Tilting the bat backspin pendulum serve
Serving
Yaron Cohen-Tal Asked 6 years ago
Hi,
I'm trying to learn the pendulum serve, which seems so complex and with so many combinations of weird movements. I was watching your video "Pendulum Serve" and it contains many shots of Jeff doing the backspin pendulum serve, so I thought I'll just watch it several times and try to imitate it. But then follows many shots of Alois doing the backspin pendulum serve, and it doesn't look quite the same at all (and I don't just mean because Alois is left-handed...). It seems like, as Jeff hits the ball, he tilts the bat significantly so that it almost faces the wall that's behind his side of the table. However, when Alois does (what's supposed to be) the same serve, I didn't see that happening at all, not even slightly. So it left me confused as to how I should go about trying the serve and who of you 2 I should try to imitate...
Alois Rosario Answered 6 years ago
Hi Yaron,
If you watch the video you will notice that at the point of contact both of our bats are basically the same with a flat angle.
After the contact Jeff turns his bat more backwards and I keep my bat moving forward not he same plane.
Both of these are fine, the most important part is the angle of your racket on contact.
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The Float Serve
The float or no spin serve is an effective tool to have in your bag of serves. It adds good variation to your serves and can often set you up with an easy 3rd ball opportunity.
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Yaron Cohen-Tal Posted 6 years ago
Hi Alois,
Certainly it would be much simpler to do it like you did, keeping the bat on the same plane. So why did Jeff tilt his bat? Certainly there must be some advantage, as it makes the movement of the bat much harder.
He does this to add deception to the serve. It is mite difficult to tell the amount of spin.