Kalinikos Kreanga’s Backhand Mega Spin
June 28, 2006

Kalinikos Kreanga, a backhand specialist ‘par excellence’ presents this central attacking stroke. Kalin Kreanga, Kalin in short, grew up in Romania and played for Greece since he was 17 years old. He has developed a trademark: his backhand mega spin. Like nobody else, he is able to loop with his backhand out of all positions. If he hits it properly, his opponent can expect brutal spin and brutal speed. Sometimes his backhand swings are so spectacular that the spectators are simply amazed. Unbelievable rallies are often the reason for standing ovations and it is difficult to imagine the international table tennis circus without the 34 year old, who has been the public’s favorite since 15 years.

Let’s have a look at the spectacular backhand loop which he calls himself a ‘natural’ stroke.

Pictures A-D: He starts his stroke movement with his legs parallel and more than shoulder wide apart (see 2, picture A). Noticeable is his loose grip of the racket at the beginning of the movement (see 1, picture A). His thumb is spread off, which indicates that Kalin holds the racket very loose during the transition periods of the stroke to relax his forearm muscles.

On picture B Kalin starts to take his body down and takes the racket down to the lowest point. The backhand loop, which we are observing here, is played against a block, counter hit or loop, which means forward rotation, because the racket is very closed during the preparatory swing (3,Picture B) and the swing itself.

Picture C shows very clearly that he bends his knees to take the main body weight down and that he turns the right shoulder forward.

Kalin achieves an optimal pretension of the muscles at the end of the stroke preparation (picture D): - in the arm-, especially underarm muscles through an extremely backward bent wrist (4, picture D) - in the body -, shoulder and upper arm muscles by turning the shoulder forward (5, picture D),and in the leg muscles through the optimal tension angle in his knee joints (6, picture D).

Pictures E – G: The real stroke movement is a masterpiece of human coordination, because all muscle groups mentioned above are involved in the stroke. The so called hand, which usually describes the action of the wrist, plays an important role of course, but Kalin’s backhand loop shows the whole optimal timing of the body action in an impressive manner. The line of the stroke (7, pictures E, F) runs like drawn with a ruler upwards and forward.

The position of the racket is extremely closed when contact with the ball is made. The speed of the racket, supported by all muscle groups, achieves its maximum exactly at that moment, when contact with the ball is made, which we can’t see here but can imagine it. The ball – and that is extremely important – is hit in front of the body and not on the side, roughly in height of the belly button. The body must be over the ball and not lean backwards as we can see it so often with insecure backhand players. Then you can’t control the ball any more and it would probably go over the table. The last picture G shows how much the whole body is involved in the stroke: The playing arm is stretched out to the right and far away from the upper body at the end of the stroke. The left arm moves to the left and provides the necessary balance. The upper body is straight like it was at the beginning of the stroke (picture A).

All in all, we can see an unbelievably perfectly co-coordinated backhand topspin movement. Surely, you cannot copy this movement. It is natural and somehow built in. Even though there may be one or more useful details to help you to improve your own backhand loop.

Good luck.