Serves Tactics.

nashron wrote: recently i have problems with my serves. i only think to attack after my serves therefore my opponent attack it first. what factors do you consider before executing your serves? what is your strategy for yours serves? anyone want to share maybe i can learn something from your tactics.

This is my 2 cents:

I have several serves that with the same motion, I can have a long and short serves, and also different rotation (side or underspin).  If my opponent attacks my long serve, I mix it up with the short serve so he has to guess most of the time.  I also vary the location of my serve with the same type of spin, for example, side-underspin serve: to the wide backhand, to the middle, short and to the forehand.

You probably serve to the power zone of your opponent and not get back to your ready position quick enough.  Next time, try the same serve but not to his power zone so when he attacks, it will be weak so you can put it away, or try to vary it so he can't attack or cannot change his position quick enough to get a power shot.

To me, I find the long serve which barely goes off the table is good for preventing the opponent to attack your serve strongly.  But if he still can attack then you will need to make it shorter to have it bounce twice on the table (if untouched by the opponent) or away from his power zone.

Hope it helps.  And I'd like to hear from others as well because I need to work on my serve tactics too.

FireHorse

nashron wrote: FireHorse wrote: nashron wrote: recently i have problems with my serves. i only think to attack after my serves therefore my opponent attack it first. what factors do you consider before executing your serves? what is your strategy for yours serves? anyone want to share maybe i can learn something from your tactics. This is my 2 cents: I have several serves that with the same motion, I can have a long and short serves, and also different rotation (side or underspin).  If my opponent attacks my long serve, I mix it up with the short serve so he has to guess most of the time.  I also vary the location of my serve with the same type of spin, for example, side-underspin serve: to the wide backhand, to the middle, short and to the forehand. You probably serve to the power zone of your opponent and not get back to your ready position quick enough.  Next time, try the same serve but not to his power zone so when he attacks, it will be weak so you can put it away, or try to vary it so he can't attack or cannot change his position quick enough to get a power shot. To me, I find the long serve which barely goes off the table is good for preventing the opponent to attack your serve strongly.  But if he still can attack then you will need to make it shorter to have it bounce twice on the table (if untouched by the opponent) or away from his power zone. Hope it helps.  And I'd like to hear from others as well because I need to work on my serve tactics too. FireHorse a heavy bottom spin to the powerzone is a gud idea or try to avoid it at all?

It depends, if he can attack and you can't control his attack then I think you should avoid it.  You can serve it lighter so he can't attack it strongly, but if he reads it well then you don't want to give him easy point.  My point is you should serve so that he will not do whatever he wants to get easy point or giving you a hard time.  So, it depends on the situations and the opponents.

*As serving is one of my favorite topic and it's one of the thing that I'm quite good at, I'm going to give you quite some details here:

1) Golden rule should be keep the opponent guessing. Doesn't matter how much spin and what type of spin you put on the ball, where you land the ball, if the opponent anticipated well enough and they have quite good attacking skill then you will still be in deep trouble.

2) Don't try to make hard serves that you can't even return when your opponent successfully returned.

3) You have to control the amount of spin and the type of spin you put on your serve. It would be very dangerous if you just randomly put a lot of spin which you don't even know if it's topspin or backspin that you put on the ball because you can't anticipate your opponent's reaction ( are they gonna push back, block or loop, etc. )

4) What I do is that I mix up serves of different lengths, and type of spin + amount of spin. Try to practice and have serves that looks almost the same but they are totally different, that will bring you some cheap points or just totally setup your 3rd ball attack.

5) Serve accordingly to the type of opponent. If they are well-trained and quite high level, then be more careful. If it's a noobie or just beginner then a very spinny serve will already give them enough trouble.

6) Double-bounce serve is usually the most effective one since it limits the ability of your opponent to return the serve strongly therefore gives you an upper hand. Even though, do not underestimate the power of long, fast serves. Especially deep and fast no-spin serves to the elbow or to the other side. If you're a chopper, it wouldn't be too bad to use long serves frequently to provoke attacks but if you're an attacker then you have to use long serves very carefully, you have to make sure that you're ready to counter-attack.

