Skhandelwal said:
hmm strange, for me, the ball goes the slowest, and spinniest when the motion goes from down to up b/c that way, I don't focus on speed as much as spin. When I loop more forward, speed increases more and spin decreases. Btw, what kind of shot are you talking about, where you barely touch the ball(like brushing it) or where you spin the ball by applying more force on it?
Brushing the ball, although some increase in force won't decrease the spin. I learned this from the Chinese team coach when he visited Southern California for a 2 month clinic, that you can graze the ball too thin, and that a slightly more open racket will produce more spin due to better contact.
Still, the blade angle versus the stroke angle determines how much you "brush the ball", and this can be done with any stroke angle. I've done my share of near horizontal loop drive shots on short balls, sometimes having to run around the side of the table to position for the shot on a really short ball, as the table blocks the path for anything else. This happens more in doubles or against a chopper that doesn't place the ball deep enough.
On my forward motion loops, both spin and speed increase, but speed increases more, so the ratio of spin to speed is less. Take a good look at those videos again. On those loop drive / loop kill shots the blade angle is near horizontal at contact, I'd call that brushing the ball. In spite of the speed, there's a significant downwards curve in the balls path after contact.
If you look at that first sequence in the
tt3.wmv, the ball has backspin, it's dropping and struck from well below the table, so a near vertical motion is used. Here is a link to videos of old events:
http://tt.mainstreet.net/HungaryChina1981 , the first video shows the off the floor near vertical (and some sideways) motion, but most of them are more like loop drive shots with more forwards motion. This was first time in recent history that the Chinese team got beat. It was almost 10 years later before Sweeden accomplished the same thing (Pearson and Waldner being the top two players on the team, Waldner going on to dominate Table Tennis for a few years, although a few other players, including Pearson were rated # 1 on and off during Waldner's "reign".
Part of this depends on the type of table tennis rubber you're using. Mark V for example, is very elastic, both in bounce and in reversal of spin, and with Mark V and similar rubber sheets, some forwards motion is going to give you more spin than a vertical motion, especially if you're countering a loop with another loop (when one or both players are back from table). Currently, I have Stiga Innova Premium, a more controllable and lighter rubber than Mark V, but with similar speed and spin response, however, my company closed it's gym quite a while ago, so there's no table anymore, and the closest club is inconvenient, too far and only weekends (family time).
Personally and from watching modern top level players, the near vertical loop motion is normally done in special circumstances as I mentioned before (backspin, dropping ball, below table level).
For those not familiar with the amount of friction and elasticity of table tennis rubber, I made a short video. In the second part, I reverse the spin back and forth, striking the ball with a fairly slow motion, but there's enough change in momentum from spin reversal that the ball moves near vertical, inspite of a steep racket angle (about 45 degrees or more from horizontal). Imagine the effect with a lot of blade speed instead of just the small motion I use in the video.
ttstick.wmv
