Proper progression to get better with serving

john dowd Asked 3 years ago

Alois,

Thanks for answering my previous question about bats.  I wound up getting a Yinhe Earth 3 with Palio Hadou rubber and its working out nicely so far.   I have a question regarding how to get better at serves from a progression standpoint.  I have been working on my pendulum serve and have started to feel pretty good with the basic sidespin with a bit of underspin.  I can do an underspin only - but I whiff more than I should and I think Im starting to hit the topspin sidespin occasionally but since Im basically a basement player Im not 100% sure what Im doing wrong and haven't had any lessons - so Im trying to teach myself from YouTube videos (I do aspire to someday join the local club when Im better and won't be embarrassed).  I have a decent backhand serve and am working on topspin sidespin and backspin sidespin.  I have goofed around with the tomahawk and reverse pendulum for fun - but Im not ready yet.  Anyways - my question is, is there a proper progression to get better on serving.  I practice fairly often since I can do this by myself.  Should I master one thing first - say pendulum sidespin working on spin then placement? or is it good to spend a bit on all the variations of pendulum service.  Just looking for some guidance.  Thanks!

Alois Rosario Answered 3 years ago

Hi John,

I would start with one serve like the Pendulum serve.  I would work at first getting the motion of the general serve and getting as much speed with the wrist and forearm.  Then focus on getting a good contact on the ball while doing that to generate as much spin as you can... even if the ball isn't going on the table.

When you feel you are starting to get a reasonably consistent contact on the ball you can move on to thinking about controlling where the ball is going... firstly on the table and then progress to different placements on the table.

From there you can start to think about variation of contact to get different types of spin.

With all of these steps there will be progression and regression of the skills over time.  The process can take 6 months to get a reasonably good serve to use in crucial matches.

Hope this helps.