Here’s a lovely slow-mo comparison of Liam Pitchford’s backhand technique versus that of an amateur.
The main things I take from it are:
- his posture – really low with weight forward
- how far in front of his body he strikes the ball – it’s way in front of his head and even in front of his non-playing hand, with impact at the back edge of the table
- the bat angle at the start (forehand side facing ceiling like you’re holding a frying pan)
- as he prepares, the bat’s left edge tilts up a bit and he gets slightly lower
- elbow moves forward (helping him rotate wrist back) but only as far as to create a virtual parallel horizontal line with the table’s back edge. This is the perfect stopping point for wrist pivoting (whereas I’ve let the elbow go further forward which is unnatural)
- uses wrist to bring bat tip way back to point back at his belly button – I think this greater “travel distance” might be crucial versus an amateur’s version of a wristy backhand
- then there’s a little forearm forward movement and a lot of wrist rotation to get the bat to the impact point
- stays low and on follow-through the bat only gets as high as his chin