How to serve efficiently with short pips

Hin Cheang Asked 7 years ago

Hi, I understand that short pips cannot produce as much spin as inverted rubbers, so using the same serving tactics as an inverted rubber user would be a disadvantage.

I am a short pips penholder with inverted rubber on the back, I can totally twiddle and inverted invert side to serve. Seeing long pips penholders twiddle to serve is really common, however, I have never seen any short pips penholder do so.

For example, Shan Xiaona, Wang Zengyi, Sun Chen, Shiho Ono, Zheng Jiaqi etc.
They all have short pips in the front, inverted on the back.

As they are really high-level players and decided only to use short pips to serve, I believe there must a reason that serving with short pips suit this playstyle more. However, I am unable to find out what the reason is, but I believe it is something to do with setting up the next attack.

I would appreciate it if you can tell me the reason or which are the best types of serves I should do for this playstyle.

Thank you.

Alois Rosario Answered 7 years ago

Hi Hin,

I am not totally sure of this but I would say that the short pips players tend to want the ball to sit up a little so a less spin serve will suit to some extent.

They can still generate quite an amount of spin with their short pips and then tend to use variation in the amount of spin as their major weapon.

← Medium high Forehand ball Replacing rubbers →

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Benzene Chiral Posted 7 years ago

Perhaps by doing a Ma Lin serve with short pips will deceive the opponent that there is a lot of backspin when there actually isn't, they return, the ball will fly high and you can smash?

Occasionally twiddle and serve with inverted to really let them have it?

Aniketh Danam Posted 7 years ago

Best serve : J.O. Waldner's serve

Andy Zhao Posted 7 years ago

He Zhi Wen is a short pimple player. He tosses the ball high to get good momentum on the ball to get more spin on his serve. His serve might work.

Hin Cheang Posted 7 years ago

@Andy Zhao I understand high toss can allow a short pimple to generate more spin because the ball can go into the sponge easier, but the amount of spin would not be greater when comparing to inverted rubber. And my question is when players have inverted rubber on the other side, why don't they use it to serve instead.