Backhand Tomahawk Serve
General
Mike Ivanov Asked 15 years ago
Hi Alois,
Do you know Kong Lunghui, he was once a world champion and he has this backhand serve which goes the opposite of the normal spin. He used it against Waldner in 2000 olympics with great success. I think I got a pretty good idea of how he does it, using more wrist but can you help here? Maybe you can even do it?
Alois Rosario Answered 15 years ago
Hi Mike,
Yes, Kong's serve was very effective. It look so simple but yet was so effective. Kong is one of my favourite platers to watch because of his unbelievable balance and movement.
This serve of his is similar to a Tomahawk serve but using the other side of the bat and hitting it on the backhand side of your body. You could call it the Backhand Tomahawk Serve.
He uses a lot of wrist with the end of his bat going from pointing towards him to pointing towards the net. There was also not much speed on the ball which meant that it was more difficult for the receiver to generate pace on the return.
He used excellent placement and was able to keep the serve short and low enough to make sure they couldn't make a strong return.
I will put it on our list of things to do.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Thoughts on this question
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Ji-Soo Woo Posted 15 years ago
In the past year and a half of table tennis, I have been watching tons of videos, reading instructions and asking questions, all in an effort to expedite progress in the sport. Many world class players are impressive to watch, but I find I get minimal benefit in terms of improvement to my own game. However, one exception is definitely Kong. His motion is just so incredibly smooth and relaxed...deceptively nonchalant. It really simplifies the game for me, and reminds me it's not about swinging as hard as I can. Just before pennant night, it has become part of my routine to watch Kong's demonstration of the forehand topsin versus backspin.
Funny you should mention backhand tomahawk. I've been playing around with a whole range of serves, and could not settle on my main weapon. But at the moment the most promising candidate is the backhand tomahawk. I find, especially off a high toss, I am able to vary placement and spin with only slight variations in the way I hold my racquet...still work-in-progress but hopefully this is the ONE!
Aphrodite Unknown Posted 15 years ago
What is the definition of Tomahawk serve? Is crouching necessary?
It is a very effective serve by the way, combined with the crouching action one can cause a lot of confusion - they never know which side you use, it could be normal or reversed. However I failed to understand how to produce a variation of spin... can you explain a bit? How exactly do one put topspin with the chopping action?
Ji-Soo Woo Posted 15 years ago
G'day Aphrodite
I will leave it to an expert to give a proper definition of a tomahawk serve. It does generally involve crouching but some people (like Henzell) have non-crouching variations.
I can only speak for my own backhand tomahawk but basically it is a sidespin serve (either normal or reverse), but I can add a touch of topspin and backspin by just changing the angle of my blade. With a backspin variation I kind of lean my racquet face back so it is 45 degrees to the path of the ball as it makes contact. Its vaguely similar to Kenta's serve except I do it in front of me and not over my head. For the topspin variation I tend to keep the racquet face almost vertical. It's easy doing fast serves as well which is really effective, and the action looks almost identical.
Leslie Unknown Posted 15 years ago
Mike Ivanov Posted 15 years ago
I see what you guys mean, and I can imagine the kind of serve you're thalking about, but that's not what I meant. Imagine a normal backhand sidespin serve, but now think of the movement of the arm and the wrist. In a normal sidespin serve, the arm and the wrist go across from one side to the other, usually pretty close to your body, while the serve I'm talking about, the racket is pretty much parralel to the table and it litterally swings through with the arm going the same way but the wrist going the opposite. It usually has a lot of backspin but if you twist your wrist to the limit it actually has the oppsosite spin as well. Try it, it's really effective and hard to attack
Ji-Soo Woo Posted 15 years ago
That's why it's confusing with different serve names. When I first read Alois refer to it as a "backhand tomahawk" I had in mind a Kenta kind of serve. At the time, I did think this strange because I couldn't recall Kong ever doing this serve...but I figured perhaps he used to a long time ago.
Yeah, I know exactly the serve you are referring to. It was in one of Kong's instructional videos he did, and I occasionally use it myself (though my version is rather ineffective and I've never troubled anyone with it). There is also a demonstration of this kind of serve by youtube user worldrubber (except it's all in Japanese) which looks really spinny so maybe a serve I will work more on in the future.
Justin Lance Posted 13 years ago
Tevia Sapire Posted 13 years ago
Ji Soo, could you please post a link to this video demonstating it? I'm having trouble finding it. Thanks
Ji-Soo Woo Posted 13 years ago
Jone, to be honest I haven't ever really measured if I'm putting much topspin on the ball - it's more a relative thing. You get MORE topspin (or maybe less backspin) if you keep the racquet more vertical. You can see that if you leant the tip of the racquet back (towards you) you'd get more backspin, right?
As luck would have it, I recently recorded my current range of serves and put it on youtube.
You can see the backhand tomahawk (or my version of it anyway) at around the 1:30 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_Z01deUYs
Tevia, sorry, this was a thread from two years ago and I can't locate the video any more either.