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Basics of spin as applied to table tennis
Note :- If you are a beginner in racket sports, ignore side spin discussions for now. Just mostly focus on top spin, back spin & no spin
Ball Travels in the +z direction
Top Spin (or over spin) (on the YZ plane)
Top Spin is in the same direction of ball travel
Stated differently , ball is spinning towards your opponent as it also goes towards your opponent
Back Spin (or under spin) (on the YZ plane)
Back spin is in the opposite direction of ball travel. (-z direction)
Stated differently , ball is spinning towards you (the striker) as it goes towards your opponent
Top spin is the opposite of backspin
4 items below using a righthander as striker of the ball
Horizontal HSS = Hook Side Spin (on the XZ plane)
Horizontal FSS = Fade Side Spin (on the XZ plane)
Vertical CW CSS = Clockwise Corkscrew Side Spin (on the XY plane)
Vertical CCW CSS = Counter Clockwise Corkscrew Side Spin (on the XY plane)
Fade spin is the opposite of hook spin
This is a very simplified presentation of spins.
What happens in real world is a bit more complicated because top spin & side spin are usually combined with vertical sidespins and or horizontal sidespins.
There is no pure vertical side spin or pure horizontal side spin. They usually get combined. the side spins maybe at some angle somewhere between horizontal & vertical & always with either top spin or back spin.
This 3 dimensional model identical to an electromagnetic (radio) wave (with the magnetic field in the horizontal plane & electric field in the vertical plane) only applies to spins out of a spinny inverted rubber. In case of long pips (or anti) it becomes n-dimensional model with the ball wobbling about the travel axis and then there is also the Magnus effect and all that crazy stuff etc from theoretical physics & none of which I am really going to pretend like I remotely have any clue.
Types of spin
1. No spin (Happens when the striker hits the ball dead on 90 degrees imparting no spin whatsoever). Best example I can give is the flat serve in tennis where the sever just hits the ball focusing all energies on generating pure speed and no spin at all. This is also referred to in ping-pong circles as “slamming” or “smashing” the ball. This kind of playing style all but vanished in tennis in 70s when Jimmy Connors was the last of pure flat hitters. In table-tennis this style vanished in late 80s. Emphasis in modern table-tennis is maximum spin first then speed. In a no spin hit or flat hit or smash your e racket is moving almost entirely forward and points downwards or straight (angles vary depending on incoming spin in your return). A no spin hit may produce the maximum sound
2. Top-spin (or over spin) is the bread butter spin in table-tennis as well as tennis. The ball is spinning towards the same direction as ball travel direction ( Z axis ) . The striker hits on the top or over the ball to generate top-spin and hence the name top-spin or over-spin. To produce top spin your racket is moving upwards and forward (angles vary depending on incoming spin in your return). You are not "hitting" or"smashing" the ball as in a no spin return but are mostly brushing the ball on its back and or top. This is the harder concept to grab for new players. When you learn to crete top spin, you are actually almost trying to miss the ball like whiff at it. In the beginning this is a frustrating experience & will miss as much as 90% . But with slowly improve over weeks or months. But keep in mind that even the very best pros miss the ball once in a while as you have seen a tennis player hit the top of the frame of the racket and the ball shoots up 50 feet in the air instead of going towards the opponent. Lots players even advanced ones , confuse a flat hit with top spin & when to use which one but the pros can this instinctively. If you hear lots of sound when you strike the ball , in general you are just flat hitting the ball while you may think you are doing a heavy top spin ball. For the most part you should hear very little sound when you brush the ball to create heavy top spin (There is an exception when there may be sound as in a loop kill but we won't discuss that here)
3. Back-spin (or under-spin) :- Seems to have limited application in tennis as slice. In table-tennis it is referred to as the chop. The ball is spinning in the opposite direction of ball travel. So in essence top spin is the opposite of back-spin. The striker hits under the ball and hence the name under-spin or called back-spin because the ball is spinning backwards instead of forwards as in top-spin. The racket is moving upwards and forward (angles vary depending on incoming spin is a return). To produce back spin your racket is moving downwards and forward (angles vary depending on incoming spin in your return) . Just as with creating top spin you are brushing the ball but mostly under it
4. Horizontal Side-spin happens when the ball is spinning from left to right or right-to left but along the X-axis plane The X-axis plane lies parallel to the ground). The ball travels in the z-axis. You generate horizontal side spin in a serve for example by brushing the back of the ball from left to right or right to left with the racket moving vertical
5. Vertical Side-spin (or cork-screw spin) happens when the ball is spinning clock-wise or counter-clockwise in Y axis-plane as the ball travels in the Z axis. If you are familiar with physics of an electromagnetic wave, these spins are identical. The electromagnetic wave travels in Z direction. The magnetic field component lies in X axis (parallel to ground plane). Think of side-spin as magnetic field. The Electric field is in Y axis in a plane perpendicular to X axis. Think of the electric field as the corkscrew spin. You generate vertical side spin in a serve for example by brushing usually the bottom (or possibly top) of the ball from left to right or right to left with the racket moving horizontal
Again keep in mind that this is a simplified presentation because the racket angle is not always pure vertical or pure horizontal but an angle in between & therefore the spin is neither purely horizontal side spin or vertical side spin & all this also combined with either top spin or back spin. Also for long pips it is even more complicated.
A loop a ball that carries very heavy top-spin from your opponent and shoots straight out and / or dips after bouncing on the receivers’ side. A side-spin-loop also contains heavy top-spin as well but also a contains a heavy-side-spin component that causes the ball to sharply curve left or right sideways in addition to dipping due to the heavy top-spin. In tennis the side-spins are mostly significant only in the serve when the (second) serve is usually a slice (backspin curving and dropping to the low right of a righty receiver from a righty server) or an (American) twist (topspin awkwardly shooting high up to the high left of a righty receiver from a righty server.) Otherwise in tennis you see an occasional side-spin (drops & lobs) here and there during rallies but in table-tennis very heavy side-spins exist during rallies as well as serves and this greatly complicates matters for a beginner or even an intermediate player. This is because, given the small playing area in table-tennis, the heavy side-spins can pull the ball completely from one side to the other side and totally out of the table, resulting in loss of points . The myriad of combinations and variations of no spins and (side-spins with (top-spins or back-spins)) can drive a beginner or even an intermediate player crazy in table-tennis.
A chop is a ball that is like a slice in tennis but carries lot more back-spin (also known as under-spin) coming at the receiver. A chop , like the loop can also contain a side-spin component. Generally you can distinguish a loop from a chop by looking at how the ball behaves after bouncing on the receivers’ side of the table. If the ball shoots out and dips down it is a loop (top-spin). If it tends to more shoot up and not shoot out it is a chop (backspin) . With that in mind we will look at how to attack side-spin loops first and then sidespin chops and finally we will discuss how to attack sidespin serves in the next article
Update Jully 2023 :- I have seen & studied more complex models of a movement of a ball with spin from other sports like cricket, baseball, football , American football, snooker / billiards and so on. But I have tried to keep this as simple as possible without all the complications of physics and so on , so most players , especially beginners can relate to and understand.
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