Generating enough spin on the Pendulum serve

Serving

Christian Habis
Christian Habis Asked 9 years ago

Hello,

Ever since i decided to use the pendulum serve as my main serve, i found myself not generating enough spin on the ball. Even though, the toss is fairly high, i get a big back swing, then i swing through and brush the ball at the edge of the bat.

The ball ends up being short, but there is not enough spin on it .

My rubbers are still new and they are of very good quality.

Any advice?


Alois Rosario
Alois Rosario Answered 9 years ago

Hi Christian,

Perhaps the thing to focus on is generating more speed with your swing.  Do this by relaxing your wrist and really flicking it through the contact to get that more spin.


Thoughts on this question


Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 9 years ago

A great way to ensure you are getting lots of spin is to move away from the table and try serving the ball onto the floor with lots of backspin. Try to get the ball to spin back to you. Once you get used to doing this then move back to the table and remember the feeling of getting lots of spin. As Alois mentioned to get lots of spin you do need to get your bat moving fast and really brush the ball.

I think getting away from the table helps initially because you aren't worried about keeping the ball on the table. When you are at the table it can feel quite small and a lot of people don't swing the bat fast to ensure they get the ball on the table.


Christian Habis

Christian Habis Posted 9 years ago

Thanks for the tip, but the problem i have with flicking through with the swing, is that the serve ends up being long, rather than short, and im trying to got a short spinny serve. Everytime this happens, my opponent instantly topspins the ball.


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 9 years ago

Hi Christian,

The key is the finer contact.  It is natural that initially it will go longer with the flicking action of the wrist.  That is why the serve takes so long to perfect.  It is a very fine and difficult skill to master to get the fast fine contact consistently.


Christian Habis

Christian Habis Posted 9 years ago

All right , i will try to work on finer contact. Thank you for your help !


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 9 years ago

No problems.  Keep us updated.


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