Greetings all! On the 9th of July I attended another table tennis tournament. That’s almost two months ago, I know, and I apologize for the delay to anybody who hoped I would get this article out sooner. This time it was organized by Club Tennis Taula Ateneu 1882. Once more there were sausages to be had and once again I made it to the quarter finals.
Here are the lessons I learned on the road to said quarter finals and beyond!
First of all I want to give some support to a young player I started the group phase against by the name of Roger Pons. I didn’t record his match and I won relatively easily, but what I saw from him at different times during the day made me want to mention him.
He clearly has quite some talent. He makes beautiful strokes, tries relatively brilliant plays, but struggles to win and seemed a bit frustrated by the lack of results.
Lesson 1: Winning is fun, but development is more important for young players.
While I’m sure Roger could have performed a lot better, the general focus on winning matches seemed to undermine his confidence. He played a very precise game that’s really sensitive to small mistakes and as such requires a massive amount of confidence. He can keep losing matches as long as he is looking for a way to be confident in his strokes and play the same strokes in a more secure way, but once he finds that balance he can become incredibly hard to beat from one day to the next. Surely he already wins a lot of matches against players of a similar caliber or age and those matches help a lot for defining your strokes and building confidence, but the absence of individual rankings in Spain makes it hard to not to lose a bit of that confidence when playing against unknown opponents in open tournaments. I hope he keeps refining his strokes and his game and that he keeps losing against players like me and the others in our group… Until he doesn’t.
Next up: another Roger. Roger Mitats showed me why I play more defensively sometimes. When he goes for his attacking strokes successfully they can be quite destructive. But where he choses to go for those aggressive shots a bit too fast or forced sometimes, I leave too many openings. The perfect game is somewhere in the middle, but, up until a certain level, being able to put the ball on the table again and again will give you the advantage even if you don’t play that aggressively. Later in the day I would once again encounter the limits of that philosophy. Roger Mitats seems to be working on getting more control over his aggressive playing style while I am still trying to return to a more aggressive style after comfortably putting the ball on the table for 7 years. Possibly Roger will be the first one to find the right balance.
Lesson 2: Variation is life. Life is variety.
Even the best defenders attack when the opportunity presents itself and most high level attacking players know how to keep the ball on the table and create opportunities to take over the initiative.
Albert Massip, my next opponent beat me last time we met. This time it was my turn to win, but Albert has in no way gotten any weaker. He responds to plays at light speed even though it looks like he moves in slow motion. He manages to relax his muscles just enough to be able to start a movement in almost any direction at any moment.
Lesson 3: Relaxing your muscles is a requirement for being fast.
This is one of the hardest things to master. To be able to respond quickly to surprises you can’t have your muscles really tense. But when you’re moving or contacting the ball you want to be able to use the maximum of your power, which you achieve by tensing up your muscles. The best moment to tense up is just when your stroke hits the ball, to give it that extra bit of acceleration and spin. Most people, like me, have an entirely tense stroke and need to watch out not to start that move too soon, because it will become really hard to change the trajectory of our movement. As a response to this, players and coaches try to figure out how the other player plays, so they can predict his or her ball placement and start their strokes as soon as possible. While this is part of the solution, a lot of people forget that the base of the problem lies in the mechanics of their strokes. Albert comes from the other side of the equation. He starts moving from a really relaxed position and accelerates as he closes in on the ball, raising the quality of his strokes above the usual player. While he sometimes struggles to activate all of his power, he is able to reach balls a tense player could only dream about. If you are wondering if reaching this level is hard, here are a few of the hurdles.
-When you have a relaxed stance you can respond quickly if your mind is prepared. If your mind follows your body’s relaxed state it becomes really easy to forget to add some aggressiveness to your strokes. Just look at my games. Most of the time I’m stuck between an overly relaxed state and strong attacking strokes that are too tense. Like most players I have those perfect strokes hidden somewhere too, but I am too comfortable playing at the extremes that looking for the middle during real games scares me a bit.
-Almost anything can make your muscles tense up. Nerves, stress, insecurities, … More proof that your state of mind is a key factor in table tennis.
-Coaches and other players and even you yourself might be of the opinion that you move too slow, that it looks as if you don’t care, that you need to tense up more, really put your whole body in the game. Most probably they are partially right, but only up until the point that your “improved” stance or attitude doesn’t tense you up too soon.
It’s really easy to just give into the idea of powering through everything and forcefully contorting your body through unnatural movements to compensate for your lack of chill, but you will never be as fast as you could be if you find the right balance between power and relaxing your muscles.
