Short video of serve and receive training

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Helloooooo,

Here's a short video I took last night of me and my team mate doing a serve and receive drill....its not exactly game intensity as I was just back from a longish injury break, but would love feedback on anything I could work on. The drill was theoretically push returns off short serves to be attacked by the server..... I notice that sometimes I am very upright, I am consciously trying to get lower, but I forget a LOT. I apologise for any bad language that comes across as well...

I'm the overweight guy in the blue top. Oh wait, that doesn't narrow it down. I'm the overweight lefty in the blue top :cool:

 
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You don't look overweight at all.

As a lefty, I can give you some service receive tips.

You know that your returns are sometimes too high. When somebody serves something with sidespin, it isn't a bad idea to simply go counter to the sidespin when you do your push. You should try doing this when you push down the line. This way, your cross court pushes won't be so high and so give your opponent much more trouble.

Here's what I mean: When I see you return your mate's pendulum serve with your forehand, try to go across from left to right. It goes against the sidespin, but that's ok if you have the right paddle angle. Going directly counter to the spin of the serve makes your return more spinny, and gives your return a decent amount of sidespin, enough to give people trouble. Of course, don't forget to add the underspin as well. You basically give them a side-underspin return that goes against their spin (when I started doing this, I noticed it would cause many errors for the opponent. It was much more effectively than I'd initially thought)

Another thing that I see is that you struggle to receive short. A lot of this is simply the height (a low ball won't travel as far). But even so, you are pushing the ball too far.

If you want to get better at pushing short, you should accept that sometimes your short push is high. Focus on getting the ball to bounce close to the net and decreasing the speed of the ball. How do you do that?

First of all, getting the ball to bounce close to the net relies a lot on hitting the ball as early as possible, ideally as the ball is rising (that way, the ball kind of bounces off your paddle). If you are too late, you are forced to make the ball travel farther to get past the net, making the ball travel farther after it gets past the net. This might be a little hard, since it seems that your mate is serving half-long a lot of the time.

Decreasing the speed that's on the ball relies a lot on paddle angle. Contacting the ball with an angle that goes against the spin forces the spin on the ball to do all the work of bouncing off your racket. This requires a lot of experience, especially to keep the ball low, but as of right now, forget the height and focus on shortness. Once you got the feeling of getting it short, then you can work on the height.


Here's an example video. Maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven't.

Hinse empahsizes lots of good points.

 
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i don't want to write that much but regarding the short service receive, your stance is a big problem. you are standing wayyyyy too high, bend your knees! and then as a left handed player, put your left foot below the table to reach under the ball. and then move back right away.
 
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You don't look overweight at all.

As a lefty, I can give you some service receive tips.

You know that your returns are sometimes too high. When somebody serves something with sidespin, it isn't a bad idea to simply go counter to the sidespin when you do your push. You should try doing this when you push down the line. This way, your cross court pushes won't be so high and so give your opponent much more trouble.

Here's what I mean: When I see you return your mate's pendulum serve with your forehand, try to go across from left to right. It goes against the sidespin, but that's ok if you have the right paddle angle. Going directly counter to the spin of the serve makes your return more spinny, and gives your return a decent amount of sidespin, enough to give people trouble. Of course, don't forget to add the underspin as well. You basically give them a side-underspin return that goes against their spin (when I started doing this, I noticed it would cause many errors for the opponent. It was much more effectively than I'd initially thought)

Another thing that I see is that you struggle to receive short. A lot of this is simply the height (a low ball won't travel as far). But even so, you are pushing the ball too far.

If you want to get better at pushing short, you should accept that sometimes your short push is high. Focus on getting the ball to bounce close to the net and decreasing the speed of the ball. How do you do that?

First of all, getting the ball to bounce close to the net relies a lot on hitting the ball as early as possible, ideally as the ball is rising (that way, the ball kind of bounces off your paddle). If you are too late, you are forced to make the ball travel farther to get past the net, making the ball travel farther after it gets past the net. This might be a little hard, since it seems that your mate is serving half-long a lot of the time.

Decreasing the speed that's on the ball relies a lot on paddle angle. Contacting the ball with an angle that goes against the spin forces the spin on the ball to do all the work of bouncing off your racket. This requires a lot of experience, especially to keep the ball low, but as of right now, forget the height and focus on shortness. Once you got the feeling of getting it short, then you can work on the height.

Thanks - you are correct of course, you can see it very clearly in the video. I wasn't always trying to return short in this exercise, I was often pushing long to change the look for Flavio to train his loops...but even so, loads of the returns were either wayyy too high or wayyy too "nothing"...The sidespin underspin return i will try, look forward to trying it out! I'll also get on the earlier return to keep it shorter.....Thank you very much for the considered response..!
 
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i don't want to write that much but regarding the short service receive, your stance is a big problem. you are standing wayyyyy too high, bend your knees! and then as a left handed player, put your left foot below the table to reach under the ball. and then move back right away.

Thanks Fabian - I am working on lowering my stance, but I get super lazy in training.....:p. Play and move away would also require less laziness....lots to do..
 
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That’s often because your legs are weak. Try wallsitting 3*1 Minute each day and that will go away :)
Legs aren't weak, but part of them is....I have a very old ACL repair and almost no meniscus in my left knee, so i've become too habituated to stand upright to compensate for it. I do plenty of leg exercise, its really just a bad habit....
 
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Hi,

While strengthening and getting lower will definitely help, I would start off with getting your grip right and working on your touch. Neither of these require above-average fitness. Only a bit of deliberate practice.

Do not move your forearm at contact. Do not follow-through. Just absorb the spin and let the ball react and go back. Observe the way ball reacts off your rubber and adjust wrist angle accordingly. Don't try to add spin till you can control your returns.

Just passing on things I am also learning. Hope it helps. If not, let me know what works :)
 
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