Hi,
I live in the region of Brandenburg in Germany and play table tennis for more than 30 years now. I wanted to share some of my experience I did not only gain from playing myself, but also from watching thousands of high level matches live or on the internet. I also communicate with professional trainers on some of the topics. If you want to know more about the region I live in you may also consult my photo galleries: http://markus-dick.de/galleries.php It’s in German, but the pictures will tell it all 🙂
Markus Dick
tabletennisdefenders 
Hi Markus, I have a question for you. Tell me something about the advantage and the weakness of the slow forehand counter topspin used by Filus or Gionis when they are attacched on the forehand.
They use only the elasticity of the rubber to return the spin end the touch is quite soft.
Which is the strength of this hit?
Sorry for my english!
Hi Giovanni, there are two different things here:
1. If you mean the soft blocking back of a spinny topspin they get into their forehand. This is a good weapon and one means of returning the ball awkwardly with an unpredictable bounce for the attacker. The inconvenience is: When you overuse it or the ball bounces back too slow you get hammered by the better Chinese players. Look at the Gionis-matches against Europeans: There he is fine. But once he plays people like Wang Hao or Yan An, his block is just follow by a topspin so fast that he can’t get it back any more.
2. If you mean the real counter topspin by Gionis: I would not say that his counter topspin is too slow. On the contrary, he has improves his forehand topspin a lot and it is much more powerful now. But Ruben Filus does not do the same. Often he is just lifting the ball high back from his forehand which is not good enough against better players. But he is attacking with foreahand topspin much more and more aggressively now either close to the table and when moving around to his backhand side to counterspin a slow topspin down his backhand.
Thank you for the answer.
Hi.
Firstly: Awesome job with this side!
I am just about to start learning to play the modern defender… To shorten my possibly long story: Do you know a very tall (1,95m) defender?
Hi Sebastian, I can vaguely remember a French player call Christian Martin: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Martin_(pongiste) I could not find a video on You Tube, but I have personally seen him playing in France when I live there. He is a left hander and quite tall, which is both already very exceptional. Generally speaking a tall defender has one big advantage and one big disadvantage: The inconvenience is that most better players are able to topspin fast into the body of a defender (the “dead angle” if you want) and for a tall guy it is much harder to get himself out of the way. On the other hand you can fish a lot more topspins played extremely into corners since you have a longer reach. In the end it all depend on your agility. If you look at Adrien Mattenet (not a defender) he is quite fast and makes up for a lot of the disadvantages by using “wrist power” and wittiness on where he places the ball.
Thank you for the reply.
I have some serious doubts continiuing table tennis because of me being so tall. It is frustrating. Steffen Mengel is also 1,95 but I dont like his game at all. Going for modern defender seems kinda attractive to me but it is still not easy to decide
Can you do Riyo Nemoto please?
Ive watching this match and all I see is her consistency but I have no idea why she is losing these points!! :
Done:http://wp.me/p25KOm-do
Hey Markus,
I just wanted to thank you for putting this website together! It is an invaluable resource for me. Greetings from Costa Rica.