Penhold Serves

Don · Mar 23, 2011

Hey I'm new to this forum, but a veteran when it comes to online forums. Well I've been playing table tennis since the start of last year and have become very addicted to the sport. I first started playing when I was 5/6 years old with my parents which are both penhold players from China. So I started out and still am a penholder. I play table tennis almost everyday at my university. Within a year I would say I have progressed into a very solid table tennis player. I do not think anyone else would progressed as fast as I did, because for some reason when ever I start a new hobby I have the weirdest fixation of being the best at that hobby so I go online study it and practice until I've become the best.

I just started incorporating the RPB into my game and is still a work in progress. I think the best weapons I have in my table tennis arsenal are my serves and my forehand loops and smashes. Although, I consider my serves one of my best attributes I would still like to learn different serves that penholders use especially professional table tennis penhold players.

So I was just wondering if there are any other experienced penholders in this forum willing to make a video of penhold serves that professionals use. I am thinking of making my own tutorial of my own penhold serves that I perform into youtube, because I've noticed that there are barely any penhold serve tutorial except the ma lin ghost serve tutorial which in my opinion is a stupid serve because it is too high and will be smashed 99% of the time.

Thank you.

scylla24 · Mar 23, 2011

If the ghost serve that you see is so high, that it can be smashed 99% of the time, then the person doing it is doing it wrong. The whole point of that serve is that its incredibly low, and has so much back spin that it forces the opponent to return with a short game return, and who controls the short game better than anyone else? penhold players, and Ma Lin best out of all the penholders.

I don't know of any good videos I can point you to, or any specific advice because I don't play penhold, however, I will just give you the normal service advice that I give. As long as you have reach a certain level of skill, and play against a certain skill level player, what becomes important in serves is not so much how much spin you can give the ball, but well you can mask what the spin is. Once you master just the general wrist flick that is required for most serves, you produce enough spin for all intensive purposes, especially considering penholders are able to produce the most wrist action, and therefore tend to have the best spin on their serves already. Therefore what you should really spend time experimenting on is how you can make all your serves look just about the same. As in, your throw up, your wind up right before you hit the ball, and then what your follow through looks like after you hit it. If you are able to master this, all your serves, except for the super quick wrist flick when you actually make contact with the ball look exactly the same. Only the specific 1/4 of a second period when the ball hits the paddle is varied. This makes it show that your opponent has a hard time registering what spin you gave to the ball and so has a very short time to decide what is the appropriate return hit, which increases their chance of getting it wrong and you winning the point.

Just as a basic example, look at this video, at the 2:50 mark, Ma Lin serves like 3- times, that all basically look the same and yet they actually have different spins, and therefore it causes Hao Shuai to mess up. That's what you want to go for.

Also for a more beginner tutorial, if we describe the face of the paddle as a circle, and you are right handed, have the ball hit on the far left side face of the paddle to give your serves a lot of spin, but hit it with the far right side to give is little spin, therefore the movement looks exactly the same, except that the spin varies a lot, which can be good as a beginner to intermediate serve.

Don · Mar 23, 2011

scylla24 said:
If the ghost serve that you see is so high, that it can be smashed 99% of the time, then the person doing it is doing it wrong. The whole point of that serve is that its incredibly low, and has so much back spin that it forces the opponent to return with a short game return, and who controls the short game better than anyone else? penhold players, and Ma Lin best out of all the penholders.

I don't know of any good videos I can point you to, or any specific advice because I don't play penhold, however, I will just give you the normal service advice that I give. As long as you have reach a certain level of skill, and play against a certain skill level player, what becomes important in serves is not so much how much spin you can give the ball, but well you can mask what the spin is. Once you master just the general wrist flick that is required for most serves, you produce enough spin for all intensive purposes, especially considering penholders are able to produce the most wrist action, and therefore tend to have the best spin on their serves already. Therefore what you should really spend time experimenting on is how you can make all your serves look just about the same. As in, your throw up, your wind up right before you hit the ball, and then what your follow through looks like after you hit it. If you are able to master this, all your serves, except for the super quick wrist flick when you actually make contact with the ball look exactly the same. Only the specific 1/4 of a second period when the ball hits the paddle is varied. This makes it show that your opponent has a hard time registering what spin you gave to the ball and so has a very short time to decide what is the appropriate return hit, which increases their chance of getting it wrong and you winning the point.

Just as a basic example, look at this video, at the 2:50 mark, Ma Lin serves like 3- times, that all basically look the same and yet they actually have different spins, and therefore it causes Hao Shuai to mess up. That's what you want to go for.

Also for a more beginner tutorial, if we describe the face of the paddle as a circle, and you are right handed, have the ball hit on the far left side face of the paddle to give your serves a lot of spin, but hit it with the far right side to give is little spin, therefore the movement looks exactly the same, except that the spin varies a lot, which can be good as a beginner to intermediate serve.

that is funny because as I read your post I have already incorporated masking serves into my game. I have a few masking serves like my side spin serve which has three variations. extreme right side side spin, right side spin and back spin, and right side spin and top spin. Also I have a few other serves that have top or back spin. I do a very good job at masking my serves, because I get a few aces a game when player with my fellow table tennis players. I just want to learn how to serve like wang hao and ma lin and xu xin the serve where it looks like backspin but i have no clue what kind of spin they can partake into the ball. I've already gone through the training of masking my serves so thats not an issue it is just learning the serves that the pros use that is all. Thank you for your response, it is much appreciated.

Also I have seen that video of Ma Lin acing hao shuai before and recently.

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Penhold Serves

Don

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