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This stroke is a good offensive stroke for returning an opponent's loop. This is considered the most advanced shot to learn in table tennis. It is hard to learn from a video, but you can understand it better after knowing how to do it.
Basics
-Keep loose, this includes your arm. Make sure you accelerate to the ball and on contact, you can be a tighter, but as soon as you start to follow through, your arm is loose again.
What National Chinese coaches have said (All these points are Cruicial)
-When counter looping, use mainly your big arm (not your forearm) and your wrist. Adjust your arm's angle (adjust the angle between your big arm and your forearm depending on the situation. Gennerally try to keep it around 120 degrees to get power from your big arm)
-As you counter loop, you weight goes down. (you can see Ma Lin bending his knees while he counter loops as his weight shifts down). Don't overdo it though.
-Make contact on the ball off the bounce. Generraly, it is better to counterloop a moment before the ball reaches maximum height. Make sure you are hitting the ball as it is rising to use your opponents pace on the ball.
-Generally, keep the angle of your paddle (to the ground) about 60 degrees. Because you are contacting the ball while its coming up, you are using the opponent's pace on the ball and do not need to open it much to make it go faster.
-REMEMBER to hit the ball into the foam of the rubber. Not so deep it gets into the blade, nor should it be so thin it hits the top rubber sheet. When contact is made, you can close the paddle to control the ball in the foam. You do not have to close it too much, but just enough to give the ball a little more control. This can very from situation to situation.
-If the ball goes out, remember to guide the ball to the table rather than close the paddle on contact. Rather, you should close it more while its in the foam. A Chinese coach showed how he could counter loop a very spinny loop with his paddle starting at 90 degrees from his control in the foam.
-Usually, try and not swing back before counter-looping. Not because you shouldn't, but because usually you have no time. However, if you feel you can have enough time, don't bring your arm back, rather only twist your waist back to bring the arm back.
-Sometimes, you should try and hit the ball a little more to the ball's side, as this will bring the ball's spin effect down. Players like Ma Lin do this all the time as sometimes you see his counter-loop have a bit of a curve.
-Be quick when counter-looping the ball-THink about it this way, many Chinese coaches say that you have to be quick as there is a tremendous amount of spin in the ball. Therefore, you should be more quick, not more powerful, but fast and into the foam on contact.
-A COMMON ERROR is when the ball goes out when they counter-loop. Then they think that they should correct it by closing the paddle more before contact. Then the ball goes to the net. Then they do this again but follow through up more. This creates a very weak counter loop and is bound to be killed. Instead, players should control it into the foam while keeping the paddle around 60 degrees, and then control where they want to go and turning their paddle once contact is made. (as mentioned earlier)
Again this is a very advanced shot. I posted this earlier than I expected to clear some things on the way Chinese players appear to be "looping".
© by MaLin (Member of the DTTW forums)
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