All things service

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NextLevel; said:
181340Don't let your current impression of how good you are stop you from playing it at least 15 minutes everyday for not much more.

Sorry for thread hijacking. The thing that stops me from playing it is that it becomes super boring very fast.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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If you didn't already know, Der_Echte's serves a re pretty darn good. Not just his short, heavy backspin which he uses to set up his short dead ball serve which is a real money maker for him. But his pendulum topspin and corkscrew serves are pretty evil too.

However, tropical is making a really good point. A lot of times it is a better strategy to use your serves to set yourself up to control the point or to end the point outright on the third ball when you can.

One of the disadvantages of simply relying on free points from your serve is that, then you don't get used to backing up your serves with good strategy and you don't get as many chances to control points in rallies and develop your rallying skillz.

However, having the good serves, and then how you use them to set yourself up, are two different things. And Der_Echte has the art of showing short, heavy backspin and then making a living off short no-spin to get easy third balls. When the opponent adjusts, he shows heavy backspin again and the return goes to the bottom of the net. He is able to change the spin with grip pressure so it pretty hard to see the change if you are only watching his motion.

So, Der definitely uses his good serves to set himself up for the Rambo Loop third ball. That is just intelligent strategy.


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Now, I have one of my old man stories. My friend Matthew Khan has a student, who he gets me to play games and matches with when I am around.

If you didn't know who Matthew Khan is, he is a player from Guyana who is USATT 2400-2500. And he is actually an amazing coach. He is a coach who really gets people to improve.

So this guy he gets me to play, he is in his 60s. When I played my first matches with him I would switch to my left hand to make it more interesting.

My guess is that this guy is now about USATT 1500, from a starting point of about 500. All that improvement came in the last 2 years. So, I would say Matthew Khan is practically a miracle worker. If this guy was the only player Matthew Khan helped this way, I would say, perhaps they just clicked as student and coach. But I've also seen him do the same to a woman in her late 50s who started with a lower ceiling because of athletic capabilities. He didn't make her great. But he got her to go from missing the ball 30% of the time, to being solidly decent and probably about 1100-1200. That is pretty hard with someone with eye hand coordination challenges at the outset.

Anyway, so, the last time I played MKhan's student, the older gent who I will call EL, I say to MKhan, "EL has some good serves, why isn't he using them?"

MK says: "Well, what happens when EL relies on just his good serves is, he starts expecting the ball won't come back. But then with a better player like you, the ball still comes back. So I am getting him to learn to set up points with simpler serves and pull out the better serves only once in a while."

So, EL has gotten a lot better. And I am using a few different strategies on him. And Matthew looks at me, smiling and says: "I see you are using your serves to set you up better."

And I say back: "Yep, if I don't use that at least some of the time, EL is getting too good for the simpler strategies these days."

MKhan could see my short spin/no-spin setups from a mile away. But they are very effective.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
 
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If you didn't already know, Der_Echte's serves a re pretty darn good. Not just his short, heavy backspin which he uses to set up his short dead ball serve which is a real money maker for him. But his pendulum topspin and corkscrew serves are pretty evil too.

However, tropical is making a really good point. A lot of times it is a better strategy to use your serves to set yourself up to control the point or to end the point outright on the third ball when you can.

One of the disadvantages of simply relying on free points from your serve is that, then you don't get used to backing up your serves with good strategy and you don't get as many chances to control points in rallies and develop your rallying skillz.

However, having the good serves, and then how you use them to set yourself up, are two different things. And Der_Echte has the art of showing short,
heavy backspin and then making a living off short no-spin to get easy third balls. When the opponent adjusts, he shows heavy backspin again and the return goes to the bottom of the net. He is able to change the spin with grip pressure so it pretty hard to see the change if you are only watching his motion.

So, Der definitely uses his good serves to set himself up for the Rambo Loop third ball. That is just intelligent strategy.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 
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In the above video I can see Der_Echte had a very good 3rd ball attack. His opponent didn't have much variation in her returning game and relied too much on her long pips for Der_Echte to make mistake. Except the 1st point Der_Echte won straight with his serves, the rest of the game showed his decent 3rd ball attack and returning strategy (he mixed chopping/pushing and backhand flip) . it could be more interesting if the lady knew how to twiddle the racket and attack Der_Echte's top spin serves.
 
