How to out-position your opponent

A very technical guide on how to recognise positioning mistakes made by your opponents, how to take advantage of them and how to force your opponent into bad positions.

Includes also how to avoid getting out-positioned yourself and a lot of analysed points from the China Smash final.

It's a long guide, take it slow. I hope it helps you become a better player.

I started chopping about a two weeks ago (short pips) and am still figuring it out. I am chopping against a 1350 Rated player at my college and am able to take sets off him but this is us working on dedicated chopping practice. I can provide more clips if needed but this was probably the best angles I had

Now BTY putting a price tag on these blades I don't blame if they really went and got the highest quality materials, quality control and maybe at the time expensive technology to manufacture these blades....but why TF were people actually paying out the ass for them?

Like there was a time when Timo Boll Spirit was THE go-to default intermediate to advanced blade. Understandable. Timo Boll was actually winning consistently at the time. People paying premium for Viscaria? Viscaria Super ALC. Understandable. ZJK actually put in the work and elevated that brand name to legendary levels.

But who in the right were paying out the ass for an Amultart? Mizutani ZLC? Do these blades have any wins and high placements worth a damn associated with them?

At least Stiga could actually justify slapping "World Champion" on their Offensive Classics and Clipper Woods and raise the prices if they wanted to.

I switched from a cheap tensor to Chinese rubber on an all-wood blade, and my consistency improved massively. The feedback was much better, and failed loops usually went into the net rather than flying long, making it easier to identify and correct mistakes.

After my blade broke, I decided to experiment with an inner-carbon blade with a medium-balsa core, hoping to combine Chinese rubber's spin with extra speed.

After a few days of struggle, I realised I had to swing much harder to generate spin. My loops are faster, but consistency comes mainly when I swing explosively. I've also lost confidence in the slow, spinny loops I could execute reliably on wood. The dwell time feels significantly shorter.

The irony is that faster shots are actually slowing down my recovery. I have less time to recover after explosive swings, and my game feels less fluid.

It's been just one week, so perhaps I need more time to adapt.

For those who've made this transition:

How do you regain consistency on slow, spinny loops?

Should I change my brushing action, timing or contact point?

Is this typical of inner-carbon blades with balsa cores?

Can I achieve both lethal speed and consistent, spinny loops?

Should I persevere with carbon or return to wood?

I saw this video analyzing Xu Xin's penhold and how he manages to make it work primarily by making up for it with his amazing footwork. The video briefly touches on Lebrun towards the end but doesn't go in depth, so that makes me wonder what makes Lebrun so effective with a style that is generally considered to not be as effective

Hello everyone 👋

Would like to ask for table tennis blade and rubber recommendations for someone wanting to get back to the sport (casual/intermediate play).

Background: Used to play during highchool days, and last time I played was around 2022 iirc. My usual go to paddle before are pre-made paddles by Butterfly - Wakaba 3000.

So I am looking for recos for maybe similar quality/build blades or those ideal for my kind of play - I think I label myself as more of an offensive player.

As for rubbers, not sure really, but would like to try those that apply more spin.

Budget would be around somehowhere to $80 all-in-all (I live in the Philippines btw, so that's translates to 5,000 PH pesos, if it matters 😅).

Thank you in advance for your recos 🙏

My countrys economy is practicaly nonexistent and because of that i cant realy affort anyting decent

I can play with these but will i be able to improve? Will my skills transfer if i get decent equiment? And more importantly what tricks should i avoid trying since my rackets sides not only same but im not sure if its even flat

Most of us have spent hours practicing the same forehand or backhand over and over, thinking repetition is the key to improvement.

But what if making practice less predictable actually helps us improve more?

Some interesting findings were presented at the 7th World Racket Sports Science Congress in China last week.

The study followed 45 university students over 10 weeks, comparing repetitive drills with training where strokes and targets changed unpredictably.

Here's what presented:

• Players doing random drills improved their forehand decision-making scores by 19.7%, compared with 7.4% for those doing repetitive drills.
• For backhand decision-making, the difference was 20% vs. 2%.
• Changing targets also appeared to help with forehand accuracy.

But the surprising part? There was no statistically significant difference in reaction time.

The researchers used Fastpong FP02, a digital table tennis training system with interactive targets, to control the different practice conditions. I was involved in the research as a co-author from Fastpong, so I thought it would be interesting to share the findings here.

It's a relatively small study, and we still don't know how well the results translate into real matches.

There's more to the research than these few numbers, including how the different training methods were tested:

https://fastpong.com/blogs/news/fastpong-research-world-racket-sports-science-congress-2026

I'm curious what you guys think.

Is it better to master a stroke through repetition first, or should we introduce randomness and unpredictable targets much earlier?

