Which Serve is the Best?

Jeff Plumb Answered 15 years ago

Hi Rahul,

This is an easy one. The best serve is the one that your opponent finds most difficult.

There really is no single best serve. You need to vary your serves when you play an opponent for the first time to try and find out what they don't like. Some players are very good at returning short balls to their backhands but struggle when a similar serve is directed to the forehand. Some players struggle with topspin, others with backspin.

The closest thing to "the best serve", is a serve where you can vary the amount of spin on the ball with a very small change in action. This will make it very hard for you opponent to tell just how much spin is on the ball. And if they don't know how much spin is on the ball it is very hard to return it effectively.