How do I get feeling in the Reverse Pendulum Serve?
Serving
Felipe Osorio Asked 13 years ago
Dear Pingskills,
I've been working on my pendulum and reverse pendulum serves a lot lately but can't seem to get nearly the same feeling and contact (ergo control and spin) on the reverse motion versus the regular one. I guess I'm just looking for hints that will help me take my reverse pendulum serve to a level where I could reliably play it in a game situation demanding a switch-up service. It seems like a really tricky one to master.
Cheers,
-Felipe
Simon Gerada Answered 13 years ago
Hi Felipe,
This is a common question. What I recommend is that you break down your practice of the reverse pendulum into a few parts. Firstly just ensure that you have the basic action right. Then work on coming under the ball and trying to get the second bounce as close to the net as possible. The key to doing this successfully is repetition. Practice this serve 1,000 times. It sounds a lot but you could do this by hitting 100 serves each session for 10 sessions. Once you've developed some control then you can start really ripping into the serve and trying to generate some more spin.
Recommended Video
Pendulum Serve
The pendulum serve is the most popular serve in all of Table Tennis. In this lesson we teach you the important principles and how to vary the serve between backspin, sidespin and topspin.
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Arnon Thaicharoen Posted 13 years ago
Erriza Shalahuddin Posted 12 years ago
I think high elbow is the key. When I do reverse pendulum serve, I put my elbow near the shoulder level, and it works for me.
Yes, that is good too. The high elbow helps you to reach over the top of the ball and hit it on the other side.
kenneth park Posted 11 years ago
thank you
D K Posted 9 years ago
Where should be the best contact point with bat and a ball?
(I mean where towards the body)
Is it too at the farther hip?
I have a problem that the ball flies very paralelly with the net always.
Johan B Posted 9 years ago
Tomahawk: right above and slightly in front of your right shoulder, if you're a rightie, I'd say. Optimally, you should have enough room to tilt your back the other way with more or less the same motion for a reverse tomahawk.
Backhand: I wanna know this too! It's one of my worst serves :-)
Fayad Rahman Posted 9 years ago
Hello Pingskills,
Lately I have observed that you can get more of the spin effect with the reverse pendulum serves on complete swing of the ball. But on stopping the swing right after the contact seems like it has a very little effect on the ball movement due to the spin after the ball bounced first on the server's side and even after crossing the net to the receiver's side of the table. Does this really make a difference?
With regards,
Fayad.