Friday, April 11, 2014

Last night I played a couple of hours at the club, and came up against the guy that has been giving me trouble since converting to LP. 

He's the dead ball hitter who sends the ball to my forehand. This has been giving me trouble because I either can't twiddle fast enough to inverted on my FH fast enough, or I can't make the decision that the ball is going to my forehand fast enough to initiate twiddling. However I did figure out a technique that helped, which is sort of a flat push with a slight chop that sends the ball deep with some backspin. This seems to either keep me in the rally or win me the point. I just haven't mastered it yet, and still the majority of deep dead ball floaters to my FH ended up costing me more points then not. 

However, thanks to my pal Zhaoyang from this thread: http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=25598 ; I have now developed a new stroke that essentially won me the match last night. In that thread he showed me a video of Zhou Xintong. She side-sweeps the ball when blocking or punching, and still taking the ball right off the bounce. I'm not sure if it's the 755's properties that make them odd or not, but the sweeping motion controls the ball and sends it in a predictable to me, but unpredictable to the opponent sidespin counter. Sometimes it's dead, and sometimes it's got massive spin. If the ball is moving with topspin, it seems to gain tons of sidespin on the return; if I'm countering a backspin ball, it seems (not sure) to be more dead sidespin wise, but still sends the ball with his backspin reversed into topspin. When I passively block the ball, or punch with no sweep, there is little to no reversal with the 755 (to me). There is control in placement, and that's still a valuable weapon, but the sweep affords me the reversal. It was AMAZING! 

After some research, I found that Zhou Xintong has inspired others as well: http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23104
I love her game.

This has inspired me to enter my first beginner's tourney as soon as one pops up in the area.

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