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In the above video I can see Der_Echte had a very good 3rd ball attack. His opponent didn't have much variation in her returning game and relied too much on her long pips for Der_Echte to make mistake. Except the 1st point Der_Echte won straight with his serves, the rest of the game showed his decent 3rd ball attack and returning strategy (he mixed chopping/pushing and backhand flip) . it could be more interesting if the lady knew how to twiddle the racket and attack Der_Echte's top spin serves.

Well, I decided to start with that. Here is a match vs a much better player than DerEchte. See again what happens on serve return. I could show my videos of me repeatedly missing DerEchte's serves as well.


Of course you need an attack behind your serves, but misses come in different flavors and qualities. There are people who attack hard to attack returns. But you need serves that generate passive returns. It usually takes a good player to attack DE's serves.
 
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I've been thinking that it would be interesting to hear and useful to start a post about service where people could talk about different strategies, developments, or things that they have found effective when developing their service strategies or game. There is lots of good existing post regarding service but I have not seen one that talks about strategies more broadly. Topic could including all things serve related ranging from small technique improvements to serves strategies that people have found useful against when facing strengths types of players. For instance I would love to hear about strategies players have developed when playing someone with a very strong flip opener. Both what makes them uncomfortable personally and what successes they have found by at least slow them down.



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I started a thread like this on mytt but it didn't get very far. This was before I met Brett, after which I have learned much more. Will be back to share some stuff later. May not be today tho.
 
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I think we all say the same thing. The better player had a much better serve and attack game than Der_Echte. He didn't miss easy points and more consistent. His serves gave Der_Echte a hard time and his 3rd ball attack was deadly. Der_Echte won couple straight points from serving but his opponent return was also very good thus forced Der_Echte to make more mistake. The point I tried to make is one should practice with a partner who can return serves in different scenarios such as short, long, heavy, deep to body and you must be ready for such by either attacking or return short to initiate the next attack.
I still think my 1900 rating is not true. Ridding of my serves I may be a 1700!
 
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I think, part of the idea of what NextLevel is showing is that, in spite of the fact that Der is playing someone of a noticeably higher level than him, his serves are good enough to cause the opponent some trouble. This ends up giving him a few points straight out points off the serve. And then it also helps him set up his 3rd ball decently well. The fact that he was able to do this against a higher level player and make a decent number of his 3rd balls shows he has a good serve and attack game. Even if he has other things that keep him from going up another level or three.


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I think we all say the same thing. The better player had a much better serve and attack game than Der_Echte. He didn't miss easy points and more consistent. His serves gave Der_Echte a hard time and his 3rd ball attack was deadly. Der_Echte won couple straight points from serving but his opponent return was also very good thus forced Der_Echte to make more mistake. The point I tried to make is one should practice with a partner who can return serves in different scenarios such as short, long, heavy, deep to body and you must be ready for such by either attacking or return short to initiate the next attack.
I still think my 1900 rating is not true. Ridding of my serves I may be a 1700!

Carl got it, but let me try again.

I think you think there is a major difference between

1) getting a point off your serve outright, vs
2) getting an easy thirdball opportunity, vs
3) getting a controlled return,
4) vs getting an offensive return vs
5) getting your serve killed.

There are different but usually related. If a 2200 player ( this is Korea so not sure what DE's opponent's level is) is making an 1900 player miss, that is expected. If a 1900 player is making a 2200 player miss, his serves are above his level, that's the bottom line. If I can serve my backspin serve to a 2300 player and get him to net it twice, it is a good serve, and it works at a higher level than usual. If he can get me to miss, that is expected. If he is getting no free point off his serve, he is serving BELOW his level. The problem is that if you can tell what he is serving so early that you are not afraid, better players can plan their return way ahead of time. At the very least, he might be locating his serves that make you feel uncomfortable which you failed to realize.

