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Number of Serves |
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iamj8 
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Joined: 09/11/2009 Location: NZ Status: Offline Points: 429 |
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 Topic: Number of ServesPosted: 09/10/2016 at 5:12am |
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Hi all,
Just wondering what a good number of serves to have in your arsenal would be. I get that you need to mix up your serves to throw people off but at the same time I imagine that having too many could be unsustainable and could confuse your mental game. At the moment I use three on the forehand (plus the occasional no spin) and two on the backhand. What about everyone else?
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heplayslikearobot
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Joined: 11/11/2015 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 31 |
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Posted: 09/10/2016 at 9:34am |
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Well here's the thing, you really only need one serve. As long as you're considering the factors within the serve that can be modified to produce different results, there are hundreds, even thousands of serves; just from the pendulum serve. Allow me to elaborate.
What are some factors that you can change on the serve? The spin, heaviness of spin, placement and speed. Let's establish that as a baseline. You can serve no spin, backspin, backspin-sidespin, sidespin, topspin-side and topspin. You can serve with no spin, little spin, some spin, substantial spin, heavy spin, extremely heavy spin. You can place the ball to about 25 spots on the table, if we divide the table up into a 5x5 grid. You can serve with about 5 different levels of speed; very slow, slow, normal, fast, very fast. You can serve 6 different types of spin. You can serve 5 different types of heaviness in spin (excluding the no spin). You can place the ball in 25 different locations. You can serve with about 5 levels of speed. 6x5x25x5=3750. You can serve roughly 3750 different kinds of serves with just the pendulum serve. Keep in mind that this is just an estimate, and there could be other factors consider. Also keep in mind some players may not have this level of control, and some combinations may not be compatible. So let's reduce it by 99%. We still have 37 serves left, and some junk half-developed serve. I think the key is not having a variety of serves, but having lots of variation. Jan-Ove Waldner, Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Werner Schlager etc. all had fantastic serves, but it was about their fantastic variation of serve and the fact that they served with a purpose. Every point was thought about and pre-determined in a sequence of events. I don't think you should limit yourself, and you should be constantly trying to learn and invite. You will then have a variety of serves to use and find one that works best against your opponent. I think the pendulum serve, alongside its reverse is fine. The backhand serve included also helps. I also suggest learning some unorthodox serves or creating some. They will be much harder to return, and will often work in a pinch to get some free points. Just experiment. I ultimately comes down to serving with a purpose. Don't just serve mindlessly. Have a plan, have a purpose.
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Baal
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Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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Posted: 09/10/2016 at 9:41am |
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It entirely depends on how many you can execute effectively. Two really good serves that are quite different but that look alike is infinitely better than 20 mediocre or bad ones that are telegraphed.
Learning to serve well is a cummulative process. Start with one and learn how to make subtle variations of it. Make sure you can serve it short and low. Then make sure you can also serve it very deep from exactly the same motion (or as close to the same as you can get). Learn to serve somewhat heavy spin and also much less spin from exactly the same motion. Those two things alone will make your serve effective and take a long time to master, but the hand feel carries over to other parts of the game. |
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blahness
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Joined: 10/18/2009 Location: Melbourne Status: Offline Points: 5443 |
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Posted: 09/10/2016 at 10:46am |
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I find having too many serves is detrimental to the development of the rest of your game as you would just be relying on weak returns from your serves. It also makes games not so fun for the other player. I used to have every single serve type in my arsenal, I could serve the FH tomahawk, hook serve, reverse pendulum, heavy underspin/no-spin, and my game deteriorated to just trying to serve it out every single point and finish the 3rd ball with my FH. It works incredibly well when people can't receive my serves well, but against better receivers I would be losing really badly as their returns were tight and into difficult positions, and I was completely not used to people actually returning them well.
These days I just stick to one or two variations for the whole game and focus more on rallying the point out as I do want to improve my rallying abilities. I must say though, learning new serves and improving your existing serves is really fun. I assume that you have probably mastered the basic FH pendulum, if you want more variation in your game you could try learning the FH hook serve, reverse pendulum or tomahawk (all producing opposite sidespin to your normal pendulum serve), preferably with a similar type of preparatory movement. This would instantly double the amount of serves that you have. Also I find them generally more effective compared to the pendulum serves in terms of being awkward to return for the other player due to players just not that used to them. |
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/10/2016 at 12:42pm |
It all depends on what you want to build your game around. One problem with having too many serves is that you still need to practice against all the returns that come from them as the transition to ready position sometimes psychologically affects preparedness and the serve quality might not be quite the same. Moreover, there is a likelihood of error if you serve a serve that you don't practice or serve a lot. The advantage is being able to throw different look at an opponent. People who read the backhand serve well don't necessarily read the reverse pendulum or punch serves well. I tend to work with my serves in the first game until I find the one deceptive pair/trio my opponent hates then I use that for most of the rest of the match. Probably the most important thing about having a serve is the variation. As you get better, most opponents will be able to adapt if you serve the same serve every single time so you need variants in spin (usually backspin vs no spin or topspin) and placement (short forehand, long backhand, short backhand, long forehand) to keep them guessing.
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Egghead
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Joined: 09/05/2009 Location: N.A. Status: Offline Points: 4230 |
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Posted: 09/10/2016 at 2:18pm |
Ya, the most important element in Serves is "..... served with a purpose. Every point was thought about and pre-determined in a sequence of events....." Even you know it will be an ace, you still need to prepare for the return. |
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Baal
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Posted: 09/11/2016 at 10:35am |
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I really do have to respond to the last couple of comments.
Somebody asking the OP's question may be at a level where the "purpose" has to be limited. Even professional players are not thinking too far ahead and certainly don't have the whole point planned out ahead of time. The average poster here is not some 11-dimensional table tennis mastermind able to preconceive an entire sequence ahead of time! (And to anyone who implies that they do that, I say "yeah, right"). A good starting point for "purpose" is to realize something that may seem obvious. It was emphasized by a former national champion who told me this was something he still thought about: Good short low serves will be returned short*. Be prepared to move forward a bit after the serve and to attack a popped up return. Deep serves are returned longer. Be prepared to take a short step back to attack the long return. This may seem obvious but a lot of beginner, intermediate, and even some advanced players are in exactly the same position 3/4 of a second after they finish their serve for every serve they hit regardless of spin or placement! Maybe it's not so obvious in practice. Later your expectations for a serve can be a little bit more sophisticated as to what kind of return you will get. But start with that. Pay attention if your opponent is defying your expectations. In general you can get him to return to expectations by changing the placement or using a different motion. One more tip from the same coach. Make sure to not drop your hands after serving. * A bad serve is one where your opponent has so many return options that you can't prepare for anything. The more you limit the returner's options, the better the serve. |
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suds79
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Joined: 08/20/2012 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 878 |
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Posted: 09/11/2016 at 10:53am |
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Some good advice in this thread.
I have several serves that work vs people who I don't know that well. But really I just want to beat my training partner & people I play with regularly. Mostly all those people have seen my serves enough by now to have a good read on them. One thing I'm trying to focus (this is for the OP) on outside of variation of spin & trying to make them all look the same is to keep them low. It doesn't matter how spiny or deceptive a serve is IMO if it's high. Those are easily looped (if long) or even more so flipped (if high) from a good player.
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iamj8 wrote: