The racket can be held with two different types of grip.
- The penhold grip mainly used by Chinese and Japanese.
- Most commonly used grip is called ‘shakehand’ grip.
Pen hold grip and shakehand grip (left to right respectively)
Service
There are different kinds of services that may be done from forehand or backhand such as long service, short service, flat service, spin service (side spin, back spin, top spin) low toss and high toss service.
Backhand low toss service
Forehand service sequence (left to right repectively)
Types of Strokes
- There are offensive and defensive strokes played by a table tennis player including backhand and forehand.
- The offensive strokes in table tennis include drive, loop drive, loop, loop kill, hook, counter drive, flip and smash.
- The defensive strokes in table tennis include push, slice, block, drive, lob, drop shot and spin (side backhand top).
Most commonly used skill is forehand push, which can be played in the following way—
- This stroke is mainly used if a player cannot play a more aggressive attacking stroke.
- It is used when the opponent plays the ball short to the forehand with back spin. Right foot is the leading foot to return the ball with body weight transferred onto the right foot.
- The racket moves in a downward forward direction to contact the ball just in front of the body with slight follow through.
- The ball travels in upward direction from the racket.
- Initially the stroke is practised when there is little back spin on the ball from the opponent.
