Let's take a look at the backhand flick. This is a stroke that you can use when your opponent
serves short or pushes the ball short to your backhand side.
The start position for your backhand flick is to make sure that you've got your bat back.
You can see there, when I have my bat back that my wrist and forearm are not in a straight
line. So that is a straight line, for my start position I'm going to turn my wrist back and
now I've got my bat in a good ready position to play the backhand flick.
The stroke just comes forward and up and over. It's very much like a very small counterhit
stroke. So that's your counterhit. This is your flick.
Wait for the ball to come up to the peak of it's bounce. If you hit the ball too early
the ball is going to be low so that is going to decrease your chances of getting the ball
on the table. Wait for the ball to come up to the peak of the bounce and from here you
have much greater accuracy. The other important part of the flick is to make sure you're having
a nice flat contact. That flatter contact is going to increase the speed of your flick.
Your footwork for the backhand flick is to move your right foot under the table before
you play the stroke. So this is my starting position, I move my right foot in and then
make my flick and come back out again. So here, flick, and out, flick, and out.
The only time you move your left foot in if you're a right hander, is if the ball is wider
out on your backhand side. so then you can move your left foot close and play the stroke.
So how do we determine whether we play with the right foot in or the left foot in? The
key factor is the corner of the table. If you're moving on this side of the corner then
you're using your right foot. If you're moving around that side of the corner then you can
use your left foot.
If your opponent puts some topspin or no spin, or even sidespin on the serve then your bat
angle can be quite flat or even turned slightly forward if there is some topspin on the ball.
But if he has some backspin on the ball then you want to open up the angle of your racket
to allow for that backspin. So opening up the angle of your racket at the start and
then coming forward and over.
Now I'm going to do some no spin pushes and you can see the angle of Jeff's racket.
And now I'm going to put heavy backspin and watch the change in the angle of his racket.
No spin again. And heavy backspin. No spin. Backspin. No spin. Backspin.
So I'm going to start with some topspin serves to Jeff's backhand. You can see that he's
coming over the top of the ball.
Now I'm going to serve no spin and you'll see there won't be much change in the angle
of his racket.
Now let's have a look at sidespin. Again not much change in whether he's closed the bat
over or not, it's still quite flat but he is allowing for the sidespin by using his
bat like a rudder.
Now let's have a look at the backspin serve. You can see that Jeff really needs to open
up the angle of his racket at the start.
The flick can be really effective against a topspin, sidespin, or no spin serve because
off those types of serves you can come forward and hit the ball quite hard. The problem comes
when they serve backspin. With backspin you need to come up and lift the ball over the
net so that means you're going to have a slower flick. That means that your opponent has the
opportunity to make an attacking stroke. So when would you use the flick against backspin?
If you like the opponent to either block or topspin to you rather than pushing to you.
If you like them blocking or topspinning then by just doing a gentle roll or flick that's
the response they're going to give you and then your into a game style that you like.
Personally I like to push the backspin serve back short because I like my opponent to push
the ball back and then make the first topspin attack.