Table Tennis Serve Practice - Feb 09

[brettknoss]

When is a serve legal and when is it a let serve?

[pingpongcat2010]

I wish I could serve as well as you do. Besides practicing more, any other tips on improving serves?

[TheSuperStarBuck]

i would recommend longer arm swing, like full pendulum. try starting with your wrist tilted as much as you can to right and when you start tossing the ball move your hand almost behind your back with the tilted wrist as the ball descends start the swing and as the the ball reaches the bat start turning your wrist to the left as much as you can. the deception with this technique is amazing all the serves look almost identical sometimes even you may not wich spin is imparted :))

[TheMroreo95]

Great serves. You might want to consider trying to combine the pendulum and reverse pendulum to get a really deceptive. I promise you it works. t will at least give you an easy third ball if not an outright winner. Deception is the key

[95fabbe]

this sucked badly !!!! :S

[ellsibob37]

bit of music wouldn't go amiss

[VWKYT]

Thanks for the tip - Yes, I've actually been working recently on keeping the ball lower over the net ... with good results, as the opponents are less like to attack these serves.

[gravedigger02]

Good serves, but if you don't mind I'd like to give you a tip: Hit the ball lower, to get a flatter curve, that will make it even more dangerous. All these balls in the net show your skills, well done :D

[Re1Mu2R3]

Damn good, nigga! :D

[dude8142]

Nice serving mate! :)

[budactor]

good work! i'm waiting for your services 2.0

[chisuni]

Good but you can make more spin with the arm.

[PreppyPoser1]

Very good services.

[quannimir]

cool stuff buddy how's your progress the last year?

[VWKYT]

I've been progressing slowly but steadily :o)

[pprruti]

@VWKYT I like your serves!!! They are the same as my favorite player TIMO BOLL!!! I hope i can emulate them really soon by watching this video.. Thanks!

[rameshincts]

your serve looks good.. hope u will present a good tutorial video in the future

[taufoofar]

I think it's better to have a double bounce, strong backspin service, rather than a not so strong but short backspin service. That's just me... however, you have some nice serves, but the height still has space for improvement. Move your wrist more, get more spin. You lack spin, but your wrist movement is right, just move it faster.

[jungelman99]

what rubber/how thick are you using here?

[goran4eeeee]

i know this serve in the dream xD

But this is nice servs too ;)

5/5

[Aman12399]

nice ghost. I know how hard it is. I cant even make contact!!

[BeNnYrUsS2]

lol aslong as u get fair backspin n make it short its sure to be a ghost ^^

[utahjai]

You serve good my friend. How is it working with a very good opponent?

[VWKYT]

Thanks.  Regarding the opponents, it depends what one considers very good. At my level, opponents rarely "kill" my serves, but I also don't get very many outright serve winners ... which is actually not something I typically expect, as my main intention is to set up a third ball opening for myself.

[kevinqew]

U have good serves.. i think consistency is the key.

I am trying to learn some of the serves.. how do u get control of the ball toss.. bad out of rhythm tosses break my serves..

Any tips to get the control

[VWKYT]

Yeah, once we get the stroke and spin right we need to work on consistency ... and tosses are definitely critical to making serves consistent.  When I see that my tosses get out of rhythm, I try practicing tosses without serving - just the toss. Also, I might take a deep breath and count to three before every serves, as often my bad tosses are a result of rushing things .... I hope this helps.

[maisum2050]

i like it

[88keyboard]

good serve =)

[VWKYT]

Thanks for the tip. Yeah, I need to improve my wrist action and deception ...

[ywexe]

yeah! gud deception but dude, loom after ur back, ur backbone seems bent...

[VWKYT]

You can make this kind of spin with almost any racket. The one I'm using is from Tibhar.

[ismawwe]

which brand is your racket? butterfy that it has much spin

[JimBobInc]

You know what makes this great, the home made barriers in the background to top the ball going everywhere, we used shower curtains for the backyard hahaaha

[aflyinglemon]

I think that your sidespin serve need a little more wrist action to generate more spin, and your reverse pendulum is very obvious, over all, your serves need to be alittle more tricky, and with a little practice, you will be top class!! excellent video! btw, what rubber do you use?

