Problem Reverse Pendulum (to the forehand with backspin) - low spin and too high

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Hello i have a problem with my reverse pendulum, i serve this mainly to the opponents forehand side (half long), but sometimes my service gets to high and the oppponent flips/hits it very wide to my forehand site, sometimes i can get there to play a forehand crosscourt but sometimes i am to late and miss the ball or don't have enough power.


i will often serve backspin to the opponents forehand, but it gets to high or the serve don't have enough backspin / more sidespin and is killed/attacked easily, when i serve this service to the backhand side, it has enough backspin, i don't know why, maybe because the table is longer, and the spin can develop more.



what can i do to increase to backspin , when i will serve to the forehand and get a lower service. i hit the ball at the edge/end of my racket and my ellbow is low when i serve with backspin but it is only low backspin



the serve is like a freitas or timo boll serve, it is a very arkward movement when i want to serve to the forehand, the wrist is not getting full motion to graze the ball effectivly and i think my racket speed is not that high when i serve half long. should i serve very short ? with long services the backspin level is ok, i don't know what the problem is.



i hope you have some tips to get more backspin and a lower serve
 
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Sounds like you do know what the problem is.

You listed the main culprit in your first two examples. Your serves are too high.

I've always felt that it doesn't matter how much spin is on the ball, so you don't need more backspin as you asked, if the ball is high, a good player will smoke that return anyways.

Honestly the best bet to solve the problem with you is to get on the table, keep working with your serve. Just execute it lower.


there are products you can buy or make something like this on your own.
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Watch JZK reverse pendulum serves in slow mo. I swear the first serve you find with a lot of backspin on it will be first one. It doesn't exists. At least on video replays that I've seen. They're all pure side. He just keeps his serve very low and is by nature hard to attack.
 
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Hello i have a problem with my reverse pendulum, i serve this mainly to the opponents forehand side (half long), but sometimes my service gets to high and the oppponent flips/hits it very wide to my forehand site, sometimes i can get there to play a forehand crosscourt but sometimes i am to late and miss the ball or don't have enough power.


i will often serve backspin to the opponents forehand, but it gets to high or the serve don't have enough backspin / more sidespin and is killed/attacked easily, when i serve this service to the backhand side, it has enough backspin, i don't know why, maybe because the table is longer, and the spin can develop more.



what can i do to increase to backspin , when i will serve to the forehand and get a lower service. i hit the ball at the edge/end of my racket and my ellbow is low when i serve with backspin but it is only low backspin



the serve is like a freitas or timo boll serve, it is a very arkward movement when i want to serve to the forehand, the wrist is not getting full motion to graze the ball effectivly and i think my racket speed is not that high when i serve half long. should i serve very short ? with long services the backspin level is ok, i don't know what the problem is.



i hope you have some tips to get more backspin and a lower serve

You do need more racket speed to get more spin, but you have to be fast without pushing the ball forward too long.
Also, for your serve being too high, there can e multiple causes
1. Your contact point is too high. Usually, this isn't a problem if you are experienced.
2. You are serving it downwards too hard. This is usually the reason when you are learning a serve like the reverse pendulum. The ball hits the table too hard and bounces up quite high. Try serving the ball more forwards rather than downwards to fix this.

But without a video of your serve, I can only guess what your problems and solutions are. So the best thing to do right now is to make a video of your serve.
 
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thank you very much, for your tips, i will start to serve the reverse more foreward,with good racket speed and test if it will be lower and still half long, if it don't bring something i will train it hard but use it only frequently in matches and use my hook serve more (it is lower) and use more pendulum serve and the reverse as a surprise, but i hope i will perfect it this year
 
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One of the ways to make this difficult serve easier is to start with your arm "ready" right for the reverse serve, instead of using normal starting position. It makes life a lot easier. Some pros even use it (e.g. Stefan Fegerl).

Watch this video and the coach's ready stance and arm position right before the serve.

