The Forehand Counterdrive/Counterhit

The Forehand Counterhit

The Starting Position

The Forehand counterhit is one of the most important strokes to learn when starting. Like everything in table tennis, keep it simple. Your feet can be fairly straight to the table with a little turn to your forehand side if you feel more comfortable. Your swing start position is with your bat beside you with the full face of the bat showing to the oncoming ball. The bat is at hip height.

The Finishing Position

Your swing is up and forward and should finish at an imaginary line that is drawn in front of the middle of your body. You don’t need to swing past this line as it makes recovery slower and throws you off balance. The bat should finish between shoulder and head high. There is no wrist involved with this stroke. The movement is mainly lower arm with a little upper arm.

source: Pingskills.com

The Backhand Counterdrive

Backhand Position

The Starting Position

The Backhand counter hit has some basics that you need to perform to get it right. Your feet position has you facing exactly to where you want the ball to go. Check out Jeff in the Online video. You can see that he is facing where the ball is going. The stroke starts in front of your body with your bat flat (Vertical or 90 degrees to the floor).

The Finishing Position

The stroke finishes with your arm extended, your palm facing the ceiling and your bat at around shoulder to head high. Be sure that the bat finishes on the right hand side of your body for a right hander or vice versa for left hander. Don’t forget to have a look at the video. It will help you to get a good image of what you are supposed to be doing.

source: Pingskills.com

- Block -

Backhand Block

The backhand block is used against an attacking topspin. It is a defensive stroke and so is like a shorter version of the backhand counterhit. As your opponents shot will be fast, you won't need to make the pace yourself and so the stroke can be quite short. You will need to vary the angle of your racket depending on the amount of topspin on the ball.

Tips On Playing The Backhand Block:

1. The block is a shorter version of the counterhit
2. Close your bat against heavy topspin
3. Open your bat against light topspin
4. Punch through the ball
5. Stand square on to where you want to hit the ball

source: pingskills.com

- Chop -

Forehand Chop

Backhand Chop

A chop or cut is the defensive, backspin counterpart to the offensive loop drive. A chop is essentially a bigger, heavier slice, taken well back from the table. The racket face points primarily horizontally, perhaps a little bit upward, and the direction of the stroke is straight down. The object of a defensive chop is to match the topspin of the opponent's shot with your own backspin. A good chop will float nearly horizontally back to the table, in some cases having so much backspin that the ball actually rises. A chop such as this can be extremely difficult to return due to the enormous amount of backspin. Sometimes a defensive player can impart no spin on the ball during a chop, or frequently add right- or left-hand spin to the ball. This may further confuse his/her opponent. Chops are difficult to execute, but are devastating when completed properly because it takes a tremendous amount of topspin on a loop drive to return the ball back over the net.

source: wikipedia.org

- Push (or Slice in Asia) -

Forehand Push

Backhand Push

The push is usually used for keeping the point alive and creating offensive opportunities. A push resembles a tennis slice: the racket cuts underneath the ball, imparting backspin and causing the ball to float slowly to the other side of the table. While not obvious, a push can be difficult to attack because the backspin on the ball causes it to drop toward the table upon striking the opponent's racket. In order to attack a push, a player must usually loop the ball back over the net. Often, the best option for beginners is to simply push the ball back again, resulting in pushing rallies. For good players it may be the worst option because the opponent will counter with a loop, putting you in a defensive position from which most likely you will lose, unless you are a good chopper. Another option to pushing is to flip the ball when it is close to the net. Pushing can have advantages in some circumstances. Players should only push when their opponent makes easy mistakes. Offensive players should only push for variation and not for general rallies. A push can easily be counter-looped into the opposite corner if it is not short enough. The goal of most player's pushes is to make the ball land too short to be attacked, rather than attempting to over-spin the opponent.

source: wikipedia.org

- Smash -

Forehand Smash

The offensive trump card in table tennis. A player will typically execute a smash when his or her opponent has returned a ball that bounces too high and/or too close to the net. Smashing is essentially self-explanatory—large backswing and rapid acceleration imparting as much speed on the ball as possible. The goal of a smash is to get the ball to move so quickly that the opponent simply cannot return it. Because the ball speed is the main aim of this shot, often the spin on the ball is something other than topspin. Sidespin can be used effectively with a smash to alter the ball's trajectory significantly, although most intermediate players will smash the ball with little or no spin. An offensive table-tennis player will think of a rally as a build-up to a winning smash; only a calculated series of smashes can guarantee a point against a good opponent. However, most players will be able to return at most one or two smashes consistently.

Provided that the opponent is not too close to the table or too far away from the ball, a smash can be lobbed, chopped, blocked or even counter-looped, albeit with some difficulty. A player who smashes generally works out a series of smashes (and possibly drop-shots) to rush the opponent out of position, put him off balance, or both. Smashers who fail to do this find it difficult to win a point against an excellent defense.

source: Wikipedia.org

- Flip (or Flick in Europe) -

Forehand Flick

Backhand Flick

When a player tries to attack a ball that has not bounced beyond the edge of the table, he/she does not have the room to wind up in a backswing. The ball may still be attacked, however, and the resulting shot is called flip because the backswing is compressed into a quick wrist action. A flip is not a single stroke and can resemble either a drive or a loop in its characteristics. What identifies the stroke is instead whether the backswing is compressed into a short wrist flick. Also known as "harai" in Japanese.

source: Wikipedia.org