Changing grip for serve

Hi Alois and Jeff

Greetings from the Southern Alps of France!  I am retired here (for the skiing and mountain walking) but I have recently started to play table tennis again.  I used to play almost every day in my youth - and then in the league teams on Merseyside in UK

I have found your coaching advice excellent - thank you!  I used to coach tennis and skiing so I appreciate your methods re understanding, demos and practice - superb! We only have a very small club in our (small ski village) with just ten or so players of  a quite wide range of abilities. The best a reasonable club level I suppose.

I have been trying to get used to the 'new' (for me) heavy spin serves - and and trying your methods, which are helping me a lot.  However, my own question relates to how I can best make these serves myself!

So, in particular, why do the top players change their grip when serving - from a normal shake hands to variations on holding the blade itself? Does it allow more spin - and how? When trying this I have found it awkward to regain my normal grip!

Perhaps this is just my age? I am almost 80 - but still keep fit!

Thanks again for your help

Alan

Hi Alan,

The reason that the top players alter their grip for serving is to allow them to generate more spin.  This increased speed comes from the iincreased movement in their wrist.  Instead of the movement being in a sideways deviation it is now in a extension and flexion of the wrist and also some pronation to generate a greater movement range.

For our Premium members we also have a previous video response to Serving grip which will show you in detail towards the end of the video what I am talking about.