Long and fast backspin serve
Table Tennis Serving
Last updated 5 years ago
Ilia Minkin Asked 9 years ago
I see that people mostly mention short serves with diferent spin variations and fast and long serves with topspin or no spin. But what about long and fast backspin serve? Can it be effective? How to make the backspin serve really fast if it is possible?
Alois Rosario Answered 9 years ago
Hi Ilia,
You certainly can do a long fast backspin serve. It is difficult to get right because the ball tends to float long often if you don’t get the right speed on it. It will require practice but the main thing is to get the first bounce close to you on your side, don’t try to get too much backspin and really hit the ball fast to start with to see how far it goes.
It can be really effective if you get it right because the combination of the speed and the backspin makes it difficult for your opponent to lift.
Thoughts on this question
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Ji-Soo Woo Posted 9 years ago
I find long fast backspin serves are REALLY effective in club competition. I think partly because it is harder to do than a long topspin serve, but also, when receivers see that fast serve coming, their natural reaction is to try and keep the ball down.
Ilia Minkin Posted 8 years ago
Hi Alois,
I have developed a fast backspin serve, but the problem is that it fires back at me :) At my level, when I serve it from my backhand corner cross-court, 99% of the players push it back to my backhand. In theory I should be able to follow it up with a forehand pivot kill and the game is over. In practice some players adjust by pushing it back ridiculously fast. It is easy to do so because the serve is quite fast itself. As the result by the time I pivot I get jammed at the table and cannot attack well. How can I fix this if I want to stick to pivoting?
P.S. I usually have no trouble attacking with my forehand returns of short or half-long serves to my backhand because the ball is slower. But short serves gives my opponent angles that I hate.
Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 8 years ago
Hi Ilia,
Go for the half long serves if that gives you a better ball. The other thing is to slow down your short serves so you are not giving your opponent any speed to work with on their return. Also mix it up with some no spin and topspin serves to upset their rhythm of the fast pushes.
Francisco Cespedes Grau Posted 8 years ago
I can also recomend something to help you with the third ball attack when you serve long and fast, when you serve long and fast and with backspin, still think you will get a fast ball, so maybe you cant do a topspin because you are closer to the table (perfect for half long balls, but not for long floating balls)
Ilia Minkin Posted 8 years ago
> Also mix it up with some no spin and topspin serves to upset their rhythm of the fast pushes.
Yeah, I do this, I also like pendulum long sidespin + backspin/topspin serve that breaks away from backhand.
> when you serve long and fast and with backspin, still think you will get a fast ball,
I do try to adjust my anticipation: against some opponents I know that it will be 100% fast push to my backhand. The only question is to recover fast after the serve.
Viktar Ramanovich Posted 5 years ago
It would be great to see a tutorial of how to execute fast backspin serve like this one: https://youtu.be/Ux-eP9dbrRc?t=69
Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 5 years ago
Hi Viktar,
Here is one that might interest our Premium members Jan Ove Waldner's Fast Serve Down the Line.
Viktar Ramanovich Posted 5 years ago
Hi Alois,
Yeah, I saw it but it's not a backspin serve. The hardest part is to serve fast and create a backspin at the same time. So it doesn't look like a backspin serve: slow and soaring.
Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 5 years ago
Yes, the difference wit the backspin is to come down on contact a little more. You have to slow it a little as the backspin will make the ball fly off the end if you hit it too hard. Also make sure you are keeping the ball low. That will help when you are hitting the ball faster.