how to return top side spin ball serve (illustration)

Archosaurus said:

You understood the diagram. Orange is the serve, and it's reverse pendulum. Or something like a machine feeding pure sidespin.

Say you receive some super heavy sidespin and you theoretically want it to hit the middle of the table roughly. Would the return be something like this? If so, I can easily see why it's a bit more convenient to use the backhand.

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Yep. And with that contact angle on heavy reverse pendulum sidespin, or tomahawk or hook or BH, you should be able to aim the ball pretty much where you want to.

And if that was side/top with that kind of big curve, if the blade face was pretty much vertical, and you brushed down and a tiny bit forward, you could drop it short...low heavy backspin. Which is a biotch of a return because someone who makes that side/top serve is asking for a long ball and is so used to getting it back long that to have a low, short, heavy push, off a serve that most people can't contain can bend the server's mind.

To be clear, again, when Mark C gives me that serve, over and over, and I am just trying to drop it short, I can. But when I have to read it and react in a moment in a match, I am not going to do the drop right. So there are other returns that are easier than the drop I just described. Like if, with that racket angle, you pull forward a little, the ball will be going forward pretty fast because of how much spin is on the serve.


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UpSideDownCarl said:

Yep. And with that contact angle on heavy reverse pendulum sidespin, or tomahawk or hook or BH, you should be able to aim the ball pretty much where you want to.


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How is that aiming done? By applying force towards the direction you want to go, changing the angle slightly, or both?

I do understand that as you apply counter-spin to the ball ie: topspin against topspin, things get a bit dynamic.

Archosaurus said:

How is that aiming done? By applying force towards the direction you want to go, changing the angle slightly, or both?

I do understand that as you apply counter-spin to the ball ie: topspin against topspin, things get a bit dynamic.

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I guess you have to play around with the receive for a while. But if you do, you will feel how you can aim it where you want.

Just like, before you knew how to push, the ball kept going into the net on backspin and then when you learn how to do it you can just direct the ball forward. You could make it higher or lower. You know how to get it to hit the bottom of the net or the table before the net or how to make it higher.

I am not sure I think of it as anything but directing the ball where I want it to go. If the stroke goes forward at an angle toward the BH side, the ball will go there. If it goes forward towards the middle it will go there. If the stroke goes forward towards the FH side, it will go there. That is the hardest one. Because you have to stay on the inside of the ball.

But the craziest thing you could do with that sidespin serve is hook loop it back. If instead of going on the inside of the ball, you contact the outside of the ball, and your racket speed is as fast or faster than the spin, you can hook that back. And that ball will hook like crazy. That basically is like looping backspin where the racket is going in the same direction as the spin so it needs to be as fast or faster than the spin. But instead you are adding sidespin to sidespin. And with that you would have to direct the ball taking into account how much the ball will curve.

One time Matt Hetherington was hitting these crazy BH hook loops at me (he's lefty, so they are curving towards my FH) and they were coming at the table from left of my BH side and bouncing on my FH side and after the bounce they were going pretty much parallel to the end line of the table towards my right. Hahahaha. He was hooking my hook loop and it had sooooo much spin.


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UpSideDownCarl said:

I guess you have to play around with the receive for a while. But if you do, you will feel how you can aim it where you want.

Just like, before you knew how to push, the ball kept going into the net on backspin and then when you learn how to do it you can just direct the ball forward. You could make it higher or lower. You know how to get it to hit the bottom of the net or the table before the net or how to make it higher.

I am not sure I think of it as anything but directing the ball where I want it to go. If the stroke goes forward at an angle toward the BH side, the ball will go there. If it goes forward towards the middle it will go there. If the stroke goes forward towards the FH side, it will go there. That is the hardest one. Because you have to stay on the inside of the ball.

But the craziest thing you could do with that sidespin serve is hook loop it back. If instead of going on the inside of the ball, you contact the outside of the ball, and your racket speed is as fast or faster than the spin, you can hook that back. And that ball will hook like crazy. That basically is like looping backspin where the racket is going in the same direction as the spin so it needs to be as fast or faster than the spin. But instead you are adding sidespin to sidespin. And with that you would have to direct the ball taking into account how much the ball will curve.

