The following observations are of course my personal view and do not claim to be the “truth”!
Here comes Linda Bergström (Sweden):
Strengths:
- good but not tremendous footwork
- heavy chop when defending heavy topspins
- versatile serves
- good mixture of defending and attacking
- good blocking and smashing with pimples out
Weaknesses:
- sometimes twiddles the bat without any need or system
- backhand defending could be a bit more consistent
- forehand defence goes up too high too often.
- not using enough wrist to chop down the ball when defending thus returning quite a few balls too high.
- forehand topspin too inconsistent especially when far off the table
- a bit to vulnerable to tricky and fast serves
Suggestions:
- she should twiddle the bat according to whether it makes sense or not which means according to what stroke the attacker played or is most likely going to play
- she should practise forehand counterspinning with sidespin from forehand side. The trainer should double check the technique (the body is not turning, only the arm which is not powerful enough on the long run and produces too many errors)
- practise consistent returns on tricky serves
- practise defending lower and more consistent with forehand. Learn chopping either with “float” with pimples in or with long pips on the forehand.
- practise footwork especially when having to defend balls from into her body
tabletennisdefenders 