Any Service Advice for Me?

Me learning to move out from the serving position like Yan An (yes I am deluded)...

http://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/f...One-Small-Step-(thanks-to-Drill-Your-Skills-)

When I practice serves, a lot of the time I am working on things like feeling the ball stay on the racket for longer and pulling past the ball to spin it more and have better touch. In match play I usually find that if I am for a spot, I am pretty good at hitting that spot. I don't know why.

But it has been a while since I was able to really practice serves for a decent amount of time. I am just too busy.

So where I try to practice them is during serve and receive drills. The good thing about this kind of practicing serves is, you really do have to practice the whole thing including setting for your 3rd ball.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

NextLevel said:

IT would be interesting to understand what she means by your serves being above your level.

Click to expand...

When we do group lessons, she'll set up drills that players should be doing while she's with another player. I'm able to consistently do the serves that are asked of me and able to vary the spin amount easily on them too.

But when I actually play my game, I only really like to use serves that I use often because I understand the types of balls that will come back from them better. When I play games I'm very focused on doing the correct stroke to develop the muscle memory for in-game scenarios and not just for drills. I really should start focusing on doing more different serves with varying spin since I'm capable of it when I focus on it.

But that takes focus away from what I'm working on at the moment. Lots of dilemmas like this when trying to improve . My serves are on autopilot depending on how I'd like to play at the time.


Lastly, when I do serves that I don't normally do, I don't have much deception on them. I'd have to practice that.

NextLevel said:

But yes, I have to practice third ball with all of them, so I mostly use them in practice matches vs. lower rated players. Over time of course, the experience will accumulate.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is when I practice different serves. I just never realized it until you stated it.

SpinQuark said:

My suggestions would be more about how you practice your serves.
Try to always serve as you would in a match which means only holding one ball in your hand at a time, and at least say half the time moving from the serve position into the ready position for the service return, regripping your bat in the process. Some of your tosses, at least on the reverse serve look too low and might be called illegal (if anyone ever called an illegal serve that is).
Also do you challenge yourself with goals while practicing e.g. This time I am going to try to hit 10 double bouncing top spin serves to the right half in a row. OK now I am going to do 15. I find this can also simulate the stress of a match because as you get close to your goal you get anxious that if you miss one you will need to start again.

There is no prize for rushing through 50 balls, make each one lke a match serve. I think the saying is "Practice like you play, and play like you practice".

Click to expand...

Best advice i've been so far. It's very critical us all to get into the ready position after service.
It's good to have couple of good serves up your sleeves, but i'd say for amateurs, who haven't master side spins, should just stick to pure underspin ball and no spin ball for better execution of the 3rd and 5th shots. That way, the rallies are longer, and the games are more fun.

Cheers,

I tend to favor the path where you learn to serve different serves including the the side spin / corkscrew serves and that forces you to improve your understanding of different spins.

Nikoli said:

Best advice i've been so far. It's very critical us all to get into the ready position after service.
It's good to have couple of good serves up your sleeves, but i'd say for amateurs, who haven't master side spins, should just stick to pure underspin ball and no spin ball for better execution of the 3rd and 5th shots. That way, the rallies are longer, and the games are more fun.

Cheers,

Click to expand...

Shuki said:

...is at my coaches house but she says my serves are above my level at the moment and would rather work on some other things to better round myself out.

Click to expand...

NextLevel said:

IT would be interesting to understand what she means by your serves being above your level.

Click to expand...

Shuki said:

When we do group lessons, she'll set up drills that players should be doing while she's with another player.....

Click to expand...

One of the interesting things about this is, in hitting with you, I found your return of serve and rallying skills much better than your serves. After I felt your first few serves out, I realized that, at least the ones you were using while we were just doing the serve and play out the point drills, were all very similar spins for each different serve.

So your pendulum almost always seemed to have mild side/top. It was good. But after a few the spin was consistently the same and the placement didn't vary a whole lot.

Your backhand serves had so little spin that they threw me off for a while.

When we did the third ball attack drill, what stood out to me was that you didn't seem to have a short backspin serve.

But your serve receive was really excellent. And your ability to stay in points and keep the ball coming back was really solid as well.

At first I thought your FH was better than your BH because, when you have a shot lined up, your FH is pretty solid. But then I started realizing that your BH was very versatile and you were able to keep the ball on the table really well. But your FH, was only good when you saw the ball in your power zone and were set for it. And when that was not the case on FH you did not adjust to randomness even half as well as on BH and you made a lot of errors trying to do more than you should when you weren't quite in position.

