Which is the best type of serve?

If it were me I'd concentrate on backhand pendulum on which I can vary the sidespin & backspin.

Very short FH pendulum with a lot of sidespin going from right to deep left low and close to the net.

The one the opponent cant read..

Or the one that hits the table courner!

Depends on your opponents. I have a straight chop forehand I use almost 50 % of the time and vary it when I think the opponent has come to expect it. The worst most players at my level can do with the short spiny chop is push it back, and I have a pretty good push to the backhand corner which I try to use to set up my loop (which I vary between the old slow loop and the loop drive). I also have a tomahawk serve that I can hit on either side of my bat and a side spin version of the forehand chop and a similar one from the backhand. Besides the backhand chop I serve all the others from about the same place on the table. Just suddenly seeing a different serve from the same spot is enough to bother most opponents. Confusing them with motion during the serve is hardly necessary if the type of serve comes as a surprise. But then I don't look to win points on my serve very often.

Now none of this would work against FZD but I don't play him. Hopefully before I do I will get better with my serves.

Yeah, I think, as you work on your serves, you will know which serves you have comfort and confidence in.

With any serve, when you are at a decent level serving, you will be able to serve backspin or topspin with more or less sidespin and you will also be able to serve heavier and lighter. Until that is the case with a particular serve, you just keep practicing it.

During a match there are a few things at play which should be looked at:

1) Which serves you are most comfortable serving during the match.
2) Which serves your opponent is least comfortable returning.
3) What returns you get from your serves.

When I serve to someone and I notice that they just keep returning my backspin serves safely with a push, I will serve backspin/no spin all day long. Because, if I get someone pushing to me, I am happy and can open the attack. Against someone better than me I still may not win. But at least I am doing what I want an controlling the points.

If I notice that the person likes to open on the short backspin serves, I might start serving topspin because I can set myself up for a counter attack better if they are opening off a topspin serve. That ball may come back faster. But the spin is not as dangerous as if they are looping my backspin serves.

So, a lot of serving has to do with reading the opponent and deciding what kind of return you would like to get from him so you can try to control or finish the point.

The TTEdge App, the part of it that shows the serves of different pros and you try and read which ones are top/backspin/no spin, as you do that and get good at it, you start seeing how these pros from the App change the swing of the serve just a little to change the spin. As you get to be able to read the spin, you get to be able to figure out ways of varying the spin on a serve like a pendulum, a reverse pendulum, a hook or a punch serve.

With a Tomahawk which is different but not too different from a hook or a punch serve, a server who really knows how to do the serve can do all the spin variations with it. And with my hook serve, I can definitely make it backspin, topspin, all side or dead in several different ways. It is always kind of cool if you can pull from under the ball so it really looks like backspin but make it topspin.

This video actually has some very good info for deceptive ways for changing the spin while making the serve look the same.

Silver smasher said:

Thanks for your great advice and suggestions.

I find it interesting that in the past people have advised me to have a variety of serves to confuse opponents but top players only seem to use one or two types of serve. Are there any players who serve a pendulum followed by a tomahawk, backhand, punch and then windscreen wiper serve?

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A lot of players switch serves a lot.
Ovtcharov can do a backhand serve followed by a tomahawk or a tomahawk followed by a forehand serve

Have many good serves that can't be attacked. Serving the same good serve over and over again will let the opponent adapt. Don't serve the same serve twice. Serve to different locations. Just like there are key times to take a time out there are also key times to use your deadliest serve to ruin his momentum. Also, some serves that will not work against a fresh opponent will work against a tired opponent.

brokenball said:

Have many good serves that can't be attacked. Serving the same good serve over and over again will let the opponent adapt. Don't serve the same serve twice. Serve to different locations. Just like there are key times to take a time out there are also key times to use your deadliest serve to ruin his momentum. Also, some serves that will not work against a fresh opponent will work against a tired opponent.

Click to expand...

These are good points.

One 'trick' I use a lot in match points or when I have 9 points in to a set:
I usually serve short to diferent parts of the table during the set. If this set is important to close and I am leading by let's say 9-7 I usually use a very long sidespin serve to my opponents backhand. Many times I do 2 long serves to close the set, especially the 2nd long serve they will not expect if you have been serving short during all game.
If this works I many times even start the next set with a long serve again only to change to short serves again. This may confuse the other player and force some mistakes.

So there is no "best serve" but diferent serves for each opponent, game situation.

Of course there are services that are mostly very effective in most situations and for my game it is the very short, mostly sidespin with a bit backspin serve from forehand (pendulum) to opponents backhand. This serve should leave the table on the side close to the net. The key and thing to master is to make it very spinny, short, but at the same time fast! Start slow and work on placement and spin and then when mastering this one and then work on the speed.

No one best type of serve.

Ask Par Garell. He will tell you the punch serve is the best type. And that's a very common type of serve.
Ask ZJK. Maybe he'd tell you the reverse pendulum serve is the best type of serve.
Maybe Ding Ning might say the tomahawk (normal & reverse) is the best type of serve.

I'm sure other several pros would probably say the pendulum serve is the best type.

Truth of the matter is service is just something you experiment with and eventually you settle in on what works best for you. Find something you can spin it well, hide it well to a certain degree and most importantly use that sets up well into your 3rd ball attack or whatever game-plan you're going for.

Practice a serve with several variations.