7) Even it's 6-10 or 9-10 to your opponent or 10-10 in the last set, don't just panic and serve a short backspin serve, when they have good morale, that serve is a piece of cake. You can play risky game and use a fast, deep serve, I sometimes do that and it's not bad at all !

Hope this helps.

in tournaments I serve short backspin pendulum, short reverse backspin pendulum, fast float pendulum and short backhand side spin serve, if I am really down and not know what to do I try tomahawk serve and it works quite good against some players, I started doing it against former national junior team membet and lost only 3:2 and 11:9 in the fifth and beat our cadet national team member, I was down 2:1 and then started to do tomahawk serve, he make 4-5 service return mistakes and I won 3:2 

Ryu_S_M wrote: in tournaments I serve short backspin pendulum, short reverse backspin pendulum, fast float pendulum and short backhand side spin serve, if I am really down and not know what to do I try tomahawk serve and it works quite good against some players, I started doing it against former national junior team membet and lost only 3:2 and 11:9 in the fifth and beat our cadet national team member, I was down 2:1 and then started to do tomahawk serve, he make 4-5 service return mistakes and I won 3:2

Yeah, the tomahawk and backhand serves are sometimes the "life savers".  I used to have only one serve, that is forehand pendulum and a lot of people get used to it so even though I varied it, people still can handle it.  But with the tomahawk serve, they have a hard time handle it because now, it goes to their forehand that it's not easy for them to handle so I get some points off of the serve which I wouldn't got it if I continued serving with the forehand pendulum serves.

FireHorse

i saw in youtube before.. waldner get easy point with his long bottom serves.. maybe it is too heavy?

The main thing is practice serving, and practice for a reason, practice for predicted return , practice for your third ball attack

nashron wrote: emm power zone is something i dont really think before, just reliase that every player has different power zone. i should analyse their power zone now :)

Yeah, different players have different power zones, and different players have different area where he's comfortable returning serves.  I think if the opponent can attack your serve and you can't do anything then you should avoid to serve there with the same type of spin, you can try to change up the spin to see if it gives him any problem.  If it does, great, if not, try somewhere else and then go back to that area once in a while to make him guessing.  The key point is make the opponent guessing, not too comfortable to attack your serves all the time.

FireHorse

good explaination
so i guess...watever we want to serve..then let da opponent move or make them a bit shakey o hard 2 return n prevent them 2 return da serve so esy..rite?
by then,we shud know da charactristic of our serve n expected the ball return by da opponent.

IMHO: The purpose - not to receive powerful attack of the contender.

one thing that hasn't been mentioned much here (except for by viktorovich), is that keeping a serve low is just about the single most important thing when serving. A slightly high long serve will get powerlooped by a good players, just as a slightly high short serve will get flip-killed by a good player.

sometimes i think it is dangerous to server no spin or light , even low n mid table because people is it to attack it compare to bottom spin, what is ur opinion on this?

nashron wrote: sometimes i think it is dangerous to server no spin or light , even low n mid table because people is it to attack it compare to bottom spin, what is ur opinion on this?

If it is an obvious dead serve you are certainly correct.  If it looks like a spinny serve delivered from the same motion then it can be effective.  On the other hand, a very spinny underspin serve that always goes too long and never varies much is equally easy to attack.   

nashron wrote: can we discuss in detail good tips how to vary serves that look like same motion for underspin/top spin/ side spin/no spin?

To vary the amount of back spin between heavy and light, contact the ball at the tip of the bat for heavy, and near the handle for light, using the same arm speed.

Mostly serve to where you put your opponent on the wrong side of the ball.  I.E. for righties always serve your backhand side spin serves or reverse forehand serves to your opponents forehand (righties) so that to get on the "right" side of the ball they have to manipulate their wrist.  You will also find that some players get to the "right" side of the ball when you do this but dont understand why.  So serving these guys where they will be on the right side they will still bend their wrist and get on the wrong side.  figure out early in a match if they are good at doing both and if not exploit what works