How to receive a service

Table Tennis General

Last updated 13 years ago

ted gallo

ted gallo Asked 14 years ago

Hi,

I have a hard time receiving a serve especially with different variation of spin. Is there a way how can i read the direction of the spin? I hope you can help me.

Thank you.


Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb Answered 14 years ago

Hi Ted,

Receiving serve takes a long time to learn. You need to practice this skill a lot. One great way of practicing is to get yourself a good server as a practice partner. Ask your opponent to serve exactly the same serve 10 times in a row. Each time you can adjust your bat to attempt to return the ball on the table. If you keep hitting it into the net, then open up the angle of you bat to counter the backspin. If you keep hitting the ball off the side of the table then use your bat as a rudder to steer the ball onto the table.

Once you can return the serve, ask them to try a different serve. By practicing this, you will learn how different serves react off your bat.

To generate sidespin, your opponent must hit across the ball. The more you practice the more you will see the patterns and learn what type of spin your opponent is putting on the ball.

We will be making a DVD on receiving later in 2010. 


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Eric DSouza

Eric DSouza Posted 13 years ago

On a separate note Jeff, I was wondering what is the training routine amongst the world ranking players with regards to serve receive, how long in a day or week do they usually spend training service receive ( on average) ?

Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 13 years ago

Hi Eric,

Most of the top players in the world would dedicate some part of their practice session every day to serving. From around 15 minutes to an hour per day.



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