What is the best way to return side topsin serves?

[blahness]

The first video is easy to understand and a mess. The second and third videos are a mess.

If someone who can understand Chinese can summarize the last two, that'd be really helpful.

From what I've tried to piece together, Fang Yinchi is saying for backspin sidespin short balls, you can just go forward with a small lift to drop short. And for pure sidespin short you want to contact the same side of the ball as the server, making the spin die and taking away the energy of the ball.

These videos are all about going with or against the spin in various scenarios. Agreed that the translation is pretty bad.

 

[turbozed]

These videos are all about going with or against the spin in various scenarios. Agreed that the translation is pretty bad.

I've been struggling with receiving a pretty fast pure or mostly side spin pendulum serve so was hoping to get an answer in this thread. Looping doesn't really feel secure, especially since the ball often goes to the crossover point and I either have to move to the left for a BH or pivot for a FH.

When I touch the ball to go against the spin, I get a floaty ball over to the other side. Sometimes having their own spin come back at them means they miss this. But with stronger players, this is more often an easy put away.

Is there a way to make this receive less easy to put away? Maybe I'll try to get my bodyweight forward and down when I make the receive like Fang is doing to get a lower trajectory.

Or should I just keep trying to loop it until I get the feeling for it? If I choose the loop, what's a safe version that I can build off of? The first video shows some high quality looping but with the FH. I don't think I'm there yet skillwise to make those pivot receives. What would be the technique for the BH?

 

[canonFH]

I've been struggling with receiving a pretty fast pure or mostly side spin pendulum serve so was hoping to get an answer in this thread. Looping doesn't really feel secure, especially since the ball often goes to the crossover point and I either have to move to the left for a BH or pivot for a FH.

When I touch the ball to go against the spin, I get a floaty ball over to the other side. Sometimes having their own spin come back at them means they miss this. But with stronger players, this is more often an easy put away.

Is there a way to make this receive less easy to put away? Maybe I'll try to get my bodyweight forward and down when I make the receive like Fang is doing to get a lower trajectory.

Or should I just keep trying to loop it until I get the feeling for it? If I choose the loop, what's a safe version that I can build off of? The first video shows some high quality looping but with the FH. I don't think I'm there yet skillwise to make those pivot receives. What would be the technique for the BH?

How about a chop? If you are able to put heavy backspin, it is not easy to put away. Of course, a player a strong looper will have an easy time against it though. That is why you should have multiple ways to receive a serve.

 

[blahness]

Let me try another way of explaining it. You know how your racket moves in an arc when you loop, like a part of a circle? Shorten your stroke and make the arc smaller, as if it's a part of a smaller circle.

Yep, with that circular stroke path, make it less forward and more to the side, and the ball will be shorter. This is how I control length at least.

 

[blahness]

I've been struggling with receiving a pretty fast pure or mostly side spin pendulum serve so was hoping to get an answer in this thread. Looping doesn't really feel secure, especially since the ball often goes to the crossover point and I either have to move to the left for a BH or pivot for a FH.

When I touch the ball to go against the spin, I get a floaty ball over to the other side. Sometimes having their own spin come back at them means they miss this. But with stronger players, this is more often an easy put away.

Is there a way to make this receive less easy to put away? Maybe I'll try to get my bodyweight forward and down when I make the receive like Fang is doing to get a lower trajectory.

Or should I just keep trying to loop it until I get the feeling for it? If I choose the loop, what's a safe version that I can build off of? The first video shows some high quality looping but with the FH. I don't think I'm there yet skillwise to make those pivot receives. What would be the technique for the BH?

Easiest to loop it with BH. Easier to loop it with the spin, dont go against it. So you still do a clockwise movement with your bat but you aim it more towards their FH (but the ball will still land in their BH corner in the beginning, after you get the hang of it it is not so difficult to aim it). if you mastered the 2 finger lever arm brushing technique for BH you dont even need to use body to loop that, just the fingers is enough. Then slowly add in other parts to add quality. I also startes with using the fingers and added other parts later on.

If its topspin contact more top half of ball, and if its underspin contact more from bottom half of ball.

 

[turbozed]

Easiest to loop it with BH. Easier to loop it with the spin, dont go against it. So you still do a clockwise movement with your bat but you aim it more towards their FH (but the ball will still land in their BH corner in the beginning, after you get the hang of it it is not so difficult to aim it). if you mastered the 2 finger lever arm brushing technique for BH you dont even need to use body to loop that, just the fingers is enough. Then slowly add in other parts to add quality. I also startes with using the fingers and added other parts later on.

If its topspin contact more top half of ball, and if its underspin contact more from bottom half of ball.