One time Matt Hetherington was hitting these crazy BH hook loops at me (he's lefty, so they are curving towards my FH) and they were coming at the table from left of my BH side and bouncing on my FH side and after the bounce they were going pretty much parallel to the end line of the table towards my right. Hahahaha. He was hooking my hook loop and it had sooooo much spin.


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I love how you say hook looping the serve is the 'craziest thing.'

Lefty players have to do this all the time against righty players. Any pendulum serve that we receive that isn't short has to be 'hook looped' with our forehand (most of the time).

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all in all, for the original poster:

It's really strange how almost nobody addressed the timing. The timing is almost always top of the bounce, just like normal shots. This will give your the best chance against almost anything that has topspin.

If the ball is short, have confidence that the ball's topspin will get you over the net, so close you racket.
When I was a beginner, I didn't have this confidence and I thought I would hit the net, and so my racket was always too open and my shots would go out.

If you are able to loop/topspin the ball, go ahead and try it. The others in this comment thread have already talked about this. Remember to try to hit the ball at the top of the bounce. Again, close your racket and trust that the topspin will carry you over the net.
If the ball is half long and you have trouble looping 'inside' of the table, or you are simply used to looping it later, try looping it before it reaches the white line at the end of the table. This mental trick is pretty good at forcing players to hit the ball earlier and works for all the players I've talked to.

songdavid98 said:

I love how you say hook looping the serve is the 'craziest thing.'

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To me it feels easier to fade loop that serve. When Mark Croitoroo serves lefty to me, his lefty serves are still freakin good. Contacting the inside of those curving topspin serves feels much easier to me than hooking the outside of that serve.

But, hey, you are a decent amount better than I am. And if you have to do it all the time, maybe you get used to doing it and learn how to do it well. Like for me, looping heavy backspin is pretty easy even though I remember when I couldn't do it.


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Have a relaxed hand and practice against this type lf serve

TTHopeful said:

Have a relaxed hand and practice against this type lf serve

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This is really a great post. Simple and to the point.


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For a right handed player thats better side is the forehand hitting a inside out topspin drive is a pretty good response wince you get the hang of body, arm and wrist angle. For me depending on placement it seemed a Little easier to topspin drive a ball that’s over the table than loop it. Learning this helped me a tone ( with serve return some) but more with third ball opp’s after a long side spin serve return that just fed the spin back at me which gives you a similar ball action to what was explained.
And for side or side top spin serve short to the fore hand or long in the center or forehand you can take you bat in a almost windshield wiper type movement and counter the spin by brushing across or up and across the spin. if the ball is over the table it’s a type of forehand flip. if longer it’s done from your normal blocking or looping position. You still need to get your arm, body, wrist in the contact place for this, it’s still a inside out type swing but you brushing to counter the spin instead of hitting through the spin. Probably not the pro’s response but this is pretty safe and the wrist positions movement seems pretty easy for me to manage. What’s good about this is this action or movement can working as a caught out oh shit return on a block, or incorporating this movement into a more aggressive loop or counter. Actually in loop exchanges It does not look as notable, the swing it just looks like a normal loop mostly but I’ll use this principle take this path to the ball most often when seeing the heave sidespin balls loops. I will sometime counter a side spin loop with a side spin of my own or just override right over the spin but if im not the best of position to over come that ball it’s the easiest way for me to address that shot.
This is not a short fore hand question but I’m Actually not very good at flipping with the fore hand unless it’s this type of ball. Since I got the feel for the movement I feel pretty good about safely feeding spiny balls to the 3 points.

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Very good and accurate explanations by Carl. Thank him a lot.

I have an extra question, regarding not only serves perticularly - differences in returning horizontal axis sidespin vs vertical axis sidespin? How to read their dominance in trajectory and rebounce?