Upgrade Your Game The Backhand Flip

Fan Zhendong down 10-8 in the fifth, playing for gold for his province's team in China. He's saved five match points and now leads 12-11. Will his backhand flip be successful on Ma Long's next serve? Hey and welcome to Peck Pong. I hope you enjoyed that little intro I made, a little fun. Who doesn't like a little bit of Fan Zhendong? Today's topic is going to be about the backhand flip and how to improve it. I will say that the more complex topics are going to be further on in the video. The beginning is going to be more about the fundamentals and just kind of getting started. So let's just get started and the first topic we're going to cover is the physical technique. So the first thing that I want to mention about the backhand flip is the body positioning and basically you need to be in the ready position. You're going to take a step in with the right foot and then you're also going to get your chest and your upper body a little bit more leaning forward, a little bit more over the table. You're going to want to get your right elbow a little bit higher as this lets you get a little bit more over the table and lets you create a little bit more leverage. It's also very helpful to make sure you go around the elbow when you stroke the ball. If you're able to rotate around the elbow you're going to get a lot more spin and you're going to get a lot more consistency out of each stroke. I like to refer to it as a windshield wiper because you're kind of making that motion and your elbow is staying pretty stationary. You want to make sure your wrist is very relaxed and the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulder are going to be doing the heavy lifting of the stroke and they're basically going to be flicking the wrist as you go through the ball. It's really important to make sure that you're spinning the ball, so lightly brushing the ball. I like to imagine spinning a wheel and if you're just kind of hitting the wheel you're not going to be able to spin the ball, so it's really important that you try and imagine that you're really brushing the ball or spinning a wheel while doing the stroke. One of the big faults that I made while learning the backhand flip is that I went in with way too closed of a racket and sometimes I hit really good shots but sometimes I didn't and I was kind of stuck in that one close position and it kind of made me have to go for these all-or-nothing shots. Too close of a racket doesn't let you get a lot of the different shots that you need to be able to hit, say a heavy underspin or a heavy topspin kicker, so having a nice open angle is really important because it lets you choose between the shots and it lets you build confidence in the right way as you continue to get better as a player. It's also very important to notice the backswing while having an open racket. Something fun that you can do is go and get a Dick's Sporting Goods Stiga racket or just a racket with a very small amount of spin. Trying it with this racket will be very difficult because the spin is so low and if your angle is too closed the ball will probably fall right off, so it's going to force you to have to have a more open angle and this open angle is going to teach you the feeling that you need to have on your backstroke and your forward stroke. The location you're going to be hitting for a right-handed player is going to be on the left side of the ball and there's not exactly one spot that you can hit. You're allowed to hit actually many different spots on the left side of the ball. Each spot has a bit of a pro and a con and you're going to want to select the best point to contact the ball depending on what kind of serve your opponent is giving you. A fun way that I like to use to describe the backhand flip is kind of like you're a one-trick robot and what I mean by this is if you go to your local store and you get like a toy or something and it has like one movement back and forth and that's that's it that's all it can do, well that's what you want to do in your backhand flip. You want to make sure that you're very stable and not deviating from the stroke at all. What I typically see happen is that someone reaches for the ball and their stroke kind of breaks down and they lose complete control over the stroke because they're trying to make contact with the ball and the idea is to maintain good structure in the swing and just really focus on learning the timing to match the two up. You want to try and contact the ball on the lag portion of the swing. This is where you're going to get the most spin and you're going to get the most lift. If you're contacting the ball on the casting part of the swing it's going to be very difficult for you to create any speed or get a lot of spin on the ball. A good example is a fishing rod. If you ever notice when a fisherman casts the rod, there's a part when the rod is flexed and it's right before it throws the lure and you want to contact the ball with your wrist in that flexed part of the of the swing. If you're contacting it on the afterwards part of the throw then there's not going to be any energy left to lift the ball or to create spin or to create any speed for that matter. The two easiest places to contact the ball are the top and a little bit on the fall. At the top of the bounce you have a little bit more angle to go over the net so it's going to be easier to drive the ball and get a little bit of faster shot. If you're contacting the ball on the fall this is the easier of the two options because it lets you have the most time to read your opponent's spin. It also has a little bit less spin because the ball has been traveling for a little bit longer and then it also lets you get into position physically a little bit easier because you have more time. The way I see it is that I'm not really too concerned about contacting at the top or the fall. Basically my opponent's serves usually change a lot of depth and if I'm trying to really focus on one or the other that might be a little bit extra work. Their short serves I'm usually contacting those a little bit more on the fall and on their a little bit longer serves I'm usually contacting those on the top. Just letting the ball come to me and taking it either at the top or the fall whatever that seems to be is the easiest way to backhand flip and get the timing right. Our next topic is putting the backhand flip into play. One thing I think is really important and it's really tripped me up in the past is the fact that the depth change the opponent can serve medium long and if you're trying to backhand flip and you are flipping over the table and it's a medium long ball you're basically taking the ball on the rise and this is a bad situation because usually you eat all the spin and you're not able to get any lift on the ball so typically that ball usually goes in the net. The thing that all good players do really well is judging the depth of the serve and if it's a medium long ball they use the back edge of the table the extra room to take a bigger backhand flip. So for the shorter serves they're swinging more over the table and for the longer serve the medium long ones they're really using the back edge of the table and taking that longer stroke. So another thing you're going to have to do when putting it into play is you're going to have to make