So basically a more abbreviated BH loop technique focused on brushing and aimed to the FH corner? I'll give that a try.

Is the racket angle more closed or is standard ok?

Maybe I've been making too big movements trying to hook the ball with the tip of the racket pointing down.

 

[vvk1]

The best way is to surprise your opponent with the receive.

 

[sky500]

Blade angle depends somewhat on the rubbers and blade. I play with slow rubbers and all wood blade so it is easier for me to make a big stroke and still keep the ball on the table. Usually, the more spin you impart to the ball, the safer it is to play it with power as well.

For imparting spin, the angle of the blade is not as important as it is the fact that you brush it. Angle will dictate where you hit the ball. If you brush it enough, you can hit with an open blade and still keep the ball on the table. Rest, as someone said, you have to put table time to really understand it. Understanding it in theory is not enough.

More videos on serve receive:

Sorry, that I have to ask again. I just had time to watch the first video with the basketball. It somehow makes sense. But what he demonstrates at the end, isn't it against what you wrote before? If it's long you go with your blade against the direction of the spin and if it is short, you go with the direction of the spin. Or am I just confused?

 

[blahness]

So basically a more abbreviated BH loop technique focused on brushing and aimed to the FH corner? I'll give that a try.

Is the racket angle more closed or is standard ok?

Maybe I've been making too big movements trying to hook the ball with the tip of the racket pointing down.

Yes, you dont need all that much, dont use arm for backswing, most important thing is to get there in position with your feet and be in the correct place and you can just use the fingers to spin the ball over.

Standard racket angle would be OK. If topspin contact top half of ball and if underspin contact bottom half of ball.

Steps would be something like:
1) move towards ball and catch ball with bare hands in good body position relative to ball
2) repeat same with racket, but just kinda bump it over
3) add finger spin technique
4) add in body usage and other elements to increase quality

And you should have a working BH loop against long serves. No need to try to finish the ball with your loop, just do a safe spinny loop and allow your opponents to make the mistakes. Or, if they play safe, it is a 50-50 topspin rally and at least you have neutralized the server's advantage.

If you want to play it more nasty you can start varying the spin with your fingers, and vary your placements etc...

Imo going big bang bang while on the receive is a suboptimal play because as the receiver, you have less of an idea of what spin/placement is coming and going crazy on it is gonna make you a lot of mistakes.

 

[blahness]

Sorry, that I have to ask again. I just had time to watch the first video with the basketball. It somehow makes sense. But what he demonstrates at the end, isn't it against what you wrote before? If it's long you go with your blade against the direction of the spin and if it is short, you go with the direction of the spin. Or am I just confused?

With over the table receives in general you can either go with or against the sidespin. They are both valid options that will produce different balls for your opponent. With loops it is just easier to go with the spin.

 

[canonFH]

Sorry, that I have to ask again. I just had time to watch the first video with the basketball. It somehow makes sense. But what he demonstrates at the end, isn't it against what you wrote before? If it's long you go with your blade against the direction of the spin and if it is short, you go with the direction of the spin. Or am I just confused?

If you watch carefully, he makes a distinction between left sidespin and right sidespin. For the sake of simplicity, lets restrict us to pendulum and reverse pendulum servers where both are right handed players. In this case when the serves are short pendulum side top/under and you are receiving on your FH, you receive it by touching it on the right side, you can go either with the spin or against the spin both from this position. Seth pech in his video said that going against the spin helps keep it shorter.

I have seen pro players do both. At my level though, I am really not that concerned about keeping it short because players my level don't really know how to push short and I am going to get a long push regardless. So I just keep the paddle there and let the ball come, and adjust the angle according to the vertical spin. If its on BH, I flick everything.
Ma Long prefers short FH push for receives. You can learn a lot by watching his matches.

If you are receiving a short reverse serve on FH, Fang Yinchi says that because you can't bend your wrist to the correct angle, you have only one option which is against the spin. But you can receive it on your BH which is easier. There is another way which is to lightly hit/poke the ball with a flat bat on FH which works if you're not concerned about keeping it short. He also demonstrates this in one of the videos.

For long serves, he always recommends going with the spin. ie. Inside out FH for pendulum, Hook FH for reverse.

I would also say that receiving serves is a difficult skill to master. It is natural to find this stuff confusing. Also because you are left handed, you have to reverse the concept. If you have someone who can help you practice, you can pick each serve one by one and practice it untill you get it.

There are a lot more videos on YT regarding this and visual media is the best way to learn this. You can only explain so much in writing. Also, watching videos is good to get to "know" stuff. But in Table Tennis "knowing" is nothing, you have to be able to "do" it.

 

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