serve suggestion or tips

says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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Hi i want to ask for your opinion about my short backspin serve.The serve is still in construction , still big margins of errors made ... but in general i feel ok about it .
The point is to have "fast" short bacspin serve with minimal two bounces at the oponent side of t
able.
Thanks Robert

 
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says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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i have upgrade the process of training and now i`m serving on target.....
this are six serves after 15 minutes of tring to put the ball inside of the glass .... i`m getting now better feeling in the term of placement.

try it if you can get it into the glass ... for me is still not 100% but i think it is good training.
 
says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Serves in the second video look much improved. Much more consistent. Your body is lower.

The arm movement is a bit odd though. Your elbow looks like it is too close to your body which means you don't have much room for your wrist to move. So you have replaced a more standard wrist movement (pendulum action) with the arm propelling your racket down. This downward arm movement may also be why some of the serves seem to bounce a bit high. And it is hard to tell but it doesn't look like the serves have a lot of curve (sidespin), kick (topspin) and they don't seem to slow down or reverse directions (backspin). So you may be able to get more spin if your elbow is higher, further out and back so you can use the forearm with the wrist like a hinge. Brett Clarke's video on backspin serve would be helpful with the motion.

I don't know, it could be a good movement and have good spin. But it looks a bit awkward and the large size of the movement makes it look pretty easy to read. I guess it would be hard to tell without without trying to receive it though. And regardless of anything else, the quality of the serve is dramatically better than the ones I saw in the first video. Nice improvement.

Here is one of the Brett Clarke videos that is pretty decent.



Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia
 
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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Thanks Carl
Here is another video from different angle ...from about a two weeks earlier
Here i`m trying to shot near the left line .. one slow two bounce serve and two fast serves to the back line.
Im serving always with only 3 balls to i always change the position and don get any comfort advantage from one stand.
This fast to the line fh serves can create a easy point ... especially when i`m normally serving fh serve cross the table so the ball drops over the side line , to push opponent more to the edge so then one quick direct serve straight the left edge of table .
But this fh quick near the left line are not my strongest serves... but here you can see better the hand movement...

This video from Brett Clarkeis very good , and i now it some time ,and i`m trying to go according to it ... but still need to practice more.
Thanks Robert
 
says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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One more think carl... Did you notice the small glas in which i was tring to put the ball ?:D

Yep! And I noticed that you hit the class 3 out of 6 times which is pretty darn good. 2 hit the rim. And on the last one, it was very close to going in, and then just bounced out off the 2nd rim.

I will take a look at the new video as soon as I can.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia
 
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says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Okay, I looked a bit at the new video, but I am going to have to look on a larger screen and where I can slow things down. It looks like the wrist motion could be fast enough and the wrist motion is very short. But there is still an odd motion there that may not be helping you where the racket is moved down by your arm. It could be fine too. It could just look odd.

But it looks like your contact may be a bit too direct and that may be why the ball seems not to have very much spin. It is hard to tell from a video but the bounces of the ball on the table and on the floor after still look like there is not that much spin. But if that is the goal, then that is totally fine.

And obviously your accuracy on the short ones has improved tremendously and I am guessing your accuracy with the long serves was always decent from the fact that you are solid with them in this third video and you just wanted me to see the serve motion from a different angle.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia
 
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says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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Befpre i read it i just made a new one just now.... And after i won 40 euros for with people which have not believed into it... I have repeat it two more times....
 
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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I like and appreciate the effort you are puting into this...really
I think this is the the best way for the forum to evolve... Mayebe more hiden souls can join and parcipiate..... I will try to do a video of my real game,... But i do not feel the players im plaing with www ant to be seen on internet......but one video of the club players is online....
 
says Spin and more spin.
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Befpre i read it i just made a new one just now.... And after i won 40 euros for with people which have not believed into it... I have repeat it two more times....

That's great. Hahaha. Nice accuracy.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia
 
Hit the ball low with your racket and make sure were your first bounce hits on the table. If you want a fast serve hit close to the "short sides white line" and if you want a short one hit the first bounce close the net. Make sure to be aware of you standing against the table when u serve. It's not good to shift you starting position between to many different serves because then the opponent will notice and he can know which serve you'll do. Be relaxed in you wrist even though you might miss in te beginning you will earn on it in the length.
 
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Carl, you've said just about everything that has to be said. Bobpuls is largely optimizing a relatively spinless technique, to put it nicely. The good thing is that he has learned to control the path and depth optimally so it is low trajectory double bounce. That said the form and the swing will not make improving his spin and serve quality any easier.

There is no acceleration of the ball into the rubber so there won't be any real spin.
The direction in which the racket is traveling doesn't primarily go towards the table so the ball isn't being projected into the table so it will lack power (speed and spin).
The serve is mostly arm and the upper arm is moving around too much without any shoulder rotation.

But for what he has, it is a quality effort in that it is low and double bounce so it won't be easy to attack hard unless a person knows how to spin flip a light spin short ball.

