ARDS SPRING LEAGUE 2026

 Tomorrow is my first tournament of the season at Ballymena TTC.  I'm playing in the Open and the Over 40s too. Our friend Jong Gil Kim who played for QUB TTC and has now returned to Seoul, South Korea  The tournament is over now and I found it useful and instructive.  Tournaments are important for developing players like me so that they can find their level and gain further practise against better players.  When I played in England there was always provision for improvers like an improvers group or a division 3.  It happens that I won division 3 at the Birmingham Table Tennis Academy and I also got into an improvers semi-final at Warwick leisure centre before being knocked out.  These were very encouraging results which demonstrated that I was on the cusp of leaving the improvers level behind and becoming an intermediate player.  In Ireland tournaments are mostly for performance level and intermediate players.  That's a bit disappointing, th...

 I've used a variety of blades now but the first proper blade I bought, the Donic Waldner Senso Carbon, turned out to be the spinniest.  I bought this pre-made bat and it had Bluefire M2 (MAX) on both sides which turned out to be a good all round rubber with excellent levels of control, spin and speed.  What is it that makes this set up so spinny?  The Waldner Senso Carbon has the feeling of a wood with the increased sweet spot and hence speed that the carbon offers.  In my opinion, it offers a perfect balance except that it loses power away from the table so is only really effective at close quarters.  The speed of this blade is ALL+ but that doesn't matter. When the ball is spinning, the speed is more than sufficient.  Later I bought another Donic blade, the Original Senso Carbon.  It turned out to be a bit stiffer than the Waldner Carbon, classed as OFF by Donic, it has more speed and significant power but the ball spins less.  It all depe...

 I've just returned from summer camp which was held at Nishkam school, Birmingham by the Birmingham Table Tennis Academy from the 3rd to the 5th of August 2026.  The three main coaches there are Ed Lynn, Lee McHugh and Mustafa Manager.  I also did a one to one with former England international Sam Wilson who was forced to retire from the professional game through injury.  I worked on a further refinement and upgrade to my pendulum serve which I'm finding out more about constantly and also how to serve a fast long reverse pendulum service.  Ed Lynn suggested that I work on tomahawk and hook serves since I don't use my wrist much during service.  I found a lot of the stuff we did on serve/receive very helpful and also the work we did on forehand open ups against backspin.  I can now return the ball with quality rather than just merely getting it back over the net.  I'm going to put some of the photos and short videos here for readers to gain an impr...

 This week I tried to develop my serves in terms of the 3rd ball attack.  My spinny serves - pendulum, reverse pendulum, tomahawk, lollipop and backhand - are all quite consistent now so I can predict the returns that come back.  Higher level players are very good at returning spinny serves and therefore a different strategy of serving simple and no spin serves is more usable.  This will take you straight into the rally.  Against higher level players, placement and consistency are more important than spin but against lower level opponents, spin is king. Butterfly Rozena  I also tried to develop my forehand topspin loop.  I noticed that I tend to hit flat on my forehand, a tendency that I have unlearnt on my backhand where I have more feeling and can hit topspin/sidespin combinations which are invaluable in competitive play and generally quite consistent.  I have no idea why my forehand lagged behind but it must be that I put a lot of effort into d...

 This week I've been working on 2 serves that I'd more or less abandoned in favour of the pendulum and reverse pendulum service but re-discovering how useful they can be.  The first is the lollipop or windscreen wiper serve, a serve which had disappered from the game until made popular again recently by French star Alexis Lebrun.  With the assistance of my return board I noticed how much top and sidespin was possible with this serve, a prodigious amount but it must be served short otherwise its vulnerable to counter-attack.  I was unable to serve the backspin version.  I was able to do both the backspin and topspin versions of the hook serve.  There was definite topspin but not as much as with the lollipop serve and a lot of backspin.  This is a definite antidote to my usual backspin serve.  I'd noticed a lot of unwanted sidespin with this, probably a sign that the bat is tilted although it seemed perpendicular.  Its important to look at the ...

 This week I focussed on improving my FH topspin loop against backspin and topspin and also my FH flick, a shot used against a short ball served into the FH.  I did more work on my reverse pendulum service which still lacks consistency but is getting there.  The service I have most difficulty with, for some reason, is the short topspin pendulum service.  Everytime I think I've got it I realise I haven't. Winner of the consolation trophy at the Belfast and District 3rd division singles  I've also been attempting to improve my own game against long pimples.  I happen to own a defense blade which is the Donic Defplay Inner Carbon.  Unusually, it is a defense blade with inner carbon and advertises itself as being for the modern defender.  On the FH I have Donic Bluefire M2 MAX and on the BH Donic Piranja Formula TEC on a 1.2mm sponge.  I decided to start learning long pimples with a thick sponge and maybe later change to OX.  The main thing ...

 Hi, fans of table tennis.  I'm going to post updates here about my weekly training schedule, noting the new serves, footwork exercises and regular and irregular exercises that I'm focussing on presently.  I'm also going to review the materials I'm presently using which will hopefully help anyone out there who's interested in or curious about these matters. Frank, Brendan and Paul win the Ormeau TTC masters team championship  This week I officially gave up interest in short pimples which I thought would offer a contrast on my backhand.  I gradually discovered that my backhand is actually spinnier than my forehand and short pimples definitely not for me although I am beginning to explore it as a possible forehand rubber.  I have used: Donic Baxster 1.8mm sponge Andro Blowfish 2.00 sponge Andro Blowfish 1.8mm sponge Nittaku Moristo SP 1.8mm sponge The ideal blade for SP is a 7 ply wood and the optimum sponge thickness 1.8mm.  1.5mm doesn't work on a carb...