Returning Tomahawk serve

Nikola Gajic Asked 6 years ago

Hello, I had trouble playing vs opponent who is serving old school style serve Tomahawk, he had a lot of power and spin on his serves and I was losing in the first 2 shots, I lost the game, we played only one, and every time i tried to push the ball a little bit it would go to out, it wouldn't even go in table, I mostly tried parallel attack on his backhand but I had no chance against his deep serve which made me fall back from table and to play passive I had a role of a chopper that game, and that was bad for me because every time i tried to counter his serve i made a mistake I had no answer on his serve, so can you please tell me how to counter it.

Alois Rosario Answered 6 years ago

HI Nikola,

The main thing when returning any serve initially is to watch the contact on the ball.

Then it is a matter of utilising the angle of your racket to counter the spin on the ball.

Since the serve is coming long and fast you don't need too much power but you can use a topspin return.  Adding topspin will tend to counter some of the spin but you will still need to use your racket as a rudder to counter the sidespin.  Angle your bat to your right, assuming he is a right hander.