I have always believed that it is a mistake to do most of your serve practice at the table and that you need to learn to generate spin first and then bring that spin to the table. People who almost exclusively practice their serves at the table tend to end up with something like what bobpuls has because the fine motor skills required to generate spin are no built first.

This serve is an original but IMO, the potential is capped in that the spin and quality one can get out of the technique is limited. But there are players who are ready to rally after serving such serves consistently so a good looper and third ball player could make this his main serve.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Great posts NextLevel. The amount of specific detail is great and will really help bobpuls, and me too, know a few details about what is going on and techniques for improving the spin without the table there: working on the mechanics of the wrist and forearm snap and seeing how the spin effects the bounce of the ball on the floor:

Sidespin: how much can you make it curve.

Backspin: can you make it come back to you.

Topspin: how much can you make it kick.

No Spin Serve: can you make it have a low trajectory with a slight skid so it looks more like backspin. (I guess the floor doesn't help with that; I got that theory for effective no spin serve trajectory from Mark Croitoroo who is really good with that kind of technical info).


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Great posts NextLevel. The amount of specific detail is great and will really help bobpuls, and me too, know a few details about what is going on and techniques for improving the spin without the table there: working on the mechanics of the wrist and forearm snap and seeing how the spin effects the bounce of the ball on the floor:

Sidespin: how much can you make it curve.

Backspin: can you make it come back to you.

Topspin: how much can you make it kick.

No Spin Serve: can you make it have a low trajectory with a slight skid so it looks more like backspin. (I guess the floor doesn't help with that; I got that theory for effective no spin serve trajectory from Mark Croitoroo who is really good with that kind of technical info).


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

I do a lot of serving practice, so I will say this - if there is any reason I want to meet and work with Brett in person, this is it! Brett probably has the answers to all sorts of questions that I cannot get an answer from over email because I can't pose them appropriately.

Sidespin is necessarily not about curve - there are actually two kinds of sidespin - side and corkscrew - and one must be careful in distinguishing the effects of both - what most people call side backspin or side topspin are really serves with the effects of both combined (if you are using that framework - my coach likes to say that there is nothing like side backspin or side topspin - the ball has one axis and if you know it and how fast it is spinning, that is all you need, though to be honest, the ball's momentum isn't always in the axis it is spinning and that probably has an under-appreciated effect on reading spin).


While the curve of the ball is important for measuring the amount of spin in terms of the Magnus effect, in reality, it is more important to be able to generate heavy spin and then vary it. The problem with serving heavy spin is that your opponent's return will often give it back to you and you have to figure out what will happen to the ball and how to contact the ball to return it. So usually, when generating heavy spin, you are usually trying to win the point outright. With lighter spins, you are usually trying to play for a 3rd ball opportunity which your opponent's respect for your heavy spin has set up. You can play for 3rd ball with heavy spin, but you have to know what you are doing, especially if you incorporate sidespin. I have seen 2300 players struggle to attack behind their heavy spin serves, but it is a much more common problem at the lower levels. That's why it's best to serve low no spin or light backspin and only vary things when your racket head speed, spin reading skills and loop timing improves. IF you have worked on your 3rd ball for your heavy spins, then you can use those because you will be able to read the returns better.

All serves should really skid or go through the table at a low trajectory. It is harder with pure backspin or topspin which is why sidespin is usually used to disguise the serves without making the sidespin too dominant an element - the goal is to use the motion to keep the serve low. Side backspin tends to break at a sharp 90 degree angle or sometimes come back after hitting the floor. Side topspin tends to continue forward while sidespin tends to curve somewhere in the middle of both (sidespin can become more like side top after reaction with the table because of the forward momentum).

Topspin is hard to keep short and make kick without being too obvious about it. In my serve philosophy (adopted from Brett), I don't want my topspin serves to kick so much as I want them to look like my backspin serves so that people will push them and get tentative when returning my backspin serves. I find that when people push my topspin serves, I don't even need a high return as long as they didn't chop into them.

With backspin vs. no spin, the key there is to make the serve trajectories look similar - the skidding effect is a by product. The good thing is that spin does not reveal itself as greatly in the first two bounces of a serve so you can work at it a little. I serve a lot of backspin and no spin serves (both with my forehand and my backhand). I find that ultimately, as long as the serve is low and relatively short or half long, you should not concern yourself with whether someone can read it and mostly concern yourself with remembering what you served so you can read the return and counter the next shot appropriately.

There is still a lot of stuff I need to learn, but it is one field where you get rewarded by practice and experimentation and to a larger degree than anything else, COACHING. People play money for loops, but rarely pay money for serves. IT should be the other way round, IMO.
 
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There is no acceleration of the ball into the rubber so there won't be any real spin.
The direction in which the racket is traveling doesn't primarily go towards the table so the ball isn't being projected into the table so it will lack power (speed and spin).
The serve is mostly arm and the upper arm is moving around too much without any shoulder rotation.

But for what he has, it is a quality effort in that it is low and double bounce so it won't be easy to attack hard unless a person knows how to spin flip a light spin short ball.

