Honestly my results were about what I expected. I played just okay with a few flashes of great. If I'm being completely honest, I would say I'm a solid 200 points less right now with shakehand compared to penhold.
The biggest adjustment is getting that forehand to feel comfortable off the table. I can counter drive close to the table all day. That's not a problem. It's the off the table more body, more arm loop that feels awkward.
My partner Ben & I have a tournament coming up in just over two weeks from now. It really is a pretty horrible time to be switching styles. We lost to a team that night we would never lose to in our normal setup. That being said, I think it's wise to table the switch until after the tournament. My rating as it stands now isn't that high and I will absolutely kill it if I going into that tournament playing shakehand. I really wanted to play in some singles events this year so i could start to raise that.
So I think for this tournament, I will play with my clipper penhold with inverted on the forehand to give me that extra bit of pace with my long pips on the backhand. Keep in mind I twiddle a lot. It's this change of pace & tactics that a lot of my setup points have been built around.
That was one adjustment I didn't expect last Sunday. Outside of learning a new technique, I need to learn new setups & learn how to win points. It's completely different.
For example. One easy setup point I like in singles is to serve backspin and show I'm serving heavy backspin. They push. I twiddle and long pip swipe. It's basically a 3rd ball attack every time that's easy to execute & gives opponents a weird ball if they're not use to it. That is gone with duel inverted. I would either be forced to push back with inverted or hope it goes off the table and loop. Pretty much standard play.
For as much as I spoke about the advantages of shakehand over penhold in my last post, I want to point out this one element that seems obvious to me know after a lot of testing.
Say you get a short backspin serve and you want to backhand flip that ball. If you watch pros execute this shot, their ready position always looks like this...
(Fan Zhendong... #2 in the world and probably the best in the business at this shot)
For the life of me I cannot figure out how to generate enough upward motion to get this ball over the net. Sometimes, I like this technique where you come to the side & slightly under the ball on your flick. Think of the motion in the flick forward but doing it with a side/open face paddle. It defaults to return side/backspin. Think of it as an aggressive push. With practice, you can roll this shot to turn into topspin. This shot is flat out easier for me to execute with penhold given the nature of the angle.
Lastly, the hook forehand loop is 10x easier with penhold as it's easier to drop the head of the blade down and come around the side of the ball. I'm convinced this is why Xu Xin is known most famously for his around the net shots. It's simply easier.
So what's to take away from this? Nothing much. Just like rubbers, there's no one perfect thing. Every grip & technique has its advantages & disadvantages.
I hope to be able to get some good content of video in the tournament coming up soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment