Purpose: The purpose of this study was to observe the influence of two different table tennis shakehand grips on biomechanics during backhand flick. Methods: Fourteen collage male table tennis athletes who are shakehand-griped players participated in this study. They were asked to successfully perform three trials of backhand flick using two types of shakehand grips: the western and eastern grips, respectively. The ball velocity was measured by a speed gun and eleven infrared cameras were used to record the movement of the trajectory of reflective marks attached on players’ body. The collected data was analyzed by a MATLAB software and then being contributed to a paired sample t-test. Results: There are significant differences in four variables which are the ball velocity (the western grip is faster than the eastern grip), angle of shoulder joint at the beginning of backswing (the eastern grip has greater external rotation angle than the western grip), angle of shoulder joint at the end of backswing (the western grip has greater internal rotation angle than the eastern grip) and wrist angular velocity at the end of swing (the western grip has higher velocity than the eastern grip). Conclusion: This study showed that the western grip showed significantly greater biomechanical merits than the eastern grip during backhand flick. It is recommended that the instructors can introduce the western grip to players to improve the performance on increasing ball velocity.
