How To Unleash Deadly Serves
Any player who has played at a higher level will tell you that the most important shot in table tennis is the serve. The serve is the beginning to every rally.
However, many players don’t realize the importance of a good serve. These players normally just keep hitting balls without regard to its importance.
For instance, let’s say you’re playing billiards and only practice sinking shots. If the billiard player doesn’t practice the first shot, the break, then he may never get another chance to hit more balls.
Just as in billiards, if you don’t practice the serve, then you may never win a point. It’s just that important.
By practicing your control, placement, and setting up for an attack, you can dominate a match.
A serve is basically the only shot where you have complete and total control of the ball. This control is what you want because it allows you to set up the point of attack.
Placement of the ball is another key aspect of serving.
In table tennis, playing the ball to a spot where it affects the opponent’s ability to return it is what you want to accomplish. For instance, by playing the ball to the middle of your opponent’s body, you give him a choice to play it either with a forehand or backhand.
However, if your opponent can’t decide which way to return it and has to make the decision at the last moment, that may lead to an attack from you. This placement can then be transformed into going for the attack.
A good serve should also have deception behind it. Since your opponent is watching your table tennis racket, you must deceive him into thinking something else by the spin of the ball or how you hold your paddle.
Try and disguise your serves by making them all look similar in their execution. Better yet, make your opponent think you’re going to serve one way, then do something entirely different!
Above all, make sure to practice your serve. I recommend practicing it two to three days out of the week. Twenty to 30 minutes should be invested to get your serves looking sharp.
Just grab a bucket of balls and start wailing away.
~Don’t forget to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!
November 21st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I had practised service last night…my opponent counter it with a side spin…my problem is I don’t know how to counter it..I’m confused if I will use the forehand block or the backhand chop…
November 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
i practice my side spin serve a lot with other people. The only problem is its easy to return, but it has a lot of sidespin. People say that if it has a lot of side spin it will go off in differennt directions.But whenever i do it, its still easy to return.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Try to use a chop if the return comes back to you with spin. The chop will not only help in decreasing the spin but it will also help to set you up for the smash if you chop the ball close to the net.
December 6th, 2007 at 1:35 am
I had the same problem as Anonymous - lots of side spin but easily returned. (Unlike my heavy regular backspin that were occasionally returned into the net).
I found what heavy sidespin really __does__ is allow you to easily hide ‘the other spin’. When I switched to adding the occasional side/topspin by lifting the racket on contact or letting the ball fall from a great height onto a near vertical racket or by hitting late in the pendulum motion as the racket was coming up, then I would occasionally get pop up returns that were easy to smash or even a few returns off the end of the table. Add in the occasional side/”extra heavy backspin” by hitting earlier or hitting down and across and the serve goes from easier to return to quite confusing for the opponent as long as every serve looks like you are just applying the same sidespin motion.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
[…] important and advantageous skill to master. It can help give you a jump on your opponent’s short serve and when used correctly can even score you a few quick […]
January 14th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
[…] As you might know the top-spin serve is initiated by rolling the paddle over the top of the ball as you hit it. The test is to notice if the ball curves downward in its mid air flight, the more extreme the drop the more powerful the serve. […]
August 30th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I loved reading this and I dont really like to read
September 27th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Really great blog here. Thanks!
February 16th, 2010 at 8:11 am
after a few heavy backspin serves, try a DISGUISED no-spin or slight topspin service. ur opponent will tend to give a return which bounces high on the table. u get a wonderful chance for a smash.
September 7th, 2011 at 1:17 am
ok fren ill try it