And if you train with a robot, do random drills actually help you play better against real opponents?

hi all I am a mid tier lopper but this post isn't related I have a deffplay senso v3 and want to have fun and make the SLOWEST SLOWEST racket I can hopefully with one side ainti and or long pips the slower the better usa if that makes shopping easier.

Hey everyone,

I’m a coach and defensive player from Berlin, and for a while I kept writing drills on random notes or trying to remember what I wanted to work on before practice. So I ended up building an app for it: Penhold: Tabletennis Training.

The basics:

• A collection of drills, each with a diagram showing the ball paths, so you (or your training partner) instantly get what to do
• A timer for each drill
• You can check off drills and see your week at a glance

It’s on iOS and Android. To be upfront: it’s a subscription with a 14-day free trial, because I’m a student building this on my own and it has to pay for itself somehow.

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who actually train. Are the diagrams clear? Which drills are missing? Is anything annoying? An own drills builder is on my list right now.

Thanks for reading, and see you at the table 🏓

So, i had my rubbers changed at a local store (since my glue has gone bad and i was a bit afraid of gluing it again by myself) and the first time when the red rubber was glued, it was not fully attached around the edge and i asked the guy from the store if he could reglue it.

The guy told me that he should first clean the old glue (since it had a lot of crumbles) and that he will glue it afterwards.

He stretched it pretty badly with the roller at the end (as you can see that line in the top part), also there is a round gap in the bottom left side, also in the top part it's not fully attached.

What do you think? I know these tensor soft rubbers tend to stretch and are difficult to reglue, and especially extremely easy to break the sponge when cleaning the old glue.
But please note that the stretched line is not fully visible in the photos, it way more obvious IRL, at least for my eyes, even the guy from the store mentioned that, but he said that is not an issue.

Should i keep it this way ? or should I try to reglue it (for the 3rd time) at another store/with another table tennis "specialist" ?

Ps: the red rubber (Rakza 7 soft) is my back hand, on the forehead hand i use Rakza Z.

I am trying to develop my backhand and i am afraid that this glue job could affect my learning

- Sora Matsushima vs Dang Qiu

- Harimoto vs Gauzy

- Liang Jingkun vs Wen Ruibo

Round 32 btw, wtf is this draw

I'm excited to share my first ever custom racket!

I am downgrading from an Xiom Ice cream AZX blade, which I played with for 2 years. At the time I didn't know much about table tennis equipment or my play style, so I found this with Xiom Vega Asias and decided to buy it. At first, it felt great because it was a carbon blade, so it felt like all of my shots were fast and powerful. But after a while something felt off. I couldn't help but notice that my control wasn't great, and that slower blades actually felt better and yielded better results. So, when my rubbers became very worn down, I decided to "downgrade" to an all wood blade with good control.

Blade: Petr Korbel (Japan)

I chose this beginner-friendly 5 ply blade because I wanted to get a blade with great control. It us on the faster side of 5 ply blades, so I thought that would help me transition and maintain some speed and power.

Forehand Rubber: Fastarc G-1

What do I need to say? This rubber seemed like a go-to by most people in this subreddit, and I've also used it before on my friend's racket, and it felt great.

Backhand Rubber: Fastarc C-1

I wanted a softer, more spinny rubber on my backhand, and the G-1's softer sibling seemed like a decent choice.

First Impressions:

Right off the bat, the racket felt heavier than my previous setup, although not too extreme. I felt what people meant by less power, although it wasn't too extreme. The spin felt amazing, my serves worked wonderfully and my cuts were controlled but spinny. That might just be because I didn't take good care of my rubber before.

I suspect most of the differences will feel less extreme with playtime, but I like the feel of the wooden blade a lot, and I hope to be able to improve my table tennis skills and reach higher levels while playing with this!

Anyways, this is my first time doing research and building a custom blade so any advice or remarks are welcome!

Any experience on this rubber? Is it more manageable than d09c? Any info on the durability? Thank you for sharing!

Guys, so I m looking to buy this racket, I am an intermediate and I defenss very often, I was recommended this when I said I only wanted defense and it couldn t be more expensive than 200$, what do y all think? Thank you’

I saw pingpongmaestro youtube videos and find his style particularly interesting. He uses Cybershape carbon and now Cybershape dynasty. Anti forehand: butterfly super anti. Backhand Butterfly impartial xs.
What i find intriguing is that his fh anti actually helps him takes control of the game, even against the top pros in Denmark (very competitive scene there). He can loop slow and for some reasons the pros dont punish his loops, once he gets to smash on FH his opponents always have to back off from table and get punished by drop shots off his antis.
His backhand also weird, he always use it to open up backspin (looks slow as well) and usually dont get punished that much. And he is great at punching once he gets to do it.
I wonder why his early shots (anti slow “loops”) or backhand slow loop open ups dont get killed instantly (his opponents are inside top 200 wr) and he gets to play to his set up strengths.