So I would say, your serve receive his higher than your level. Your BH is super consistent and extremely effective: part of why your serve receive is so good. And when you have lined up and moved to the ball well, your FH it is higher level than your level but overall, your FH is lower level than your BH because of how consistent your BH is.

And your serves, they were decent, they were solid, but if you improved them and your tracking of the ball on FH, your level would actually jump 2 levels.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

Shuki's forehand is probably too short and constricted. Perhaps not up to the contact, but probably on the follow through.

Whenever I have problems with lining up a forehand, it's lack of rotating into the shot and playing it more in a backhand like mentality.

I'm relaxed, and my forehand block is great, so it's not that I'm too tense or my forehand sense is just bad. I don't think it's that for Shuki either. Most likely, it's a constricted swing, due to thinking too much.

Archosaurus said:

Shuki's forehand is probably too short and constricted. Perhaps not up to the contact, but probably on the follow through.

Whenever I have problems with lining up a forehand, it's lack of rotating into the shot and playing it more in a backhand like mentality.

I'm relaxed, and my forehand block is great, so it's not that I'm too tense or my forehand sense is just bad. I don't think it's that for Shuki either. Most likely, it's a constricted swing, due to thinking too much.

Click to expand...

Nope. Not what you are taking about at all. It's an issue of seeing the ball sooner and moving to it better. It's an issue of tracking the ball and intercepting it. He sees the ball better when he is playing BH and makes adjustments to placement. On his FH he didn't seem to do that nearly as well.

His stroke is excellent when he is in the right place and ready for the stroke. Very fast stroke. Good spin. Good pace. Trouble is, a lot of the time he has not moved to where the ball is and then he takes a more conservative stroke.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

NextLevel said:

You didn't play the guy and your strokes are probably worse than his. Post video first before talking.

Click to expand...

I give advice based on my own experience, and this is what I get in return?

Can you stop the elitism circlejerking for one second?

Ha ha ... this is the only thing that came to my mind from your response

Archosaurus said:

I give advice based on my own experience, and this is what I get in return?

Can you stop the elitism circlejerking for one second?

Click to expand...

I don't think I was ever judging anyone, seeing as I don't have any material to work on. How can you criticize or talk bad about something if it doesn't exist?

If I would have said "Whenever I have problems like that, my forehand is usually constricted on the follow through.

Whenever I have problems with lining up a forehand, it's lack of rotating into the shot and playing it more in a backhand like mentality.

I'm relaxed, and my forehand block is great, so it's not that I'm too tense or my forehand sense is just bad. When I have this problem, it's most likely a constricted swing." then I would have literally said the exact same thing, but with a different subject in the sentences. Of course, because I talked about their highness, great lord of the forums, because I wanted to communicate my experience to them directly, it's a bad thing.

If a professional coach gave you advice, would you change your opinion on the exact same advice if they revealed themselves to be a professional coach? Even if the advice was completely wrong/absolutely correct in the first place?

We're talking about mechanics here. The matter is the exact same for everyone else who can stand and swing. No matter how good you are, the same problems will affect you in the same way if you do the same things. If Ma Long doesn't follow through well on his loop, this happens. If you don't, this happens. If I don't, this happens.

For all I know, Shuki's mechanics are fine, and it's just his tactics that cause him to be in a bad spot for the forehand. All I am attempting to do is to maybe give him some things to think about and see if they're the cause. He's well smart enough to figure out if it's that or not.

NextLevel said:

life is about experience. Logic is just a way of organizing experience.

Click to expand...

You surely took this to the next level .

Back to topic, his problem could be because of any number of reasons :

1. Lack of confidence in his swing
2. Lack of footwork
3. Lack of anticipation
4. Incorrect understanding of spin or lack of confidence in the understanding
5. Late timing
6. Incorrect stance, as in favoring the backhand more
7. not adjusting to the height of the ball

How on earth were you able to glean enough information without looking at Shuki's game to come up with such a specific observation ? Confounded Confucius !!!!

ttmonster, if coaches always took all of those into account at once and commented on all of them at the same time, their students would just have brain aneurysms.


I simply give a "quick fix" that has a little bit of all of those and we see if it helps him. Shuki has a coach, it's her job to fix all of those in great detail, not mine.