I have always believed that it is a mistake to do most of your serve practice at the table and that you need to learn to generate spin first and then bring that spin to the table. People who almost exclusively practice their serves at the table tend to end up with something like what bobpuls has because the fine motor skills required to generate spin are no built first.

NL, you know my service game and its development/implementation... I practiced my serves AT the table 3-5 minutes a day in a Shotgun shack telephone trailer in Iraq every day while I waz a recreational player...

However, Der_Echte DID practices serves off to the side in his living quarters/shotgun rickety shack trailer 2 minutes a day spinning the ball back to him... was a great tool to develop touch and I strongly advocate practicing serves away from table when chances are there to get touch and feel and timing and ideas to move forward.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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Such good info. If anyone didn't know, Der_Echte's serves are pretty darn good.

NextLevel's serve and serve strategy is pretty darn good.

Btw, picking on something NextLevel said: a normal sidespin ball will curve in flight. Whether it is side, side top or side backspin. A corkscrew ball will fly almost straight buy on the bounce will kick to the side.

And side top means that the axis of rotation is somewhere between a pure sidespin axis and a pure topspin axis. But, of course, there is only one axis of spin. And, yes, as the ball hits the table and bounces the axis can change to some extent.

Last piece, to vary the spin on serves, you do need to be able to generate enough spin so that, when you put a bit less, it has an effect and when you you kick into the next gear, from your standard spin level, it also has an effect.

I personally, do practice my third ball after a long, fast heavy backspin serve. The reason, if I play guys one or two levels higher than me and they are playing safe and pushing that is the best strategy I have for someone who is that much better than me. It won't win me a match. But it will get me some decent points as my third ball is going to have a LOT of SPiN on it.

Once they decide to start attacking those same serves I am left with the hope and pray strategy.

My short serves are good enough to let me control on most players my level and then the fast ones are just surprise tactics. But against a player 1 or 2 levels higher than me, the best I can hope for is that the player will play safe and push my long serves so I at least get the opportunity to open.

So, learning to generate good spin on serves is important even if in matches you mainly use that to have more gears on your serve so you can crank the spin up and tone it down.


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Such good info. If anyone didn't know, Der_Echte's serves are pretty darn good.

NextLevel's serve and serve strategy is pretty darn good.

Btw, picking on something NextLevel said: a normal sidespin ball will curve in flight. Whether it is side, side top or side backspin. A corkscrew ball will fly almost straight buy on the bounce will kick to the side.

And side top means that the axis of rotation is somewhere between a pure sidespin axis and a pure topspin axis. But, of course, there is only one axis of spin. And, yes, as the ball hits the table and bounces the axis can change to some extent.

Last piece, to vary the spin on serves, you do need to be able to generate enough spin so that, when you put a bit less, it has an effect and when you you kick into the next gear, from your standard spin level, it also has an effect.

I personally, do practice my third ball after a long, fast heavy backspin serve. The reason, if I play guys one or two levels higher than me and they are playing safe and pushing that is the best strategy I have for someone who is that much better than me. It won't win me a match. But it will get me some decent points as my third ball is going to have a LOT of SPiN on it.

Once they decide to start attacking those same serves I am left with the hope and pray strategy.

My short serves are good enough to let me control on most players my level and then the fast ones are just surprise tactics. But against a player 1 or 2 levels higher than me, the best I can hope for is that the player will play safe and push my long serves so I at least get the opportunity to open.

So, learning to generate good spin on serves is important even if in matches you mainly use that to have more gears on your serve so you can crank the spin up and tone it down.


Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

You need to use your no spin serve as well against those players when they are attacking your backspin serve, so you have to practice attacking behind it and reading the returnsas the ball is lighter. All serves have weak spin variants per this video here - you can apply the principle to any serve/stroke. You should also move your serve around. Don't let the level of the player intimidate you - find ways to bring their level down to earth. Sometimes, the missing shot is the ability to attack a weak short ball. That is what you get when most people drop no-spin serves short.

 
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says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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wow ... this i have to read more then once .... Thanks
But basically Nextlevel is right ... the last serves are a light backspin serves no heavy spin there .... because as next level says if i apply heavier spin the opponent just push it back with more spin and then i`m not sure what to do with it it just can not be killed . So this less or no spin short double bounce makes the opponent to open the game and i can apply third ball or just start rally ..... i really hate pushing ball around the table and mostly i`m the one who is opening the game and my body and movement is not to good to win it after i do a big open loop and the opponent just hit it to my week position.
but anyway i have week backspin serve which i will try to do better ... because sometimes you just surprise the oponent with it .... my backspin i can stop on the edge on the third bounce ... but it newer goes back .... but i`m nt counting backspin like this ... which i think is useless in real game.
and at the final .... what ever it is looking now in practice ... i still have big margin of errors in real match .....
this is why i`m still training to practice...
Once more thanks... i will keep posted videos ... i have tried also today to make new one but there was too many drunked people :)
 
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