Serving help

[Der Echte]

Hi everyone. It seems like I have had very little to help anyone or this forum as of late. Maybe I could get myself more involved asking all of you the technical aspects of serving? We just got our table in here for the rec center trailer, and the TT table will compete against a billiards table, a foosball table, an air hockey table, and a few couches/tables for 6 x 8 meters of space! So, it looks like the only meaningful training I will be able to do here will be serving!

I have a number of FH and BH serves that I can consistantly land short, but the high percentage ones carry insufficient spin and only help me when I can succeed at disguising them, which I can only do on two or three of them. My goal is for the remaining 9 months to make my serve game so strong, that it I win 90 percent of my servive points up to the USATT 1900-2000 level. I will have to work on the rest of my game when I get back to America.

I would like you all of you fellow forum members and any lurkers to help point out inconsistancies in my form/technique. I will post to here different serve vids focusing on a different serve, then repeat them after I train/improve. I perceive that 90 plus percent of you are a much higher standard than I and can be much help to myself and any lurkers by helping out my service game in a professional manner like the good lot you are.

I will post the first vid sometime in a few hours hopefully and start from there.

There are few rules of engagement. I expect a lot of negative comments. I would not expect to hear anyone say I have pro serves, as I am not even to a good amateur standard. I will not call for an air strike to your IP address if you are harsh, nor will I low crawl into the overlooking hills as a sniper to take you out. I simply want your help .  Thanks Affordable TT friends.

[Der Echte]

Here are the first two vids. FH Side/Bottom.

http://http://www.youtube.com/v/__MxvHVWd0U

http://http://www.youtube.com/v/sfDPcqKVRkU

Have at it everyone!

[Peter C]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj6QxWarDRg" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj6QxWarDRg</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD02s8uTSzw&amp;feature=related" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD02s8uTSzw&amp;feature=related</a>

Hope they help

[pingpongrob]

Der_Etche, your serves are better than mine. Look like I need to do some catching up.

[Der Echte]

Rob, I seriously doubt my serves cut it nor stack up anywhere near those of most of our forum members. You are a nice dude to say that. Maybe one day I make it to OZ to all of you guys in action.

Peter, the youtube vid for Schlager was a first se and had a number of links to other promising vids.

I seek the things that are the kinks to try to work them away. Come on fellows, I won't be upset with one or one hundred honest negative comments.

[ckhugo]

Hi Der Echte,

Couldnt see your blade face/impact from the camera angle, so I wont comment on that aspect.

The 1 thing I would suggest you doing is to bend down a bit more when serving (like how the pro does it    ).

The benefits of doing that are:

1. While start off low, when toss the ball up, you can lift the body center higher and then drop down into impact (step in with the left foot if u like). This allows you to add more body weight into the serve.

2. Having lower stance also gives you more options on the impact zone, eg, short chop serve should be hit at around net height, while long fast topspin should be just below net height. Your current impact zone is a bit too high, hence some of your chop serve goes over in too high of an arc.

3. The movement of body will add a bit more disguise to your current serve.

4. Keeping your body center low after serving, so you can get into looping position quicker. The slight step in of the left foot/body weight triggers the rebound of the body so you recover quicker.

5. Slow down a bit, I know this may be coz its for video, but I think u can slow down a little bit.

So, ya, adding body movement into the serve may be hard to start with, but in a long run it will benefit you.

Also, a little trick for you, when I was younger, as in way younger, I used to practice serve with the lights off and listen to the bounce and feel the serve and ball toss.
This practice has benefits me in a big way that I can almost imitate any serve I see and added confident that even if every single part of my game falls apart, my serve will always be there.

Cheers,
H

[Der Echte]

Thanks Hugo, those are good observations and theory. In V3.0, I will try to make the impact point more visible in the camera view. What you suggest can be implemented right away, but take much time to get way better, agreed such training wil help me out considerable later. Peter, I will eventual be able to see ALL those vids and get ideas/inspiration/tips/clues.

Here is version 2.0 of the FH pendulum side/bottom. I tried to improve some stuff and every other hit try some extra wrist movement or imagine a return to get ready for it. The second vid is where I try to do some mix of side/bottom and side/top short serves. The third vid is my first ever successful atempt at a FH pendulum. It looks real sorry right now, but the ones that got over had better spin and low clearance than my other serves. Once I get the timing and motion down, that serve is going to be a good addition. I would really like tips on how to get that timing and motion correct. I had never before ever landed a reverse reverse FH pendulum serve before last night. I have hope for this serve becoming a viable option way down the road.

http://http://www.youtube.com/v/lRwuXL1LHBQ

http://http://www.youtube.com/v/Z43t3PiUxE0

http://http://www.youtube.com/v/WHrB940-H6M

[ckhugo]

Hi Der_

Interesting reverse pendu serve, its amazing how you get that serve to work like that, while short and has enough spin. It will certainly put some of ur opps off since not many ppl would have seem a serve like that.

