10 Best Tactics To Win Points In Table Tennis

In this video I'm going to share with you my top 10 tactics for winning points in local league matches. I've been playing local league for about 20 years and the tactics that I'm going to show you in this video have helped me move from the bottom division all the way up to the top division. Watch the video all the way through, then watch it again, then watch it again. The tactics in this video I guarantee you are going to help you win more points. This video is sponsored by Bribar, the best table tennis equipment company. Bribar sell bats, rubbers, blades, balls, clothing, tables. They have great offers and they ship worldwide. Go to bribartt.co.uk. Tactic number one, use long fast serves. Now a long fast serve will need to get the ball deep on your opponent's side and it needs to have some speed. In general you're going to aim for three positions. You're going to go wide to the backhand, wide to the forehand or hit your opponent in the crossover position. Now this tactic works simply because a lot of players at the local league level they just don't quite have the skills to know how to return long fast serves. So I'll often be rushed into an error hitting the ball off the end of the table or dumping it into the net. Now to begin with you're probably going to find it easier to do a long fast serve with top spin or side spin, but don't overlook doing long fast serves with backspin. Why? Because most players assume if it's a long fast serve it's going to have topspin. So if you can do it a long fast serve with backspin you can really catch people out. If they don't have the ability to loop well, honestly you're going to win so many cheap points. Tactic number two, try to target your opponent's crossover position. The crossover position is roughly this area between the hip, the elbow of their playing hand. It is the area where a player has to cross over from playing forehand to backhand. It's a little area of uncertainty where a player isn't quite sure which side of the bat they should use. Now why is this effective? Well because at local league level, amateur level, most players footwork isn't really that good. That's why we're just amateur players. So when you aim your shots here you'll often find players will try to do something like this or they might try to do something like this because they haven't got really strong enough footwork to get into position. So if you're playing somebody who you just don't think moves that well, aiming for their crossover position is a really good way of winning points. Tactic number three, when you loop against backspin really load up the topspin. Your topspin attack, it doesn't have to be that fast and it doesn't have to be that low of the net. You can just really load up the spin and get quite a high arc over the net and what you'll find is many players just struggle to cope with the spin. If they try to block it back they'll often keep their bat angle a bit too open and the ball jumps up off the bat, goes off the end of the table. Easy way of winning a point. Other players will try to deal with this higher arc loop by just slamming the ball back but unless they get their bat angle right and unless it's a shot that they're confident with, to be honest with you, they'll miss it eight, nine times out of ten and it'll go flying off the end of the table. So in our local league matches it's not as though we have to try to replicate the brilliance of the professional players, just a really good high arc spinny loop is likely to get you a lot of points. Tactic number four is switching your opponent from corner to corner. We really want to test out our opponent's footwork and by using the full width of the table your opponent's gotta move around a lot more. So if your opponent isn't great at moving they've been able to cover this angle and then this angle is going to be a real challenge. Specifically I think the hardest thing for most people is going from here to there because when you're playing your forehand over here you can't really get away with a reach, it's a bit of an emergency shot. Okay they might get the ball back but it's not going to be very good. So really the only way they're going to get there is they have to move. So most people really struggle going from this position to that wide backhand position. So definitely corner to corner is something that you can try and specifically switching someone from their wide forehand to their wide backhand is super effective. Tactic number five, when you push really hack at the ball. All right we kind of consider the push to be a bit of a safety shot, a bit of a defensive shot but it can be a real weapon as well. And if you can accelerate using your forearm, using a bit of wrist, you can really load up the backspin. And what's going to happen in this situation? Well often if a player tries to push it back, if they don't quite read the amount of backspin you've put on the push, they're going to put the ball into the net. And if they try to attack it, unless they've got really good looping technique, they're going to get a bit intimidated, a bit scared and they're just going to loop the ball into the bottom of the net. Tactic number six and one of my personal favorites is using the quick fast block. So blocking in the amateur game is really effective. Why? Because most players in the amateur game, they don't really have the ability to string together two, three, four, five really strong attacks in a row. They tend to break down after one or two shots. So if you can get a quick block when your opponent attacks, you'll often find that they will struggle then to hit another