Why is backhand topspin vs backspin so difficult?

A few days ago I had the pleasure of coaching at the Top Edge & Gertsen Training Camp at St Neots Table Tennis Club. Part of my role was to do 1-to-1 sessions with some of the players. In these sessions I asked the players what they wanted to work on. The players were a mixture of ages and standards, but strikingly most of them wanted to work on the same thing – backhand topspin vs backspin. This is consistent with my own coaching sessions in Cambridge. Backhand topspin vs backspin seems to be a shot which is very difficult for a lot of players (myself included) at the amateur level. Why is this? Keep reading

Tactics for beating a good junior player

Tactics for beating a good junior player

Any adult who has played competitive table tennis at any level has faced the unnerving and unglorified challenge of trying to beat a junior player. And not just any junior player. A junior who has been coached. A junior who has good technique and some great shots. A junior who plays without fear. It’s a difficult situation. There is no glory in beating a junior, but if you don’t try your best, you can easily get beat. In this blog post, I’ll give you some tactics on how to beat a good junior player. Keep reading