Safety First
Arguments in Favor of a Safety First Approach- At lower levels, it is often the player that makes the least mistakes who will win. By sticking to a consistent pushing strategy, you minimize your risks and encourage your opponent to play the riskier, more aggressive shots. The chances are good that he will make enough mistakes for you to win.
- As you continue to practice and improve, you can slowly extend your range of strokes and become more aggressive, within your limits. This way you are always playing a consistent game with a minimum of errors.
- You will get plenty of encouragement from the wins you will be getting over other beginners who are attacking and making mistakes against you.
Arguments Against a Safety First Approach
- There is a common theory which states that when under pressure, a player will revert to the style of play he was first successful with (some take this even further, and claim a player will prefer the first strokes he learned). According to this argument, you risk that in the future, when you are under pressure against good opponents, you may feel most comfortable with pushing. This won't win against better, more consistent players.
- By beginning with a pushing only strategy, you may not ever fully develop the aggressive attitude and timing needed to play at a higher level. Waiting for your opponent to make mistakes is not a winning strategy at higher levels - the dominant strategy is to take calculated risks with aggressive strokes and force mistakes from your opponent.
- Your game style and tactics will be constantly changing, as you slowly bring in new shots and increase your aggressiveness.
Aggressive Attitude
Arguments in Favor of an Aggressive Attitude- The dominant modern style in higher level table tennis is an aggressive game, taking controlled risks with attacks to force mistakes from an opponent. By playing this style right from the beginning, you will groove the tactics and techniques required to play this style successfully at higher levels.
- By being aggressive, you will be playing with the right attitude right from the start of your career, and you will not need to change your tactics and style very much as you improve.
- According to popular theory, when you are put under pressure you will able to play your normal game, since that is what you first learnt to do.
- Once your technique and tactics come together, you will zoom past the pushers, who will not have any answers to your consistent attacking.
- Because you will not have consistent technique at first, and your grasp of tactics will be shaky, you will lose to 'negative' players, who will simply push the ball and win from your mistakes.
- You will feel like you are losing the game when playing against pushers, rather than your opponent winning it. You may get frustrated with your losses and give up on the sport too soon.
- It does take some time for all the pieces of your game to get up to the standard where they will work together smoothly, and it can be difficult to keep going when you are not seeing any improvement in your results for some time.
I would recommend to the majority of new players to adopt an aggressive approach, and stick with it. You'll lose a few more games in the beginning of your playing career, but if you stay the course you'll have a much better chance of maximizing your potential.
This doesn't mean blindly attacking every ball though. Use intelligent tactics with your aggressive approach. Keep reading and later on I'll give you some help with what tactics to use to get the most out of your game.
For the minority of players who do like to push the ball, I would suggest one of two possibilities.
- The first is to get some coaching to develop your natural tendencies, and learn to chop the ball properly, playing a modern defensive game which mixes heavy backspin from a distance with counterattacks.
- The second option is to accept that you will be likely to 'top out' at around the middle of the intermediate ranks, and once you have reached that level, continue to slowly work on adding incremental improvements to your game. Each little bit of aggressiveness you can add will notch you up another step. This is probably a better approach for those older players whose mobility is not quite what it used to be. Remember that if you are 40, you probably have 30 years or more to slowly develop your game, so enjoy yourself in the meantime and view it as a long-term project. You may be surprised at just how high you can go!
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