a lot of adjustments based on your opponent's spin. So for example on heavy backspins your racket angle should be a little bit more open you should be swinging a little more up your contact point should be a little bit more on the back and side of the ball to ensure that you get a good amount of lift. For sidespin shots you're going to want to hit a little bit more on the side top of the ball and you're going to want to try and drive through the shot a little bit more. For topspin serve the easiest way is to hit more on the top of the ball and just kind of drive through the shot and let the spin kind of do the work and not try to do any more lifting. If it's the heavy topspin kicker you're probably going to want to make sure that you have an open racket and kind of just punch through it as if you're taking a big backswing you're probably at risk for hitting an edge because of the way the ball jumps into the racket. The more spin and confidence you have the more closed your angle can be. So this is why top level players are able to flip so hard and have such closed angles is because they're able to generate a lot more spin and speed and they're also trying to get as much as they can out of their backhand flip to be as aggressive as possible. If you have a really low speed and a low spin flip with a very closed angle and your opponent serves backspin you're not going to get the ball over the net but if you're able to have a very high spin and high speed swing the possibility for you to flip this is actually a lot better. A common question I get to flip to different locations is should I be contacting the ball on different points left or right to determine the location and the answer to that is that most right-handed players still contact the ball on the left side of the ball even if they want to flip wide to the forehand. This is because hitting on the left side of the ball gives you the most options when trying to make adjustments. For example if you're trying to flip a heavy backspin ball wide to the forehand you're going to want to try and get a little bit underneath and it's impossible to get underneath the ball if you're trying to hit on the right side of the ball. So players opt to play on the left side of the ball even if they're trying to go wide to the forehand or wide to the backhand. Another common question is should I be contacting the ball on the left side or the right side based on different side spins and the answer is the same you want to contact the ball on the left side of the ball it's the same answer you get the most versatility to flip backspin balls sidespin balls and topspin balls if you go on the left side just because of the way the human body is stroking the shot. If you're trying to flip from the middle or the forehand corner as a right-handed player it's really important to not move prematurely and to wait until your opponent has tossed the ball and is really committed to their location. If they see that you're moving prematurely they might be able to see that and make a really long serve to the wide corner and get you stuck. Really important to wait until the last second and make a small step to the direction you want to go and then and then complete the step as they serve. Another important thing is not to move in too much when backhand flipping. I think it's important to kind of move in a little bit but don't sell yourself completely on it because if they serve long you're gonna have a really hard time getting back into position and making a good backhand loop if they serve long. The top players in the world are actually really good at moving backwards and it's quite crazy how good they are at this because they have this ability to move backwards and to make a good stroke on the ball. I think it's important that if you're still working on developing your game that you don't move in too much because this ball is actually super high level and it's very hard to achieve the ability to move back and still make a good stroke when caught off guard. Here's a video of Wang Chuqin and I think he does a really good job on this one. He does move in a little bit to make a good backhand flip but he's not entirely selling himself and he does a very good job of getting back into position and making a good backhand loop. So the next topic we're going to cover is how to develop a game-ready adjustable backhand flip. For me developing a good flip has taken a lot of time and the way I practice the flip has actually become a lot more important. What I found really works for me is to kind of isolate two or three different serves and their variations and then try to make those adjustments with the backhand flip. For example, I practice doing a heavy topspin serve and a backspin serve and making the proper adjustments as soon as I see the spin. I find it a lot easier to isolate it to two or three different types of serves so that I can have a lot of success and change between the different variations very quickly and kind of get the reps in. Some common ones that I like to practice are medium long or short and basically in this drill I just have the opponent serving medium long backspin to me or they also serve short backspin and I just try to focus on seeing whether it's short or long and making the proper movement inwards and kind of using the back end of the table like I talked about. Another great drill is to practice short to the forehand or kind of really long to the backhand and this one trains the footwork because you need to kind of like I said move in a little bit as soon as they toss and then complete the movement after and it also helps because you need to move back quickly if you see that it's a long one so being able to see whether it's short to the forehand or long to the backhand while you're trying to backhand flip it's a really good one to create that adjustability. Another great drill is to practice the kick serve and so basically I have the opponent do a kick serve or basically any other serve they could do side, under, dead and my goal is to make the proper adjustment for the kick serve so making sure I don't take a backhand flip with too big of a swing and just kind of using the spin. Another great drill is to practice the medium long to the forehand or short to the forehand and this is because if it goes long to the forehand I want to be able to forehand loop the ball and if it's short to there I'm trying to backhand flip and this is really good because it lets you see the depth and it lets you practice making the right decisions. And last it's really important to make sure that you move back after you flip. It's very common in matches that your opponent will be able to get the ball back if you flip and if you're not in position after your flip then you're probably not going to win the point so making sure that you move back after your flip is really important and just make sure you practice that to get the reps in. Alright so that's the video I hope you got something from that let me know in the comments if there's anything that you felt like I missed or that you'd like to learn more about so yeah and I want to say thanks again for all the positive comments you guys have been leaving it's been really cool and it just makes me want to make more videos so yeah keep leaving this section what you want me to make and I will see you guys in the next one.