I had one of my own recently, and I'm still kicking myself about it. I have a pretty good backhand loop in terms of power and spin, but my forehand loop has always been more spinny than powerful. In order to increase the speed on my loop, I tried all the usual advice I would give to another player, i.e. turning my hips and shoulders more, using a faster forearm snap, and trying to hit through the ball more, but these never really worked as well as I wanted - I just seemed to either get even more topspin or lose control and miss the shot. Eventually I just resigned myself to the fact that my forehand was never going to be a powerful stroke. Sigh.
Then, while watching a video of myself playing at the Australian Open this year, I slow-motioned some of the action, and I finally noticed that my stance is very upright when hitting my forehand, with my feet only around shoulder width apart (check the accompanying photo for an example of what I saw). I then contrasted this to the top Australian players (such as William Henzell and Simon Gerada), who all use a very wide stance when forehand looping. I had always thought my feet were placed wide enough, but they obviously aren't.
The Light Finally Dawns...
AHA! A narrow stance means that I can't move my bodyweight well in any direction except up. That's why I can spin the ball well on my forehand, but can't get power. Every time I try to increase my power by turning my body more or moving my weight forward through the stroke, my narrow stance means that I lose my balance and my control. So I tend to push upwards with my legs to keep my balance, giving me more upwards speed of my stroke, and thus more spin instead. On the backhand, there isn't as much body turn or weight shift when looping close to the table (where I generally attack from), so I can get away with it more.
It's strange that I never really sat down and analyzed this before. If I was watching someone else, I think I would have spotted it fairly fast. The combination of lots of topspin, no power, and increased body turn resulting in more spin or loss of control simply screams out that my stance must not be wide enough. But the fact that I thought I was using a wide stance already blinded me to the obvious conclusion - that I couldn't be standing wide or else the stroke would be working properly. Until I actually saw myself in slow motion on the video I kept assuming my stance was OK.
