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In an effort to further improve my serves I’m thinking a lot about stomping (or stamping if you like) recently … and would like your learned opinions.
I’m not asking whether it’s illegal (it isn’t) or fair (meh – life’s not fair!) – I’m mainly interested in how it can help one win points.
It’s common knowledge that stomping can be useful for combination bat players as a way to hide the sound created by one rubber or the other, therefore denying the opponent an auditory clue as to which rubber was being used. That’s one use.
But has anyone experimented with the timing of the stomp during serve? When I serve, and I guess this is the case for most people, I stomp exactly when the ball contacts the rubber. So the sound of the stomp happens at the exact same moment as ball contact. BUT has anyone tried stomping before or after contact? Much of our coordination is auditory – hearing the ball contact the racket or hit the table helps us coordinate our timing and execute shots – but by stomping before or after contact we’re introducing a sound from nowhere that could influence the opponent to mistime their shot – especially if it’s used along with other serve where we stomp at contact (or even don’t stomp at all). You could really mess around with people’s heads! Or that’s the theory. Has anyone tried this? The ‘after stomp’ seems easier to do in practice – though I haven’t done this in a game or seen its effectiveness … if any. Obviously you’d have to be very careful to make the gap very marginal between the stomp and the serve, as your opponent or the referee may deem your behaviour illegal … but if not I think it might be a good ploy.
The other thing I’m thinking about is the role of stomping with weight transfer during the serve. Obviously stomping helps us consciously transfer weight from the back to the front foot. But the act of stomping is at the end of the weight transfer – whereas we should be trying to contact the ball when the weight transfer is in motion – when it’s at its fastest point – therefore allowing us to impart more spin/speed. So, thinking about this – would it be technically better to stomp after contact? So, you’d be contacting the ball during weight transfer and then stomping when weight transfer has finished. Make sense?
And ideas would be appreciated …
I’m not asking whether it’s illegal (it isn’t) or fair (meh – life’s not fair!) – I’m mainly interested in how it can help one win points.
It’s common knowledge that stomping can be useful for combination bat players as a way to hide the sound created by one rubber or the other, therefore denying the opponent an auditory clue as to which rubber was being used. That’s one use.
But has anyone experimented with the timing of the stomp during serve? When I serve, and I guess this is the case for most people, I stomp exactly when the ball contacts the rubber. So the sound of the stomp happens at the exact same moment as ball contact. BUT has anyone tried stomping before or after contact? Much of our coordination is auditory – hearing the ball contact the racket or hit the table helps us coordinate our timing and execute shots – but by stomping before or after contact we’re introducing a sound from nowhere that could influence the opponent to mistime their shot – especially if it’s used along with other serve where we stomp at contact (or even don’t stomp at all). You could really mess around with people’s heads! Or that’s the theory. Has anyone tried this? The ‘after stomp’ seems easier to do in practice – though I haven’t done this in a game or seen its effectiveness … if any. Obviously you’d have to be very careful to make the gap very marginal between the stomp and the serve, as your opponent or the referee may deem your behaviour illegal … but if not I think it might be a good ploy.
The other thing I’m thinking about is the role of stomping with weight transfer during the serve. Obviously stomping helps us consciously transfer weight from the back to the front foot. But the act of stomping is at the end of the weight transfer – whereas we should be trying to contact the ball when the weight transfer is in motion – when it’s at its fastest point – therefore allowing us to impart more spin/speed. So, thinking about this – would it be technically better to stomp after contact? So, you’d be contacting the ball during weight transfer and then stomping when weight transfer has finished. Make sense?
And ideas would be appreciated …
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