Nowadays, table tennis players like to use the horizontal paddle, and fewer and fewer people use the straight paddle, why?

There are only 2 mainstream grips for table tennis, the straight grip and the horizontal grip, but there are a lot of fans who have invented some non-mainstream grips, such as diagonal grips, switch grips and so on, all of which are entertaining for the fans to try and are not very practical in the real world.

There is also a difference between a straight grip, which is subdivided into 3 types, shallow grip, deep grip and normal grip. Shallow grips are generally used by amateurs to make the wrist more flexible and to cover the weakness of the backhand, but they are not good for power.

Professional athletes have two types of grips, the deep grip and the normal grip. Like Wang Hao and Marin's normal grip, Qin Zhijian and Xu Xin's deep grip is commonly known as the "big pincer grip", which may be related to their big hands.

There is no major difference between these two grips, but there are some minor differences. The vise grip is better for power, especially on the forehand, but not as good as the normal grip in terms of wrist dexterity, e.g. on in-ball handling.

There are also athletes who fine-tune their grip when converting their forehand and backhand, which is a matter of personal habit and difficult to distinguish between good and bad.

No matter how you grip it, the strength of the straight-edge is the flexibility of the wrist, so the serve and the in-ball are excellent, and the first three boards are its killer. But the backhand is the weak point, especially when dealing with long underspin. This is exactly the reason why straight crosscourt was invented in the first place. Of course, nowadays the straight cross-court stroke has been systematized, not only dealing with downspin, but also all kinds of no-spin, topspin and side-spin. But other than Wang Hao, other straight-edge players, including Xu Xin, are still a loophole when it comes to countering topspin.

There are also various grips for the crossboard, depending on finger position and force, but they are similar, not superior or inferior, depending on individual characteristics and habits.

The biggest advantage of the crosscourt is that it is balanced on both sides, and because of the grip, both forehand and backhand strokes are very well coordinated. The weakness is that the wrist is not as flexible as a straight board, and it is slightly worse than a straight board in serving and in-ball.

But Waldner's invention of the Watt-style serve grip basically solved the problem of cross-court serves. And, over the years, with the development of technology, such as the emergence of the king screw, to a large extent to solve the problem of crossboard in-ball handling. At present, the crossboard is only in the theory of the existence of picking hit is not as bad as the straight board defects, other aspects of the disadvantage is almost no longer, which is also a major reason why the current crossboard accounted for the majority of the absolute majority.

At the same time, the successive reforms of the FIVB have been aimed at reducing spin and increasing rounds. This is really objectively unfavorable to the straight board, reducing the advantages of the first three boards of the straight board and magnifying the weakness of the hold is not as good as the horizontal board, which is also an important factor in the current straight board athletes are getting fewer and fewer, and the results are getting worse and worse.

Looking at the trend of the world champion can be seen, whether it is the Olympic Games or the World Championships, the straight-board world champion is getting less and less. In addition to Wang Hao, there is no one who can fight with the horizontal board on the backhand hold, the results naturally do not go, so this is the other side, the survival of the fittest, the athletes playing the straight board is less and less.

Now table tennis training basically from the age of five or six years old, on the road to table tennis professional athletes, you have to go all the way to PK peers kill out. Comparatively speaking the horizontal paddle is far less difficult to teach in basic training than the straight paddle. The straight racket requires mastery of finger control from the beginning of training, whereas the horizontal racket only needs to be trained up to the wrist action. Moreover, it is easier for children to grip the racket, and it is easier for them to hold the racket steadily. In beginner's training and competitions, it's easier to get results with a crosscourt racket than with a straight racket. At the starting line, you are pulled away from the distance, and you can imagine how difficult it is to catch up. And it takes patience for coaches and parents to wait. Moreover, since the straight racket has a cross-court technique, it is much more difficult to train. The cross-court racket practices two-face movements, while the straight backhand has a two-face technique that requires judgment, cross-court or push block. In today's table tennis technology, the pursuit of complexity to simplicity, to win by force. Straight racket technique is too complicated and diverse, but it becomes a constraint. Wang Hao was able to excel because he simplified his backhand, and Xu Xin was unable to excel because his backhand was too complicated and did not have enough killing power. The horizontal racket is like the Huashan Sword Sect, and the straight racket is like the Qi Sect. The horizontal racket is a master, may straight racket is still in the hard practice, can't stay up to become a talent has given up.

Straight paddle is difficult to practice, the success rate is low, especially in the early stage, need to pay more than the horizontal paddle to maintain the same level of effort, and the backhand of the straight paddle has always been a weak point, need to make up for the superb footwork. If the crosscourt is not as fast as the crosscourt forehand and backhand transitions, it's physiologically determined and can't be changed. Moreover, the fast dexterity of the straight-board has already been restricted by the International Table Tennis Federation's rule change ......