A couple of matches further I met Pep Guasch again. Once more he masterfully brought back way too many of my attacks either by blocking or lobbing them, which put the pressure on my side. Luckily I could do the same to him from time to time, which made it a balanced match. We both weren’t maybe playing our most aggressive table tennis, but because we started to get to know each other’s style better, the points got longer and longer. I’m sure one of us could’ve broken the rhythm we ended up playing in to take away the game, but we were both unwilling to take the risk of leaving our zone of comfort.
Lesson 4: winning is winning is winning.
It’s easy to get frustrated when you don’t win as easily as you thought you should, but if your opponent is not getting away from you, you’re doing something right and you can still take the match so don’t let your frustrations get the better of you.
Quarter finals. The first time I saw Albert Salas play, I thought, why does his game look so much more active? I realized he (and most of his rivals of the same age) goes for the attack at the very first opportunity. His first attack might not be final, but it’s usually enough to put pressure on his opponent. I (and a lot of players like me) let a lot of those opportunities slide. Sometimes because our first attack is too risky and sometimes because going for that extra movement makes us tired, while we can just as well wait for the other player to miss his or her attack when playing against weaker players. So when I started playing Albert I tried to copy his style to keep the pressure away from me and it worked out relatively fine. But then the worst possible thing happened. When I was a bit less attentive and he could start attacking first, I noticed I could handle most of his attacks and I could even put some pressure on him when away from the table. The rest is history. More and more I fell back and started getting comfortable defending. The fact that I actually started winning some points from a defensive position, just made it easier to allow Albert to take the initiative. Making it up to match point in the fourth set seemed to prove I made the right decision. I should have known better.
Since the start Albert was doing exactly what I saw him do that first time: going for the initiative first. At first I fought him for it and got a set out of it, but more and more I started folding under his relentless attacks and in the end his consistency won the match. I did put some pressure on him by showing him he would have to work hard to capitalize on his initiative, but he was up to the task and just kept coming.
I’m not sure I could have beaten him at his own game out of the box, but I’m trying to reintroduce the habit of calmly opening up the first chance I get.
Lesson 5: Consistency wins the match.
Albert managed to lead the game to progress according to his strengths and when it didn’t work out, instead of doubting, he just kept attacking securely without trying to force his way through. He showed a lot of constraint and an impressive level confidence and control.
My camera shut down because of the heat so sadly most of the last set got cut off.
In the semi-finals Albert met up with Marc Clotet. As a professional player, he usually gets paid to not let any opportunities slide. Combine that with the fact that his first attack is usually final at our level, and it was quite clear this would be a hard match for Albert. Marc stole a lot of his initiative, either by attacking first or just powering through Albert’s first attacks. Albert is still growing though and when he gets used to a higher level of play and strokes of a higher quality, his consistency might start bothering players like Marc. Not because Marc isn’t a really good player, but because at the highest level Marc’s powerful strokes make for a much harder style to dominate with. There’s always a level where your finishing stroke isn’t finishing enough anymore and consistency becomes more important again. Not to say that Marc is not consistent either, but his play is a bit more risky in general and while training can mitigate those risks, it’s extremely hard to just power through the best players in the world. Remember how Ma Long and Fan Zhendong actually lose more points when taking the initiative first? Just to be clear I’m not saying an aggressive style is not a good option, I’m just saying it’s harder, making it maybe even more impressive to watch.
Lesson 6: There’s always a Ma Long or a Waldner above you that can beat you... Until there’s not.
In this tournament players that end up in the lower position during the group phase are entered in the “B” tournament. Isaac, whom you might remember from the last article, made it to the finals and he allowed me to coach him. He is in control of most of his strokes and tactics when he is confident so I focused mainly on this, reinforcing what he was doing well, giving him confidence he could overcome the things that weren’t going that well and giving some small tactical reminders. In my humble opinion most players don’t need a lot of tactical assistance in between sets, the main deciding factor being confidence in their own tactics and strokes. As such I always try to work from the tactics they have already applied that seem to be working and I try to build confidence by pointing out what has been going well.
Lesson 7: Believe in the players you coach.
They will feel more confident when you do. It’s not something you can fake either. So if you want your pupils to reach their highest levels, you will need to find what makes them special, respect it and show them your respect for it. I don’t think I have ever seen a player that doesn’t have something going for him/her.
Isaac became more and more confident and started moving better and better towards the end even though his opponent managed to raise his level too. Instead of being nervous
because of his friends watching his game in the end it actually gave him that extra boost to take home the match and the title.
Congratulations Isaac!
Lesson 8: Confidence is a fickle beast.
Nobody can totally control it.
A lot of variables have their influence on this aspect. And most of the variables have little to do with table tennis. If you are supportive though, and foster a player’s confidence, table tennis or any sport can become a source of confidence for this player as a person.
Again, my apologies for the delay in writing this article. I’m still two tournaments behind, but I hope you enjoyed it!