Some Key Points on Your Serve
Here’s a few points you’ll want to check into to improve your serve.
An important factor in your serve has to do with the speed of your wrist movement. To maximize your backspin you want to snap your wrist like a whip. You don’t want to follow through.
The quicker the wrist movement upon contact with the ball, the more spin.
This also makes your ball slower, making it easier to control your distance. A lot of players trying to do spinnier serves try to hit it harder, sending the ball flying off the table. A quick snap will spin the ball with less speed. If you want more speed, then you incorporate a bit of a swing.
The angle also plays an important role. More backspin, more open bat, sometimes even flat.
Samsonov generates a heavy quick spin by throwing it up so high. And he gains a lot of his points from his massive reach and good ball placement. Ma Lin also throws the ball quite high, but he also mixes it up with some lower tosses.
Timo Boll’s serve contacts the ball in different places of his body, sometimes near his chest, sometimes closer to his waist, so it’s tricky to know when he’s going to hit it.
This is good since the rule of not allowing to hide the ball with your tossing arm. You do not want to get into a rhythm of throwing at the same height all the time, and hitting it at the same point all the time. This allows for your opponent to sink up with your rhythm and jump on the ball.
You want to throw them off, make them take a faulty step or wait too long or jump the gun. If they know exactly when you’re going to hit it each time, they have that much more against you.
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