With the development of table tennis, the cross-court style of play has become more and more important, while the straight-board style of play, which was born in China and has created countless glories, has become more and more difficult to survive. In fact, for a competitive sport, the rise and fall of a style of play is fundamentally rooted in the competitiveness of this style of play. The diminishing number of users of the straight-board style of play is to a large extent related to the declining competitiveness of the straight-board style of play in the current era, and the declining competitiveness of the straight-board style of play has a lot to do with the shortcomings of the straight-board style of play itself, as well as the reform measures that are constantly being introduced by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITF).

First of all, from the point of view of the characteristics of the straight-board playing style itself, the straight-board playing style focuses on the delicate control of the first three boards and the quick attack of the forehand, and the traditional straight-board playing style pursues the all-day forehand attack, to a large extent, because of the natural defects of the straight-board playing style in the backhand position. Due to the grip of the straight board, the backhand position, whether it is downspin ball attack or topspin ball holding and crossboard compared to the slightly insufficient, although the straight board cross-court once seemed to solve the shortcomings of this board, but the problem is that in addition to Wang Hao outside, and no one can really straight board cross-court to play to the extreme. Many grassroots coaches are still immature in their teaching of the straight cross-court stroke.

Secondly, from the point of view of the FIBA's rule reform, the FIBA has continuously launched reforms in the past ten years, from "small ball to big ball" to "organic to inorganic" to plastic ball reform, the purpose of which is, to a large extent, to reduce the speed, The purpose of these reforms is to reduce the speed, increase the number of rounds, and improve the spectacle so as to attract more spectators to watch the game. These reform measures are almost every piece of the International PingBing Federation is a major blow to the straight playing method, the ball body to increase the speed reduction, in fact, weakened the straight playing method depends on the survival of the front three board advantage, holding rounds increase requires players to pay more attention to the quality of the ball, the front and back hand need to be more balanced, which largely hurt the straight playing method of the front hand killing power and amplify the straight playing method of the backhand holding ability of the weakness of the straight board playing method.

However, despite the fact that there are fewer and fewer users of the straight-board, the straight-board still has an irreplaceable charm, such as in doubles matches, the straight-board player still has the ability to launch the cross-court method is difficult to match.

Let's talk about my own example. When I watched Liu Guoliang Kong Linghui play, I was hooked on table tennis, and at that time, I was still in elementary school, and a few friends started to learn on their own, no one to teach. Because of Liu Guoliang's fascination, I chose to use a straight paddle, and when I first started to learn it, the tiger's mouth was very painful and often worn out. And often can't beat the partners holding the horizontal racket, after practicing for a period of time to understand the strengths of the straight board in the forehand front three strong attack, there is a period of time to focus on practicing the front three boards, practicing the success rate of the ball, the winning rate slowly came up. Later, when we all became familiar with the ball, the weakness of the backhand was enlarged. I remember very clearly to receive the backhand angle of the ball must move a lot of feet to do, often hit back and forth running, and then forced myself to stretch the arm, practice backhand power, until the backhand can push the opponent's pull shot. In addition to the straight board playing has been to figure out how to give the opponent a set, from the start of the serve to count, through the rotation, change, inducing the opponent back to the area where I can power grab attack. Because my forehand is my strength, my opponents often intend to fight with me in front of the net, and after realizing this, I practiced a period of power in front of the net. Personally, I feel that there are strengths in the straight game compared to the cross-court game, but there are too many weaknesses, and athletes have to pay more to reach the same level of the cross-court game. The constant rule changes by the FIBA have been cutting down the advantage of flexibility of the straight board, while the crossboard is more balanced and adapts faster to the rule changes, so the crossboard has a higher rate of success.

Hello, this is indeed an objective existence, nowadays, table tennis players are basically horizontal boards, and straight boards are getting less and less.

I work as a coach in a local private center. There are hundreds of kids registered, all crossboards, no straight boards.

One of the simplest reasons for this is that, from the point of view of the grip, the horizontal board is more in line with the physiological characteristics of the hand, in short, it is comfortable to hold the board. The reason why Chinese people used to have a lot of straight boards, especially at the amateur level, is that there were a lot of straight boards on the market in the past, and we were used to using chopsticks, so it was easier to grip a straight board.

From a professional point of view, the crossboard can be used on both sides. With a straight grip, you are limited by your wrist, so you can grip it and feel it for yourself. Now the straight board, despite the straight crosscourt, but on the naturalness of power, comfort, or crosscourt is more natural. Simply put, a straight backhand is not as smooth and powerful as a crossboard. So relatively speaking, it is not easy to train a straight board player. It's even harder to get results!

