How to Play a Backhand Push in Table Tennis

Last Updated on April 25, 2024 by Alex Horscroft

What Is a Backhand Push?

The backhand push is your main form of dense against backspin shots. It is a basic stroke, and many players find it easier to learn than the forehand push. This is partly because you strike the ball in front of you as opposed to the side.

While some people hate pushing and find it tedious, it is absolutely essential to learn. The modern table tennis game is largely one of attack. That is, whoever can initiate the superior attacking shots first will likely win.

And pushes are the best way of ensuring your opponent is not first to secure that crucial attacking stroke. What’s more, most players tend to pin each other on the backhand side, as the attacking backhand strokes (drives, smashes, loops, etc), are weaker than on the forehand side. As a result, you use more backhand pushes than forehand pushes, so you’d better make sure your backhand push is high quality!

When Should I Play a Backhand Push?

Should

Backhand pushes work against balls with no spin, light backspin, heavy backspin, sidespin, or light topspin.

They are best played when you are close to the table. This is because it is easier to keep the ball short and prevent your opponent from attacking. If the ball lands long, you should seek to attack, only push if you are unable to.

Shouldn’t

Pushes are relatively versatile, but there are definitely instances where you should avoid using them.

The first that comes to mind are balls that are fast or loaded with heavy topspin. For such balls, if you can’t counter-attack, you should use a block.

Effective vs Ineffective Pushing

As mentioned earlier, generally speaking, in table tennis those who attack first are at an advantage. And pushes are one of your core tools to ensure you secure this first crucial attack.

But you need to use the push correctly to achieve this.

This means you need to understand what constitutes an effective push and an ineffective one. While long pushes, those that bounce once on your opponent’s side, can be useful, you should use them sparingly. This is because your opponent can more easily attack them.

Short pushes, on the other hand, are a far better choice in most circumstances. As these pushes bounce twice on the table, they significantly cut your opponent’s attacking options. Loops, smashes, and drives are pretty much off the table, Instead, the only real attacking option they have is the flick. And these are far easier to react to and rarely win points outright.

Medium Long vs. Medium-Short Pushing

Would you be surprised if I said you could consistently place the ball long and still prevent your opponent from attacking?

Because you can. Let me explain.

There are two types of pushes that work hand in hand with one another. Think of them as the Goldilocks zone of pushes. These are pushes that are medium short and medium long. Where medium-short balls just bounce twice on your opponent’s side, medium-long balls narrowly miss that second bounce.

Now, these medium-long balls are free for attacking. But unless your opponent has crazy good perception and awareness, chances are they won’t attack these balls. They won’t realize they can attack until the ball is too close to them, forcing them to push. You’d be surprised how effective they are. I still struggle with medium-long balls to this day unless I am training multiple times per week.

Using a mix of both medium-short and medium-long pushes is a highly effective strategy. It often prevents your opponent from attacking, and also increases your chances of opening up first as medium-long pushes are hard to return short.

How to Perform a Backhand Push

Step 1: Stance

• Stand within an arm’s length of the table. The optimal distance to play a push.
• Your feet should be around shoulder-width apart. You can go slightly wider if it is more comfortable.
• You should stand roughly square to the table. With almost all backhand strokes your feet are roughly in line with one another.
• Weight on the balls of your feet. For balance purposes.
• Knees slightly bent. Helps with your balance and movement.
• Leaning slightly forward. For the same reasons.
• Have your elbow bent about 90°. In preparation for your stroke build-up.
• Bat should be in front of you. Roughly in line with your shoulder

Step 2: Build up

• Move your bat backward to your mid-section. In doing so close the angle at your elbow.
• Open your bat angle to around 140°. This is an approximation for the incoming backspin. Make sure to adjust as needed, the more spin there is, the more you open your bat angle.
• Move your feet. You should position yourself so that you play the backhand push directly down the center line of your body.
• Keep your wrist straight. This gives you one less element to think about and promotes a cleaner more consistent backhand push.

Step 3: Striking the ball

• Use your elbow to meet the ball. Unlike the forehand push, your forearm does not dominate. Most of the force comes from your elbow.
• Contact the ball at the top of the bounce or just before. Gives you a large window to play the push.
• Strike forward and downward at the bottom of the ball. Use a brushing motion to generate backspin.

Step 4: Finish and Recovery

• Follow through the ball until your arm is only slightly bent. Like your bat angle, your elbow angle finishes at around 140°.
• Your bat should finish in line with your eyes and the direction you play the ball. This is because you face the direction of play.
• Return to the ready position. In preparation for your next shot.

How to Adjust Your Push to Incoming Spin

To newcomers, spin can be quite confusing. This is because very few sports replicate the spin-orientated nature of table tennis. But in actual fact, the concept of spin is fairly simple. Especially when we look at backspin in isolation.

When your opponent pushes the ball towards you they generate backspin. Although you can’t really see it, the ball is rotating in an upwards direction from your angle. To stop the ball from going into the net, you must produce your own backspin — this rotates the ball in the opposing direction.

The stronger the incoming backspin, the greater the inclination for the ball to shoot downward. This means you have to use a more open bat angle. See the below diagram for a clear example of the appropriate bat angle for both a light backspin and heavy backspin push.

How to Produce More Backspin

As you begin to improve at playing backhand pushes you can start to implement more spin. Unlike the forehand push where players seldom use wrist action, the backhand push is perfect for engaging your wrist (provided you are ready!).

The process is fairly simple. And I recommend starting with only slight wrist action and working your way up. The only change you have to make to your existing stroke is to slightly bend your wrist back towards your body in anticipation of your push. And then, as you make contact, flick your wrist forward and downward to meet the bottom of the ball.

As you become more confident you can strike harder — provided you make light contact. Otherwise, the ball will fly off the end of the table. At its most extreme, you can produce very heavy backspin. The kind that many players will not be able to attack.

Recommended Videos to Help You Learn the Backhand Push

I really like this video by Ping Skills. They cover all of the main points of the backhand push, and it’s the perfect video to quickly watch for reference as you are playing as it’s only 3 minutes long.

For a more detailed look at the push check out Tom Lodziak’s video. He covers the technique, common mistakes, and some drills. It’s more or less everything you need in one video.

Common mistakes

1. Not striking the ball in front of the body. If you hit the ball off the center line you lose control, accuracy, and power.
2. Fully extending your arm. While you need to follow through with your stroke you should not extend your arm all the way. It is unnecessary and increases your recovery time.
3. Bending your wrist. As you improve you can begin to flick your wrist to produce more backspin. However, at a beginner level, this is counter-intuitive as it will increase the number of mistakes you make.
4. Poking the ball. Beginners often poke the ball rather than brushing it in a controlled manner. As a result, it’s very hard to apply the correct amount of force and keep the ball short.
5. Not following through. If you don’t follow through you run the risk of stopping the stroke too soon which will result in you under-accounting for the backspin on the ball.
6. Striking the back as opposed to the bottom of the ball. This is a very common mistake. It feels unusual to hit the bottom of the ball but you must for the push.
7. Hitting the ball straight off the bounce. At a more advanced level, this can be great to catch your opponents off-guard. But generally, you should hit the ball around its peak height.

Next Lessons

My first recommendation is to make sure you are familiar with the forehand push, backhand drive, and forehand drive. If you are, the backhand flick could be a good next step. It’s much harder than the aforementioned strokes.

However, it pairs very nicely with your pushing game. The banana flick, in particular, is a great tool to open up from backspin when the ball is short.