Fast Reverse Tomahawk

Ittipat Amonrungmetham Asked 12 years ago

Hi Alois

I just watch a clip showing an amazingly fast serve, performed by a Japanese player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDVXPrLVkg&feature=related

Do you know what this serve is called? Is it a no-spin serve?

Any idea how to do this?

Thanks for your comments and any other sharing comments from the reader would be highly appreciated.

Ittipat

Alois Rosario Answered 12 years ago

Hi Ittipat,

This is a fast serve indeed. He is hitting it with the back of the bat, so starting like a Tomahawk and then flicking his bat over and hitting it with the backhand side as he is coming through. It is a Reverse Tomahawk serve and has a lot of topspin on it to bring it down quickly after it goes over the net.

You will find in a match situation it will be countered. Against the best players you just can't afford to serve long and fast unless there you have a good deception on it and you can serve a short serve with a similar wind up.

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Kobe Bryant Posted 12 years ago

Hey Jeff and Alois,

What about you do a video of this trying to do a similar serve as fast as you can.

I think this serve is too fast to attack easily.

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 12 years ago

Hi Kobe,

It certainly is a very impressive serve. I don't think many people will be able to serve the ball that fast!

However have you ever seen anyone use this serve in a real match? I think that under pressure the server would not be able to consistently serve the ball at top speed. As soon as you slow it down a little it will be easier to attack. Also even if you can serve it that fast, the returner could block the ball back and it would not give the receiver much time either. I think that the advantage a good server can get from a serve like a no-spin/backspin variation is much higher than from a serve like this. I could be wrong but I don't think you'll see this serve being used by any of the best players in the World in important tournaments like the World Championships or the Olympics.

Still it's a very impressive serve and I really enjoyed watching the video and appreciated the skill level required to execute it!

Ji-Soo Woo Posted 12 years ago

This is the fastest serve I've ever seen...faster than I imagined you COULD serve in table tennis and still keep the ball on the table. The key drawback for me is that it appears he can only serve this crosscourt (where, of course, there is a lot more table for the ball to drop back down). If that's the case, this would be an easy serve for world class players to punish. If he could use the same motion to serve cross court OR down the line at this speed, then I would imagine it was a potential weapon even against the best players. If he could use the same motion to serve cross court OR down the line OR a short serve with this same motion, then, he'd have the best serve in the world!!!