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Your weakside & strongside in racket sports as it relates to table tennis
The following writeup may seem long & drawn out but please bear with me because I wanted to provide a full context about this issue because this has lot more relevance & important than most people think in my opinion. Feel free to disagree
One of the
most misunderstood or least understood yet one of the most discussed topic is
racket sport or any sport for that matter is the forehand & backhand.
This explanation
is needed to understand two items I will be adding after a little while
1.
Concepts of spin continuum, spin contrast &
spin dynamics is table tennis
2.
Why
short pips is the absolute worst backhand rubber & why anti is the next
worst rubber for a player’s backhand. (This is NOT an attempt to trash short pips,
because short pips is theoretically the best
forehand rubber . I will explain this in the next paper in detail as to why)
The dominant side is not discussed that
much in most racket sport except maybe discussed a little in lawn tennis maybe
due to two handed backhand.
Before I proceed, to add more context
I would like to mention about dominant side in other sports I have played a lot
in my youth, hockey & basketball.
Even most professional basketball players who are righthanded for
example, cannot dribble to the left to go to the hoop since they need to shoot
with their right hand but that will give the person guarding you easy access to
the ball with their (dominant) right hand.
I have seen some lefthanded hockey players switch hand positions, that
is they would hold the stick with their right hand closest to the top edge of
the stick instead of the left hand as done by righthanders. (Imagine a Kareem
Abdul Jabbar in the future shooting (3 pointer) the virtually unstoppable skyhooks
with either hand from left or right side
lines) I also find it fascinating that a righthanded quarterback finds it
easier to throw if they move to their right than left, in which case they have
to rotate their body which slows down speed of delivery. Of course we all have
bowled around the wicket instead of over the wicket just to look cool . The switch hitters & pitchers in baseball
& cricketers who bowl with one hand but bat with the other hand are quite
amazing. And I am sure there are examples from many other sports.
One of the biggest misconceptions as far as table tennis goes is the fundamentally wrong assumption that a player’s forehand can be or is equal to their backhand in most respects.
Tennis for example has adopted to the two handed backhand to account for the weaker nature of backhand for most humans. Yes there are few players like Roger Federer (compare to Nadal & Djokovic’s 2 handed backhand) or MeEnroe (Compare to Bjon Borg , who sort of pioneered the two handed backhand & he is the son of a champion table tennis player, who took up tennis because of his using a tennis racket his father won for winning a table tennis racket in early days of his TT career).
I have also
seen some lopsided pro tennis matches where a player was using one handed
backhand and got crushed because of that. This was true all the more on clay
courts where the rallies are long The winning opponent went to the weak one
handed backhand over & over , wearing them down
But if you take the racket size &
shape in other racket sport such as say racquetball or pickleball or table
tennis etc, it would be awkward to attempt a two handed backhand with good success (I have seen some tennis
players try this with a table tennis racket & looks quite funny). I researched
other racket sport a little bit (not a lot) and I may be wrong on this but my
conclusion is that not many other sports use two handed strokes as much as
tennis.
Another reason for lack of
understanding of differences between forehand & backhand is the
transitioning of table tennis from the hardbat (& sandpaper) domain to the
sponge domain. Before sponge domain era (in the hardbat era) table tennis was
essentially played like tennis with the yet to be identified differences
between forehand & backhand for any human in any racket sport. But tennis has moved on by somewhat addressing
this issue with the use of a two-handed backhand. (Yes , a player needs to get
to the ball somewhat faster if they are using a two handed backhand due to the
slightly reduced reach but it is not as significant given the length of a
tennis racket as compared to a pickleball or table tennis racket & yes
volleys are awkward but there is lesser emphasis on serve & volley style as
used to be).
One also needs to understand the level of
rotation & positioning of the arm & wrist while performing a forehand
as compared a backhand. But this does not seem to be clearly understood. This actually should self explaining as in “fore”hand & “back”hand. When you do a forehand the (front)
or fore is facing the opponent. For the “back”, the back of the arm is facing
the opponent , but this requires a rotation of the arm.
This rotation of the arm is maximum if you are using the same rubber both sides of the racket. However this is the most significant when looping (heavy topspin) from either side. The racket is closed to the max for a counter loop for example on both sides and so when you transition from a forehand counter loop to a backhand counter loop , the racket and arm rotation is at its maximum. If you are using pips both sides the rotation is minimal because the racket angle is nearer to vertical as compared to a stroke using spinny inverted rubber. This maximum rotation can also make backhand more painful due to the nature of human anatomy. This is also why minimal or no arm & wrist rotation is required when a player uses a racket with spinny inverted on one side & pips or anti on the other. The reduction in time taken to rotate your racket to close it for spinny inverted rubbers and open it for anti or pips may be only micro seconds but it is like hours given the ever increasing speed at which table tennis played. This time difference for arm & wrist rotation is also why more and more players, especially two winged loopers are forced to move farther & farther away from the table
In tabletennis, even at the pro level I
can only think of very few players who had a stronger backhand than forehand
such as Rosskopf, Kreanga or few others you may know , but definitely not a
lot. I have read somewhere that the 3 time World Singles Champion Zhuang Zedong
(traditional penholder) had a better backhand than forehand but not sure how
true it is. And I know Eric Boggan (American grip , also known as Seemiller
grip) had a better backhand than forehand. But Zhuang
& Eric were better because they were just so consistent with their blocking
& not necessarily attacking. And I
am yet to see a good RPG(reverse penhold grip) blocker on their backhand &
not sure if it makes even sense because it would look so awkward (but that may
even be an advantage LOL) .
So what I am getting at in conclusion
is that only very amateurs can execute forehands & backhands with equal
skills in table tennis (using the same inverted rubber both forehand &
backhand) . In fact lesser and lesser
pros , especially on the women’s side are using inverted rubbers both sides and are moving
to pips or anti on their backhands. It is not anyone’s fault that it is this way. It is
just the nature of human physiology , anatomy or whatever. So for most humans
(with some exceptions) the backhand is
weaker in many ways compared to their forehand.
Keep in mind also about another important factor about my referring the two sides (forehand & backhand) as the strong side & weak side. It may make more sense to just call them side F & side H because your strong side is probably the side where you are most consistent or most powerful or most versatile. For example, you may be a looper on your forehand but your forehand may not be your sterngth because may be because you may have a better chop on your backhand in terms of overall effectiveness. In this case forehand is the player's weak side & backhand their strong side. Another player may have looping as their best backhand strength but they may have a better hitting forehand based on overall effectiveness. So in this case forehand is the players strong side & backhand their weak side. So keep also this facor in mind when I referring to a players strong side and weakside
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