Reducing Spin on Your Serves

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David, you see, the point is that you can disguise your serve well enough that they won't go "Aha, a no-spin serve, what a dummy!". It'll miss the point entirely if you tell them that you're serving an easy ball.

I'm not doubting your level of play at all, but if you can't really disguise serves, then I can see why you wouldn't find much value in having no-spin be one of your standard serve variations. I think it also has to do with the average and maximum amount of spin on your serves, as well.

I disguise my serves well enough. Many people can't read them
 
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Larry Hodges reasoning is that it is difficult to return. My reasoning is that it gives the opponent options

But none of the options are as strong as they would be vs the spin serves they are designed for. In any case, you have given your opinion and I respect it. Zhang Jike almost never serves corkscrew serves and Ma Long almost never serves reverse pendulum. People are successful with different approaches to serves in this game.
 
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Well, perhaps the reason no-spin is so popular on the very high levels is because there isn't even a question of "less options" there: everyone can do whatever the hell they want with the ball for the most part.

For amateur level players, maybe our views are coming from a fundamentally different world, and we would rather limit people's options because they can be limited to a great degree.
 
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Well, perhaps the reason no-spin is so popular on the very high levels is because there isn't even a question of "less options" there: everyone can do whatever the hell they want with the ball for the most part.

For amateur level players, maybe our views are coming from a fundamentally different world, and we would rather limit people's options because they can be limited to a great degree.

I thought about that a little. But difficulty can be overcome with practice. Players can just train against it.

I think it just comes down to the weakness and strengths of different types of serves and whichever serves fit you better.
There's reason why players use different kinds of serves, and not just one serve: everything has strengths and weaknesses
 
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I thought about that a little. But difficulty can be overcome with practice. Players can just train against it.

I think it just comes down to the weakness and strengths of different types of serves and whichever serves fit you better.
I don't understand how your first statement relates to mine. Surely it's a given that people can get better at reading and receiving well hidden no-spin, but what's your point?
 
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I don't understand how your first statement relates to mine. Surely it's a given that people can get better at reading and receiving well hidden no-spin, but what's your point?

Ah, then let me clarify.

Larry Hodges's reasoning was that it is difficult to make a good quality return.

And then you stated that professionals players probably are good enough to handle the many possible options and can do whatever they want anyways. That implies that professionals players would rather simply give a difficult ball to the opponent rather than try limiting their options.

And then I said that, players can just train to learn to deal with the difficult ball.
 
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Ah, then let me clarify.

Larry Hodges's reasoning was that it is difficult to make a good quality return.

And then you stated that professionals players probably are good enough to handle the many possible options and can do whatever they want anyways. That implies that professionals players would rather simply give a difficult ball to the opponent rather than try limiting their options.

And then I said that, players can just train to learn to deal with the difficult ball.
Yes.

Players at a very high level are well accustomed to dealing with all kinds of spin. However no-spin is a very strong tactical tool because it can help you gain your own initiative, or hit a winner directly if you play enough mind games.

If you serve heavy backspin, very high level players have very good answers to it. If you serve heavy topspin, very high level players have very good answers to it.

However, no-spin can't really get any more "no-spinnier" and it has a set of clear restrictions placed on the receiver. If I've understood correctly, you cannot "borrow" power and spin from a no-spin ball.


Because you cannot limit very good players' options just by serving a heavy spin to them, you limit what they can do with what they're given. If there's not much to grab on, there's not much they can grab hold of.


Now, of course, it's not so simple as "Serve no-spin and win!" because as you said, while there's heavy restrictions on how much spin you can apply or how you can redirect the ball's energy, you can do a lot of things with no-spin because there is no spin to counter. If you just serve predictable no-spin, it will get attacked pretty hard, won't it?

And that's where all the mind games and whatnot comes in.


Now, of course, what the hell do I know about high level play? So understand where I'm coming from. This is just the theory I know: maybe you have different experiences.
 
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Brett Clarke is the best. I love his videos and his view points on service.

I have for a while now had pretty spiny serves but as I have been video taping my service from a receiver's prospective, I have noticed that my serves are far too visible. The ball is clearly away from my body.

Thus I have been really trying to focus on Brett's elbow trick and during the toss I think, Keep that head of the blade almost touching my ribs throughout the entire process. If my toss is perfect and the ball comes right to that spot? Great. If it's a little far out, I move to the ball. Either way, I'm almost for sure contacting the ball right next to my body. My goal is that borderline illegal serve as far as visible. Key word being borderline.

I think it is helping but I need more footage to confirm.

On a side note, I have recently adopted the no-spin variation motion that looks a lot like my backspin variation. As Brett suggest, I try to contact the ball essentially next to my hand where the blade isn't rotating nearly as fast. I've found it to be pretty useful.
 
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I disguise my serves well enough. Many people can't read them
David, I plan on meeting the Goon Squad at Korean Flushing club this Sat 7 pm. Let's practice serves!

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To Archo re slow serves, Last Sunday a US team member netted two of these when I served them to him.
 
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One guy who had the most ridiulously well-disguised "no spin" seve was Ma Lin. Somewhere there is a video of him playing Adrian Crissan who was around 30 in the world at the time. Crissan popped up almost every one of them. Something Eric Owens always reminded me though is its not supposed to be no spin. He said to think of it as heavy spin and lighter spin from the same motion. The light spin has to have enough spin that it kind of flies through the air like the heavy one (and the label is hard to see). That is where the deception comes from. If its too dead it is easy for opponent.
 
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One guy who had the most ridiulously well-disguised "no spin" seve was Ma Lin. Somewhere there is a video of him playing Adrian Crissan who was around 30 in the world at the time. Crissan popped up almost every one of them. Something Eric Owens always reminded me though is its not supposed to be no spin. He said to think of it as heavy spin and lighter spin from the same motion. The light spin has to have enough spin that it kind of flies through the air like the heavy one (and the label is hard to see). That is where the deception comes from. If its too dead it is easy for opponent.

The instruction I got from Brett was different, but there are always different approaches to serving.
 
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To Archo re slow serves, Last Sunday a US team member netted two of these when I served them to him.
Wow. I guess if you can go and make that kind of serve real low it's a big problem.

At my level, people net those even if they're a cm or two too high, it's pretty comical.

@Baal

Isn't that a little bit like NL's method of light spin? His heavy serve is damn heavy, so his light spin can actually be respectably heavy too. So people will adapt to the heavy spin, and then you just need a lot less spin: it doesn't matter if it's still heavy or not. I imagine it's better if you go from "damn heavy" to "still kinda heavy" and achieve the same effect. You can't just stare at the ball, then.
 
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I always wondered why so many people like no-spin serve. If it is a truely no-spin, the opponent can literally see the ball "sitting" in the air, with the label barely revolving in the air. If an amateur can do this, a pro can for sure.

I personally like sidespin and sidespin-backspin variation:

1) In both cases one can serve heavy spin with very similar swing, no need to reduce racket speed
2) In both cases the ball revolves in the air, it is impossible to see the label
 
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I have a friend who serves nospin a lot. I do make mistakes against it, sometimes I think during the recieve like:

- The serve looks like backspin, let's see
- Hey, I can see the label it should be a nospin one
- Indeed, change your racket angle, change it!
- Oh shi....
 
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I love no spin serves a lot...... The bigest achievement here is good reading of spin. And most players have realy simple serves (but still with lot of rotation), but there are some players where decception in serves is brutal and you can only throw dice or try to overpower it. We have one of this guys in our club and this is crazy his movement and false movement are so fast......
 
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