Wang Hao's straight-board cross-court game is a special case, his backhand power even exceeds that of his forehand, but not everyone can be Wang Hao. Like the current Huang Zhenting, Xue Fei, Zheng Peifeng and other straight board players, backhand has is there, but far from the level of Wang Hao. As for Xu Xin, the backhand cross-court has never been a complementary and excessive.

The status quo can be seen from the fact that hundreds of small children in a grassroots ballroom have no straight boards. The same is true for other training organizations, where having a child with a straight board is like having a baby.

Straight boards are not going away, and will not die out, our country has a rich heritage of straight boards, there are too many fans playing straight boards in the private sector, it's just that the professional level is now a bit embarrassing. The country now has some special policies in order to protect straight boards.

For example, in the National Games team, there must be a straight-board player. Why do you want to protect the straight board? The main reason is the tradition and sentiment, and the soil in China, which is full of ping pong geniuses, may not be able to produce a piece of genius like Marin and Liu Guoliang one day.

In fact, both the horizontal and the vertical have their own strengths and weaknesses, and each used to lead the world ping-pong world for decades. Since the early 1950s, Japan's Dietrichson in the racket pasted a piece of sponge, the invention of the far platform after the fast attack, the straight shot playing method that began to rule the world ping pong world. Later on, the Chinese modern fast break broke Japan's long-distance fast break, and the Chinese started to dominate the world ping pong scene. During this period, the Chinese straight racket ruled the world. It was not until the 31st Bengtsson Championship that the horizontal style was revitalized. Along with China's dominance, the FIBT opened the sanctions of the real team of national ping pong. Small ball to big ball, big ball to plastic ball, and then change 40+, 21 points to 11 points, in short, is the Chinese style of play want to put the dead block and then fast. Even appeared to tennis rules close to further increase the diameter of the ball, increase the height of the net, increase the rumors of the ball table. Imagine in such a siege under the straight playing method can still go how far?

First: with the innovation of technology and ball size change, material change, the straight racket has no advantage on the first three boards and small ball handling, now the table rolling swing control is almost rarely used, are directly twisted and pulled up to play the hold, the hold of the straight racket is relatively weak, the guarding area is far less than the horizontal boards;

Second: for beginners, the straight racket grip is more awkward, and easy to grind fingers, and the two equal conditions are the same.

Secondly, for beginners, the straight racket is more awkward to grip, and easy to grind the fingers, and two equal conditions of two people practicing the same amount of time, the horizontal racket level is higher than the straight racket;

Thirdly, foreign players are basically the horizontal racket, the horizontal racket is now the hegemony in the world, and the ones who can achieve results are also the horizontal racket majority, which is even more obvious in the women's players, basically there are no straight racket athletes, the men had Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Wang Hao, and now there are only Xu Xin, but Xu Xin has been the only one left. Xu Xin, but Xu Xin's singles performance is far worse than the above three players, now it is difficult to fight with the top cross-court;

Fourth: the advantages of the cross-court are more obvious, the guard area is large, the forehand and backhand are more balanced, the forehand and backhand are easier to convert, the hook hand serve is very covert, the table twisting and pulling technology has matured, the table ball has been well strengthened, and the middle and far table are even more obvious advantages;

Sixth, the backhand of the straight paddle is weak in aggressiveness, basically as a passive defense, the straight paddle cross-court is relatively poor compared to the cross-court backhand, the power is relatively poor, just the landing point of the hidden better! The only one who has really made a mark in the cross-court game is Wang Hao, so it's difficult to see how difficult it is!

In summary, the use of straight racket is indeed less and less people, especially newcomers, young people, many of the older generation of people with a straight racket, there are also a lot of people changed into a cross-court racket, I have a lot of friends around the straight to cross, which may be the trend! I don't know if it is possible to invent a new technology that can change the fate of the straight racket! We'll see!

One is that the ball is getting bigger and bigger, the advantage of the straight racket is getting smaller and smaller, in the future the ball will be changed to be as big as a tennis ball, then it will be directly on the tennis racket; and another one is that the invention of the horizontal racket's twisting and pulling technology will make up for the disadvantage of the small ball in the horizontal racket's table in the past. The change of rules and the improvement of technology led to the survival space of straight racket is almost gone. In short, it's a consequence of the IPL's all day scare hoochie changes.

The problem is actually very simple ah, because Wang Hao only want to take the silver medal, ready to even the number of the silver medal ancestor, so must practice straight racket