Long and short serves

Sally Mander Asked 13 years ago

Hello i have a problen with some serves, i have been taught that every serve that bounces only once on my side of the table should be looped. But i have a small problem, whenever someone does a long side/back spin serve, i always have doubt about the serve bouncing twice on the table, this makes me strike the ball early, close to the table in a bad way do u have a solution? Also, when looping off a long serve when do you wait for the ball to bounce off the table(over the floor) to strike it, or when you strike the ball over the table for making a loop kill? thx

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Sally,

Every player has some difficulty with different aspects of serving.  The best way tp practice this is to get someone to serve a lot of serves like this and practice returning them.  You could even use multiball to get someone to push the ball in this area to watch to see if they are coming long or short.

Watching the ball really closely will help here. You need to see the flight of the ball well and learn the flight in this area.  This will happen if you watch of balls on the same flight path and watch to see if they go short or long.

If the ball is going to bounce only once it is easiest at first to wait till the ball comes off the end of the table. As you improve, you can start to take it earlier and get the swing coming through more horizontally and get more speed on the return.