Regresando al tenis de mesa: ¡Opiniones sobre mi nueva raqueta!
Hola a todos,
Jugué tenis de mesa competitivo hace unos años y finalmente estoy regresando para recuperar mi condición física, el timing para los topspins con mucho efecto y mis saques.
Mi presupuesto estaba limitado a $500.000 COP (~$115 USD). Buscaba una raqueta con buena velocidad, gran rotación para la pelota de plástico 40+ y tecnología de carbono (ALC), sin tener que gastar una fortuna en equipo Butterfly.
Esto fue lo que acabo de pedir:
Madera: Yinhe Max-02 (Outer ALC / Estructura estilo Viscaria)
Derecha (FH): Yinhe Big Dipper (Versión Nacional) — Esponja Medium+
Revés (BH): Yinhe Moon Speed 53 — Esponja Medium+
Mi estilo y objetivos:
Juego enfocado en saques cargados de efecto y topspins pesados de derecha.
Bloqueos activos y contra-ataques controlados de revés.
Reconstruir mi técnica y trabajo de piernas tras estar alejado de las mesas.
¿Qué opinan de esta combinación para un jugador que está retomando el deporte? ¿Alguno ha probado la madera Max-02 o la Big Dipper Nacional? ¡Agradezco sus comentarios!

Hi everyone. Thank you for your suggestions so far regarding the rubbers to put on the stiga cybershape wavy blade. To give an update, the wavy blade has arrived. Initial impressions the sound of the vlade is unlike anything i have ever heard. May be it the ultrafibre they are using. I am excited to start using it once i deem myself ready foe the switch. Any more suggestions with rubbers that I can pare with it is appreciated. I have decided to work on my techniques first on my current setup stiga cybershape allround classic with nittaku fastarc g-1 and c - 1 before fully switching over the wavy. I have attached photos of my current setup and the blade. In addition I am going to sell the additional c1 rubber i have and the best suggestions and research i have done will determine the rubbers i will buy to pair with the wavy

I'm currently playing with a Yinhe 10S blade, a Yinhe Mercury II on the backhand, and a Palio AK47 on the forehand.
I want to upgrade my setup to something better and slightly faster. I'm currently considering the Butterfly Viscaria blade, but I'm not sure which rubbers I should go for. Any recommendations?

I use a flared handle, the blade was set up many years ago to be red for forehand. Some time age I changed to black on forehand, but because I didn't replace both rubbers at the same time and I didn't want to temporarily have red-red or black-black rubbers, now my forehand side is on the backhand of the wood.. (yes, it took me almost an year to figure out that one side of the handle cuts off very slightly later, it just bothered my finger enough today)

What is the best way to fix this? Reglue the rubbers on opposite sides, or slightly sand down the handle? Thank you.

Is there a drill I can do to become explosive and to react faster? I have played table tennis for a while, yet I seem to always fall behind or become slow compared to my peers. I can produce a lot of spin but it's very inconsistent, also serving has been lacking recently unlike in the past where my serve was heavy. I just don't know what to do and what sparked my old serves and how to improve as a player. This might be one of my last years playing table tennis,so I want to make a difference. I couldn't even win a match in my group and times where I might I just almost gave them a run for their money.

On the match (Li Tianyang led 2–0 before Harimoto came back to win):

"It's true that everything this time is best-of-five, and compared with best-of-seven it's easier for a match to go to a deciding game. A 3–2 score looks like there was only one game in it. But I think back to my match against Fan Zhendong at the Paris Olympics, which I lost 4–3. To people watching, it looked like I was only one game short. I knew the gap was much bigger than that, maybe two or three games."

"It's the same with today's points that went to 9-all: 7–7, 8–8, 9–9. Behind every one of those points are years of training, day after day, and the experience built up over countless matches."

"If you only look at the score, it seems like a tiny difference. But it comes from every win and every loss I've had, in matches big and small. In the deciding game I was scared, but in the end I chose to trust the experience, strength and ability I've built up."

On which titles matter to him:

"WTT Champions events and Grand Smashes are very important too. Ranking points and world ranking matter. But those points disappear after a year. I've won WTT Champions Yokohama twice, and one Yokohama has already gone by. Once the points expire, it's as if that result vanished. Even I've forgotten it. An Asian Championships gold or an Olympic medal is different. It belongs to you forever, and nobody can take it away. That's why I put so much weight on the biggest events. I've set myself a goal: the six major tournaments, the WTT Finals, and the All-Japan Championships. I really want to win all eight of those titles."

I bought some just trying to figure out what or if they any good