[VWKYT]

Very good observations, thanks.

I've been working some more over the past few months to snap wrist and make my motions more similar while generating different spins. I might record and upload my serves (hopefully improved) again within the next few weeks.

As to the rubber, it's Nimbus VIP.

[wpt729fx]

You have get excellent spin on your services. With a little bit more deception your serves would be world class.

[VWKYT]

Thanks for the boost. I'm working on getting more deception, but even if I improve it dramatically, I'm not sure my serves will ever be "world class" :-)

[540GuRu]

your reverse pendulum motion is too obvious

[VWKYT]

I agree, there's definitely room for improvement. Good thing that many opponents at my level get "fooled" by the reverse pendulum :-)

[michaelmcguire93]

Another part of how to gain more spin is where about on the bat you hit the ball, for example, at the bottom of the bat (closest to the handle) this is backspin. The middle of the bat side spin and the top of the bat topspin. This can help you get alot more spin and helps alot to disguise your serve. If you did the serving motion for a topspin and yet hit it on the bottom of the bat you can get some degrees of backspin which i have won many a point using.

[krazii78]

wat bat do u use?

[stevema2]

Thanks for this video...when doing these pendulum serves do you always hold the racket flat (like a plate) and cut through the ball or can you bend it at an angle?

I always bend my racket which doesn't let me spin the ball as much as I want on the pendulum serve.

[VWKYT]

The angle of the racket AT CONTACT depends on the type of spin I want to impart: backspin - relatively flat; sidespin - tilted to side; topspin - almost vertical.

However, during backswing, I try to keep the blade under similar (flat) angle regardless of the type of serve, so I don't give away the intended spin easily.

In this vid, I focus on heavy backspin or topspin (little sidespin), hence I contact the ball with racket in either: very flat or almost vertical position.

[stevema2]

Thank you very much. I will try this! This was certainly helpful :)

[VWKYT]

In your case, it might not be the racket angle that prevents you from generating spin. Here are some things you might focus on:

-Brushing vs hitting the ball?

-Point of ball contact for each type of spin? Backspin - under or front of the ball; topspin - back of the ball; sidespin - side of the ball.

-Accelerating swing, especially with wrist, at the moment of contact?

-Contacting the ball too close to the handle? Typically, that part of the blade moves the slowest, which results in less spin

[stevema2]

good one dude! thanks for the tips! I have started to get some more spin especially when I do a side spin serve but brush the raccquet back which makes it side-bak spin...this is exactly what i do for my pendulum side-backspin serve: start the serve as you do in this video, when contacting the ball i put side spin but pull the racquet backwards (this was the hardest to learn!) which gives backspin...you think that's good achievement in a month? :)

[VWKYT]

I'm glad the tips have been working for you. Learning one serve (well) in a month is a great achievement - at this rate, you'll learn 12 good serves in one year :o)

[fitnessvillage]

Could you maybe make a video where you explain these serves in?

Would be appriciated

[VWKYT]

That would be a big undertaking (and a long video) to explain all these serves.

Perhaps I'll try to do something instructional when my work/family schedule permits, but can't promise it will happen anytime soon - sorry.

[ffxme]

love your reverse pendulums

[ignarus]

you've given me some ideas for short serves! thanks! (also sounds like you're practicing on a good table :D)

[tt1688]

Great serves !

[VWKYT]

Thanks - I still have lots to improve, though.

[ffxme]

are the 2nd and 3rd veres top?  it bounces like it, if so you disguise it well, gives me ideas for mine

[VWKYT]

You're correct, the 2nd and 3rd one were topspin.  There are slight differences in my serving motion bet top and under spin, eg: 1) elbow position, 2) racket angle, 3) follow through

[ffxme]

although I noticed your normal pendulums arent as good as your reverses, your topspin is too obvious, maybe execute bs serves with a back swing similar to your topspin and also many bounce high (bs) so I would try hitting the ball lower

[VWKYT]

Very good observation and you're 100% correct .... this is very similar observation to the one I made when watching my video. My regular pendulum definitely need to be better pendulums disguised. Oh, and thanks for improvement suggestions.