Serving positions

Alois and Jeff,

I spend too much time thinking about table tennis but I keep going back to thinking about how players always stand on the same place and do the same serves over and over. I know that for a pendulum serve standing on the backhand side maximises forehand coverage of the table. In this modern day backhand shots have become more important. Wouldn't it make at least some sense to serve standing closer to the middle? This also means the ball will travel a shorter distance and so have more spin and cut down on the reaction time for the receiver, particularly if you are trying to mix in top/back/no spin with the same action. I am taking this to extreme as I actually try serving different serves from different parts of the table but I don't get why others don't add more variation.

Hi Nigel,

I totally agree with you.  I think more variation is a key that players don't utilise enough.

I know personally I don't like when the server changes position.  It is s a new look and the angle is different and something that you are not used to.

I encourage all players to add variations into their serving.