Nways, in short & follow on from previous post.

1. Contact point of the ball is still a bit high, it produces good clearance of the net, but it also means good clearances for me to smack it  

2. On your normal serves, try lifting ur left foot rather than right foot and step in a bit more. Think it will help you to get a bit lower, and once you got the feel, feel free to change back lifting your right foot if it feels more comfortable that way.

3. I still think you should slow down a bit, but thats just me not sure abt what other ppl feels.

Cheers,
H

[Der Echte]

2. On your normal serves, try lifting ur left foot rather than right foot and step in a bit more. Think it will help you to get a bit lower, and once you got the feel, feel free to change back lifting your right foot if it feels more comfortable that way.

You are now person number 4 from around the world who has said that this week. That must be some indicator that I do it wrong, eh? I must be dyslexic doing it with the right foot. Alright, I tried that out yesterday and saying I was out of time and rythm was the understatement of the month. I watched some of the serve vids where the guys lifted the left and tired swinging a blade watching. I feel better about it and will go back to work on it tommarow. Thanks for pointing that out Hugo. If I never asked any about this stuff, I never would have identified it and had a chance to get better. I have found my accelleration of the wrist to be a little better and the spin improving, but with anything, the growth is not usually immediately noticeable and takes work and time. Your suggestion of stomping with the left foot will make my movement into the ready position better. In the short run, the serve will be worse, but that step to correct this is sorely needed to deal with the return better as time goes on.

[ckhugo]

Hi Der_,

I think the reason why ppl say lfit and step with the left foot would be:
1. Pros do that, so must be a reason for it
2. PPL copy Pros
3. It is more physically nature for the leading foot to step in for power - if you want to punch someone hard with your right hand, I think 99% of ppl would step in with the left foot, Jab would be a different story (hint hint)  :idea:

cheers,
H

[Peter C]

Whilst I agree with ckhugo about keeping serves short, particularly against higher level players, it does pay to practice long serves too. Aim to get the bounce on the opponents side of the table close to the corners of the table. I've seen this used as a tactic by a good player against someone with weaker looping skills

It's a useful extra to have against players who don't like or don't handle speed well. It's also valid option to throw in against someone who is expecting, anticipating and reading your short serves, because that's predominantly what they've seen. A long serve has a chance of catching them out, as they are less likely to be expecting it.

Don't forget to learn the no spin serve, which you disguise with a deceptive follow through, to fool your opponent into counteracting the spin they think is on the ball and therefore end up playing off the end of the table.

[ckhugo]

hahha, Pete,

Agree.

It was a deli ma I faced a while back when showing Wiz the serves, and I wasn't sure which way to go. Coz,when I did my serve training, I started off by trying to get as much spin as I can while mostly were long serves. From there onwards, I started learning short serves.

The problem I saw with my way was that if someone was playing competitively and before he can generate enough spin/speed on the long serves, those serves were actually becoming disadvantages to the player, since they get attacked more.

Hence, I was also asking Wiz to serve short and funny enough he has developed this short serve that is so short,,,, that it was annoying, hahaha (some shorter built oldies couldn't even reach it properly). While, to me, so many times the ball didnt look like it was gonna make over the net, but it did,,

Anyway, what I was trying to say was, If Der_ is just practicing serves, then he should really practice long serves as well. As for no spin serve, I think this can come a bit later since this would be easier once you grasped the technique of spinning a serve and only then a no spin serve will be more effective.

Pete - any more suggestions?

Ps. I still cant get enough spin in my reverse serve,, annoyingly enough, but since I can do both side-chop & side-top, its still good to mix it in.

I am also doing serves on .... man, dont know what its called.. (look at Wang Hao's usual serve where the blade head leads and point down. And Guo Yue's serve... where blade head points up - hope this make sense ).

H

[Peter C]

http://www.megaspin.net/articles/view.asp?id=325

This is worth a read.

[Der Echte]

I have two no spin serves I use - a short and a long. I set them up both for a popup or long hit by preceding them with a heavy bottom spin. I do practice hitting a long fast topspin as you describe. Until now, I could never hit it worth anything. I never had the timing to move the wrist to the right angle just before impact to hit through the ball without telegraphing it. I feel like I could break it out in a match only now. That serve is important to make my fake topspin double bounce light bottomspin serve more effective. I do believe in long serves. I hit them well. It is the short serves that I feel that I hit with unacceptably low short consistancy, height, placement on comand, spin or deception. I do feel a long serve is important . I long, fast, deep side bottom spin serve can sudden and difficult to judge amount of bottomspin and make the no spin or short serves that much more efective. The more I am able to vary a spin and placement with disguise and be unpredicable, the better off I will be serving. There are so many short serves that I need to work on, it is what I focused to work on. I still would like to hear from many of you what you feel are your more successful serves, how to do them and why you feel it works.