Receiving Long Serves

Andrew Pape Asked 13 years ago

Hi,

On your "serving secrets revealed" dvd, you explain that you shouldn't serve into the forehand hitting-zone of your opponent, else he'll hit a "screaming winner." To hit such a winner, I'm just wondering if you have to read the opponent's spin properly, or just forget it and go for a loop-kill. When I've played A grade players, they have no respect for my deep serves, regardless of whether they're loaded with top/side-spin or heavy chop. Either way, there's no hesitation, just a quick swing and a loop-kill flies past me. I've read that you can hit against any spin, and ignore the opponent's spin by making sure your own spin is greater. Is that what you'd do if someone serves to your forehand hitting zone? Do you try to observe the opponent's spin, or just "go for it?"?

An example is one of my competitors in pennant. He serves to the opponent's forehand often, but he varies the amount of topspin. This has caused my practice partner (a strong looper) to be indecisive and make mistakes. Should I (as well as my practice partner), just ignore the spin and try to kill it, or should we try different returns (say slightly differently executed loops) to take the serve spin into account? My loop is very dodgy, but it works well against no-spin and topspin, so I think I should be trying my loop. These serves should be good practice for me.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Andrew,

If someone serves long to your forehand hitting zone, then you should definitely make a forehand topspin.  If you brsh the ball heavily, it will counteract the spin on the serve no matter what type f spin.  youwnat the ball on your bat for as short a time as possible and generate as much topspin as you can to get the ball spinning in the direction that you want.

We have finished filming Receiving Secrets Revealed and in that we show you how to do this effectively.

So the answer is "Go for it".