).
Players who control well generally stand close to the table on their backhand side. If you send a fast straight long ball with sidespin-backspin to that spot, they’re forced to retreat. Then pair it with a short forehand sidespin-backspin serve, and they’ll have real trouble controlling it — the effect will show. Because when someone rushes from backhand to cover the forehand side, most amateurs lunge across horizontally rather than diagonally. When they lunge over, the best they’ll manage is a touch — you serve and then back up, ready to forehand-loop hard.
If you also add a fast long ball going to their backhand, they won’t dare stay close to the table anymore. These two serve options together unlock every link in the chain.
Spend some time watching Ma Lin play, especially his later career — don’t just look at the mechanics, focus on the psychology. Think about why he handles the ball the way he does, why on so many balls that seem easy to attack, he chooses not to. His thinking is completely different from the conventional game logic; you genuinely can’t predict what he’s going to do next — you just end up following his lead the whole time.
Does Ma Long have any technical weaknesses?
Ma Long has echoes of Ma Lin in him. His strengths are: excellent consistency, great control, strong attack-initiation ability. His weaknesses: extremely demanding footwork requirements and below-average raw power.
His vulnerabilities are almost nonexistent. But as he’s gotten older, they’ve started to show — just like Ma Lin, he’s vulnerable to the “pressure backhand, open forehand” tactic.
(Side note: the key to “pressure backhand, open forehand” is shifting the opponent’s weight to one side, then suddenly changing the line.)
This is lethal because Ma Long’s backhand power is relatively weak, so he frequently steps around to use his forehand — there’s almost a penhold quality to his footwork. When Fan Zhendong faces him, he often presses the backhand and then attacks the wide forehand.
I make a lot of errors on backhand loops against backspin, and I can only do a light brush first and then a flick. What’s wrong?
Use your body weight to absorb the ball. Drive with your body’s center of gravity, press the ball down — your arm will be very relaxed. Once you’ve pressed the ball, then let your wrist fire, swinging hard toward the forward-upper-right direction.
If you’re making many errors, it’s definitely because you’re trying to press the ball with your arm. Once you’ve committed your arm to pressing, you can’t accelerate anymore — so you can’t overcome the spin on the incoming ball, and it keeps going into the net.
If you hear a collision sound when you loop, that means you’re doing it right. If you can’t hear any sound when you loop, it means you’re doing a thin brush — the ball goes over with spin but no speed or power, a slow high loop. That’s easy for opponents to smash, and you’ll frequently miss-hit.
Between two players — one to make the provincial team — one uses thin brush and can reliably loop the ball onto the table; the other uses collision contact but is inconsistent, sometimes on, sometimes off. Which one would the provincial team choose?
The provincial team will absolutely choose the collision player. Because the thin-brush player, even though he can get the ball on the table and spin it heavily, has no power in the ball. If you ask him to change to “collide first, then brush,” he immediately can’t play at all — there’s a huge amount to change. First, psychologically he has to overcome the barrier of knowing the incoming backspin is extremely heavy and forcing himself to drive right into it anyway — that mental hurdle alone is brutal. Second, technically speaking: a ball with a lot of spin but no power is very slow. Nowadays even a power-loop can be counter-looped back; imagine what a slow high lob will face. The incoming ball is slow and topspin — amateurs are terrified of it, but professionals love it; you just shift your weight into it and drive with your whole body, and the quality of your return is even higher.
Technically, when you’re doing a backhand loop on backspin, make sure to contact the ball on the late-rising phase. First, you can borrow the ball’s force; second, the spin hasn’t fully developed yet, so with a little more speed it’s not a problem.