and that explains why they have become in favour of near-net topspin/no-spin serves disallowing in-table short deflective drive return and forcing opponent to react by touch pick which is vulnerable to their fast flip attack; excellent rallying ability and fast switch between defence and offence, with instinctive counter-loop which allows them to shift from defence into offensive rally once there is a slight trace of your stagger in speed, spot or spin. However, there isn’t adequate landing variation either on forehand or backhand and long channels are the majority route with occasional centre line stroke. With forehand deep topspin as their majority stroke in tackling long shot backspin, they are very likely to be fast-loop counter attacked by opponent. Our shakehands have gone through a long way from their initial training simulator status to today’s leading position in all events. In the past, shakehands that ever played main roles in matches were inevitably choppers or those with unusual(surprise) techniques or raw rubbers, among whom choppers and surprisers had the better results. However, as the two-colour rule was introduced by ITTF, further chopping and unusual techniques progress have been severely contained. Raw rubber players haven’t really yielded any serious results in major international events and were simply left aside. In the 41st WTTC, three shakehand players(Chen Zhibin, Ma Wenge, Zhang Lei) played for China. They lost to Czechoslovakia in the knockout round and ended up with a 7th place, the historical setback in China’s table tennis. People have every reason to ask – are our shakehand players really not good enough to compete with Europeans? And is there a way out? I personally believe that if China, as the dominating force in world table tennis, have produced the best penhold players, there is no reason why we cannot deliver outstanding shakehand ones, provided we elaborately design tailored techniques to suit every player, with innovative approaches. Kong Linghui and Wang Liqin’s positions in today’s table tennis are self-explanatory. With the fast technical development in world table tennis, the weak points of our classical penhold fast attacks have become more evident. To re-establish its lead in the sport, much effort has to be channelled into technical innovations. In the mean time, how to bring up a new generation of shakehand players is also a pressing task. Technical shortcomings of our shakehand players 1. The decisive power of forehand loop
The lack of decisive forehand killing force among our loop players is largely a reverse impact from the conventional fast attacks in our country. Over the past decades, fast attacks are the theme in our sport, and have governed all the training systems and principles which require stroke motions to be compact and swift with little attention paid to the waist and legs co-ordination. As a result, our loop players are more suited to close-to-table combat and more adept to the first and second round of loop drives. Once a rally has advanced to a tight stand-off or medium or far range from table, our player loses the required power. The disparity is obvious compared with Korean, North Korean and European players in this regard. Therefore we have to raise enough awareness of loop players’ stroke motion structure in our future training. The first thing to mention is the smoothness of motion with good co-ordination of arms, waist and legs. In the mean time, as the key to power release, fast forearm fold has to be stressed. Again with the motion structure, two extremes are to be avoided – being too compact relying on forearm and upperarm lacks necessary co-ordination from waist and legs; too much stretch out stressing co-ordination between arms, waist and legs neglects the forearm fast fold and leads to distracted power release
2. Counter-loop technique The command of counter-loop technique plays a decisive role in matches. It directly affects the first three balls and the defence/offence switch, and is the utmost key point in loop techniques yet the most difficult to get grip of. Except a few top players, our loopers are mostly limited to medium range counter-play and close-to-table fast lead*. In serve led plays, we lack the awareness and ability of allowing opponent initiating first loop from our deliberate table-length serve* (second bounce narrowly off table) or long serve, and subsequently applying step-aside counter-loop. In serve reception plays, we lack the awareness and ability of launching counter-loop after containing opponent for the second and third ball. These have caused fear of delivering long serves and restricted ourselves to short ones. While the National Team have achieved much result by introducing endured rally practice into training to develop counter-loop ability, provincial players’ counter-loop techniques have yet to be much improved. The training for counter-loop has to be brought to the spotlight. The most important is the counter-loop against opponent’s first loop drive initiated from backspin. This specific aspect holds the key to all the counter-loop techniques. The mastery and awareness of counter-loop have to be fostered among young players from early age. 3. Backhand ability of offensive and endurable rally play.
As European players have largely adopted step-aside forehand touch-push* reception which makes the server’s follow-up forehand offensive difficult or even impossible for there is at times no room to step around, the need for backhand offensive hence becomes imperative. Backhand block and push will only offer opponent offensive opportunities to obtain immediate upper-hand. Although most penhold loop players in the National Team have adopted the backside play* technique, it has to be said that the backside loop does not render much force and the shot route has to be more variant. Restricted by the grip, it’s difficult to loop drive centre line. The threat is not as much as it seems, though European players are inconvenienced. During a tight rally, block is after all passive defence and hard to switch into offensive unless player forcedly steps around. The marriage of block and backhand fast lead* is innovative, especially when targeting opponent’s backhand immediately following fast attacking his forehand. But how it is to be executed is the question – is the finishing stroke a backhand fast drive or topspin? Collective wisdom is required to yield a solution for smooth combination of backhand block and topspin. Our shakehand loop players have difficulties withstanding backhand tight rally of medium to far range. Due to the lack of endurability and necessary strength, resulted from daily training, players find it difficult to switch into offensive when forced on backhand defence. This is something to do with our training where much single-sided attention has been paid to forehand medium-far range rally play. This can be rectified with more emphasis in training arrangement. Thoughts and Measures The principle for our shakehand development should be one that emphasizes " personalised speciality and all-round skills with no apparent weakness," and " self-reliant while taking in from others and persistent in own way". World table tennis has developed to a new technical stage that all techniques and styles tend to mix with and penetrate into each other. The Swedish team with Waldner their representative have successfully integrated speed and spin in loop play with variant backhand techniques. Gatien armed with his acquisition of the Chinese close-to-table attack techniques features compact and fast forehand motion. His ‘first three balls’ is characterised by loop initiative against topspins. Saive again with his digest of the Chinese close-to-table techniques is skillful in topspinning narrowly-off-table balls, and, with successful utilisation of European player’s physical stature advantage, specialises in full-table forehand fast loop initiative. It’s not difficult to conclude that successful players inevitably have to take in others’ advantages to help develop own special techniques. Chinese players do not usually have European players’ physical build and strength, but are faster and more flexible. Apart from working to restore our traditional edge in the ‘first three balls’, Chinese shakehands yet have to further reinforce control and counter-control techniques in the fourth and fifth balls to take lead in the first few balls with offensive initiatives. Much effort has yet to be spent in the first-five-balls to achieve three ‘fasties’ – fast tactic switch; fast speed and fast transition to offensive. Apparent weakness has to be sorted out; drawback in loop techniques has to be overcome. These are general outlines. In practice, the following specific efforts have to be made.
|