New serve

Aleksandar Ciric Asked 13 years ago

Hello,

So far I have few serves in my arsenal:

1. Tomahawk serves with B and F

2. pendulum and reverse pendulum forehand serve

3. backspin serves with B and F

4. sidespin backhand serve

What new serve could I start to practice and introduce? Also, whenever I serve a long serve, my opponent returns without problem. I always serve them with sidespin. Can you also show some video how to serve good and long (spin, placement, slow motion, etc.)? So far it seams that short serves are superior to long ones, but it would be good to have surprising effect on opponent.

Thank you,

Aleksandar

ps, I dont know if it is any good or possible to serve with topspin?

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Aleksandar,

That is plenty of serves to reach a high level.  You don't need a lot of serves you just need to get the serves you are using better.  The things to work on are variation and deception with your serve.

You are right that serving long should only be done sometimes as a surprise.  I find that when teaching the long serve it is best to forget about getting the ball on the table and even try to hit the ball just off the end of the table.  This will free you up and allow you to hit the ball as fast as you need to for the serve to be effective.

Topspin serves are effective only if they are used with disguise.  Topspin is easy to attack if they know that it is coming so it needs to be disguised.