At the NA Teams, watching Hao Shuai serve was an eye opener. I had never seen so many 2500+ players netting serves and popping up balls before in my life. So if a 2700 player is rely on his third ball game to beat a player at your level, he is either having fun practicing or just doesn't have good serves. Such players do exist. LGL is attributed with saying that Boll's serves are below his overall level, and others have said similar things about WLQ. No one says that about Ma Long, for example, as he is thought of as one of the best servers in the game, same about Mizutani.

I used to be a serve and rally player. I thought I had good serves. After Brett taught me how to serve, I became one of the best servers in my club. People started hating to play me just because of my serves. I didn't beat too many better players off my serves (but I beat a few, and anyone who watches my best matches always notes that the opponent struggled with more than his fair share of my serves), but I terrorized lots of worse players and had very few upset losses.

People will tell you that you can only terrorize people with serves up to a certain level. Well, that is a half truth. Your serves won't be the only reason you win, but you can give people issues with your serve up to the world class level. I saw Hao Shuai do it. I saw Mima Ito do it. I saw Miu Hirano do it - watch the Women's world Cup final - it is one of the most disgusting matches you will ever see.
 
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I play long pips so I normally do not have much problem with good servers. To beat me someone must have a good 3rd ball attack. I played a 2300 player (he gave me 3 pts) who didn't read my serve well enough so I beat him 3-0. However, I lost to him 3-1 the next match. Then from that point on I couldn't convincingly beat him anymore. If you do not have a good 3rd ball attack and rally people will find a way to beat you easily once they figure out your serve. Figuring out an opponent serve is not that hard compared to mastering a 3rd ball attack and/or rallying.
 
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I play long pips so I normally do not have much problem with good servers. To beat me someone must have a good 3rd ball attack. I played a 2300 player (he gave me 3 pts) who didn't read my serve well enough so I beat him 3-0. However, I lost to him 3-1 the next match. Then from that point on I couldn't convincingly beat him anymore. If you do not have a good 3rd ball attack and rally people will find a way to beat you easily once they figure out your serve. Figuring out an opponent serve is not that hard compared to mastering a 3rd ball attack and/or rallying.

Oh, you have long pips. That explains your attitude. I win a lot of free points on serve vs long pips. I also win points off kills vs low quality returns. I sometimes have to play third ball as well. But solving a serve is not putting the ball on the table, which is how a pips player might think. Solving a serve is preventing a third ball opportunity.
 
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You are exactly right, returning a serve is not merely put the ball back on table. Like I said before, one must be able to push, chop, return long short ... you name it. But then a good player must be able to attack 3rd ball and rally. Your experience may be different but I beg to differ.
 
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Heavy backspin is even more important now that so many juniors back flick anything short.

All the points made are very true and I'd also add is the height of the serve. If it's not low, it'd be a lot easier to flick even with the heavy back spin.

What's peculiar and interesting about serves is that the player's favorite serve doesn't alway match the player's strength.
For example, a player might have killer backspin serve but doesn't have good opening forehand. Or a player have very good side/topspin serve but isn't very good in close table rallies. It's probably because adult TT starter don't always have regular coach who looks after the playing style like juniors.

Classic example of the matching strength between serves/shots in my opinion is Kishikawa who almost exclusively serves heavy backspin and have very good loops in opening and rallies.
 
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Haha triple haha some real old vids of me maybe when I was 2 yrs plus in Korea. I was a recreational player before Korea 2009.

I am a little better level than those vids. They show enough good and bad. I have refined my serves better, but my old ways were still a good foundation. Just 3 minutes of practice every day for a year. It took me 6 months to get to a point where I was making a quality short underspin 50% of the time. I learned really slowly and my progress was real slow.

Every visit to clubs I make I show people my progressive staged path to serving.

1) Get feel for grip, impact point of bottom, and basic whip mechanics

Simply toss ball, cut under it, give it some lift, let it go down hall way, let it come back. Do this 5 minutes a day for a month.

2) Refine depth

Stand a meter or more behind table, slice under ball, get it high, bounce on your side, opponent's side, and let it come back to your side

3) Practice at table to work toss, impact height, first bounce, acceleration, grip and grip change, and fluid swing to get impact point where you want it.
 
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