Get More Spin Into Your Loop

I had a great training session with my club mate the other night where I can definitively say I was hitting with more spin than I ever had before.

Was it my blade? Was it the rubber? I don't think so. Certainly these are important factors but remember that good technique always trumps all.

We were practicing looping each standing about 4 feet off the table rallying back and forth. We dedicated the time to really think about our strokes, the contact point, our swing, etc, the results were impressive. It's a hard thing to quantify in a blog post. All I can say is that we were simply focusing more on making good, thin, grazing, vs solid, contact over everything else.

Lets look at a visual demonstration to make sense of this.

Here is a view of topspin with the ball traveling from left to right.

A big factor we were focusing on was making thin contact to maximize spin. Given the way the ball is spinning, contacting the ball on the back would be thick, flat, little to no spin. Conversely, hitting the ball on the top, going completely against the rotation spin of the ball, will give thin, grazing, a lot of spin back.

While that point might seem fairly obvious, the trickier task is closing your blade this much while still generating enough upward motion in your swing to keep from hitting that ball directly into the net or worse yet, into the floor. After all, look at where that paddle is pointing in the "A Lot of Spin" diagram above. It's aiming almost directly at the floor. Luckily some of the incoming topspin will aid you in picking that ball up over the net. However, given that angle pictured above, it's still a tall task.

Here's a little trick we found to achieve this same, thin contact without as much risk for aiming that ball directly toward the floor... Take a page out of world ranked #1 Xu Xin's book and do something he is known for. Hit the side of the ball.

Here Xu Xin, who is left handed, hits the left outside top part of the ball. His thin contact and fast racket speed generates an unbelievable amount of spin that Timo Boll is unable to handle.

When you contact the more of the side of the ball your paddle is not pointing towards the floor, and in my opinion, is easier to keep a low speed loop on the table. It is important to be able to change pace from power loops to slow speed loops without sacrificing the amount of spin on the ball.

Another perk about contacting the side of the ball is your loops will have a nasty hook on them after they bounce which is nice for a change up on your opponent. Practice mixing up your standard top spin loop and your side spin loop.

The key in this whole post is to focus on your contact with the ball so that your blade does not hit the ball flat. Skim that ball like you're peeling a potato. Either hit the top or side very, very thin, what have you, and enjoy the results.