 
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where is the reverse less flickable - in the forehand middle, wide fh or forehand near the middle of the table
 
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I think whatever can be told technically has already been told by the forum members above and the video Illia provided is one of the good ones out there ... only thing I can add is soft hands and more wrist action , may be you are hardening your hand too early our using too much forearm ... however these are all conjectures and guesses ... if you really want help from the forum , the only way is to make video of you doing the serve multiple serves , with different placements ... ideally from two angles which shows your contact clearly ...
 
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IMO this is a very subjective question .. depends on the quality of your service and the level of your opponent .. however again in my experience this is one of the more flippable serves if you can't keep it low and spinny / deceptively changing the spin ....
in a standard righty to righty , the underside reverse serve is one of my favorites to flip kill if high , I find the spin perfect to flat flip kill it with power .. if its in the middle , I would take it with BH Flip and again since the BH sidespin flip will be with the spin , its actually easier to execute if the incoming serve is not high quality .. in my experience if somebody has a very good backhand flip , I would only try to go to their forehand short with the serve and keep it low ... I have had my spinniest and lowest services flipped from BH short by somebody whose off the bounce BH is very good so that kind of taught me a lesson ...
where is the reverse less flickable - in the forehand middle, wide fh or forehand near the middle of the table
 
The problem is with your timing hitting the ball. If your timing is in where the racket upon contact with the ball on its greatest downward force then it will make the bounce higher just lime with a normal underspin serve where you chop the ball too perpendicular with the table, it goes high.
 
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If your ball pops up you're not really spinning it.
Hold the racket a bit firmer in order to keep the ball on the rubber longer and make spin, otherwise you bounce it off.
And a million other things I guess
 
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hello thank you for your tips, when i serve more foreward i can get a little bit more spin, what was very good is that i must start high and stay very low with my legs at the contact and after the contact (on the pendulum services i can stay a little bit higher), the spin is not that big but the service will stay low,
 
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hey Gabriel,

I wanted to answer sooner, nur couldn't find the time, so here we go now:

Up to a certain level raising the amount of imparted spin will workout, but when reaching higher levels it's not just the amount of spin but rather the deceiption by adding different types of spin with nearly the same motion.

Watch JZK reverse pendulum serves in slow mo. I swear the first serve you find with a lot of backspin on it will be first one. It doesn't exists. At least on video replays that I've seen. They're all pure side. He just keeps his serve very low and is by nature hard to attack.

You probably must have meant ZJK, didn't ya?

Well anyway, sorry, but i would have to disagree on this with you here.
See, i haven't studied ZJK reverse pendulum but i've seen a few others, but im also pretty sure also ZJK can do a reverse pendulum with bare backspin (if even i can do it).
Here's a vid by TTD Dan with Timo Boll.
In this short vid Timo varies the spin very well disguised and actually proves what i just wrote.

At 0:46 it's bare sidespin and Dan's ball went long.
At 1:03 it's almost bare backspin and Dan nets it. Dan even asks him about this after the backspin reverse pendulum serve and Timo explains very well.

Point proved. Case closed.
[Emoji6]
 
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Perhaps I should have been more clear. I'm not saying it can't be done. Certainly not arguing that. I was just trying to stress, and probably very poorly, to the OP who said he needed more backspin that it doesn't matter how much backspin, or any type of spin really if a serve is high.

I was using ZJK as an example of the importance of keeping a serve low because I have never seen a replay of a reverse pendulum serve of his that had backspin.

Can he do it? probably. Just I've never seen it. If you find footage of him doing at as much, talking a slow mo replay were we can actually see the spin, feel free to post it... But i wouldn't spend too much time looking because I'm tellin ya, he doesn't do it.

Anyways, that went way off track. I hope the OP is having success getting the spin action he is looking for and most of all, keeping his serves low.
 
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BTW the reverse serve is one of the hardest (if not the hardest) to learn. Took me 2.5 years to turn it into a weapon that wins points. But I still pop it up from time to time and make faults.

I can identify so well with this. I've been working on my reverse serve for like a good year, sometimes more intense and sometimes just winging it for months. Currently it's still a ****ing coinflip whether I get a good contact or complete misshit, and it's extremely frustrating at times
 
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yes this service is very hard, i experiment much with it, but when somebody has trouble with this serve, it could win you tight games, which you would normaly lose
 
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