Which serve is best for an attacking player?

nick vlachopoulos Asked 10 years ago

Hi Alois,

I am an attack player. What serve should I use?

thanks,

Nick

Alois Rosario Answered 10 years ago

Hi Nick,

Each player will develop a series of serves that will help them. Some suggestions for serves you can use are the Pendulum serve, Tomahawk serve, Backhand serve and Reverse Pendulum serve. We cover these in our Serving Secrets section.

As an attacking player you are trying to make sure that your opponent can’t attack first and also gives you a little higher or longer ball that you can attack.

Experiment with a few different serves for yourself and see what suits you.

← Pro serving style seems inefficient to me RPB →

nick vlachopoulos Posted 10 years ago

thanks Alois!!!

Dieter Verhofstadt Posted 10 years ago

If I may add in on this, I think it also depends on the level you are playing.

For a long time I have served 80% short because "the opponent cannot attack it". The problem is that defenders like these balls and use your short serves to move into a pushing game, which they are stronger at.

Now I have switched to long serves at least 50% of the time, which at my level players have a hard time returning well, because of the reduced time to react.

I know that when I move up the ladder, I'll have to get back to short serves again because at that level players do find a way to attack fast serves.

My 2 cents.

Dieter

Marius Darian Posted 7 years ago

I would say that the pendulum serve is the best serve for an attacking player, as it allows him to pivot and use his forehand from almost the entire table.