attacking shot. Now to get this right, you need to be low, you need to make that blocking contact just as the ball is rising towards the peak, just a short motion, work with the pace of the incoming attack and that will send the ball back over fast, low and really cause your opponents some problems, okay? Tactic number seven, hit attacking shots down the line, along the parallel. At the amateur level, most players are happy to play cross-court. So if you start hitting shots down the line, well it has a bit of this surprise factor. The other players just wasn't quite expecting this to happen because they were expecting you to go cross-court. So going down the line, shorter distance of the table, it comes at the opponent quite fast and it's not something they're used to. That's why it's effective, that's why it wins points. And in particular, I find the forehand down the line, playing your forehand down the line to your opponent's backhand is super effective. Why? Because at local league level, most players' backhands aren't quite as strong. So you're going to that weaker side and if your opponent is already moving in this direction, anticipating a cross-court shot and all of a sudden it goes down the line, it's very hard for them to get to that ball and you often hit clean winners, okay? So if there's nothing else that you do, make sure that you develop a strong forehand attack down the line. Guaranteed way of winning points. Tactic number eight, when you serve, make sure that you have lots of variation. Now this could be placement variation, it could be serving short, half long, long, and it can be spin variation. Sometimes serving with backspin, sometimes serving with topspin, sometimes serving with float, doing combinations of spins, sidespin with backspin, sidespin with topspin, and it can also be tempo variation. Sometimes you're putting in those slower serves, sometimes you're putting in those faster serves, sometimes you're tossing the ball maybe about head height, sometimes you're tossing the ball higher, above head height. There are so many ways that you can vary your serve and this makes it so much more challenging for your opponent because they have so much, so many more things they've got to think about when they're trying to return your serves and they will make far more errors if you can work on all of these variations. Now in particular, one of my favourites is varying between sidespin and backspin, and sidespin and topspin. I try to keep the action relatively similar, so I'm not giving away too many obvious clues, and if I can combine that spin variation between the two spins with the placement variation, then I have a lot of options to cause my opponent's problems. Tactic number nine, we're nearly there. Okay, your flick. How many of you, when you play your local league matches, flick short serves? Normally when an opponent serves short, we prefer to push. It's the easier option, it's the safer option, right? But this means that if you can develop a flick, backhand flick or forehand flick, it has a great surprise factor. It isn't as though your flick has to be amazing quality, it's just the fact that you have played an attacking shot rather than more of a defensive shot, causes some surprise and you can catch your opponent out. They're not quite used to someone returning their serve in that way, and all of a sudden the ball's jumping on them, and they haven't reacted quick enough. Now for me, the backhand flick is the more useful shot. It's a little easier to do, coming with your elbow higher, turn your wrist in, and then we can pick up that backspin ball, and with the backhand flick, we can kind of play it in multiple positions across the table. So if you don't flick at all at the moment, try to develop a backhand flick, and then when your opponent serves short, you have this surprising attacking weapon, which will catch your opponent out, win you some points. And finally, tactic number 10. Keep the ball on the table. You cannot win at table tennis if you can't keep the ball on the table. But at amateur level, of course, people's consistency isn't always that high. So if you can keep the ball on the table longer than your opponent, you're going to win more points. Now this doesn't mean just very gently, safely, just plopping the ball on the table, inviting your opponent to smash the ball at you. We're not looking to do that. But we can just play at 70%, okay? We don't need to always play these wild power shots. If you can play with good quality at 70%, okay, and you can develop the skill of being able to hit 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 shots, I guarantee you, you'll be able to outrally 95% of people who play local league table tennis. There you go, you made it! Well done if you watched all the way through the video. Now there are loads more tactics I could potentially have shared. There's loads more tactics that I've used in my local league matches, but I feel the 10 that I've shared with you, they're pretty easy to add into your game, and quite honestly, they're probably the most effective. Now if you do want to develop your tactical game even more, then I very much recommend you join my online academy at tomsttacademy.com. I've just launched my new tactical toolkit where I will be sharing a whole library of tactics that you can use in the matches that you play. So if you want to get access to that toolkit, as well as lots of online courses, training drills, video analysis, live sessions, lots and lots of things, then go to tomsttacademy.com. Thank you very much for watching, I will have plenty more videos soon. Until then, keep playing table tennis!