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Science is built upon repeatable results. Whatever I say here is subjective, and players should always try things out for themselves and communicate their results with others.
Everyone should know about the scientific method. It's grown to be a little bit more than the old 7-step method, so here it is:
I'm probably going to make a series of these kinds of threads and request others to help me gather data on something specific.
I've been doing this a lot ever since I stopped getting coaching, but I've always kept it to myself. So this time, I want to share what I've been up to.
**********************
Here's my question:
What are the effects and use cases of directly against the serve, or with the direction of the serve?
As a lefty, with my experience with righties serving to my forehand, I feel that going directly against the serve makes it easier to push fast and add spin. I've never really tried to actively push with the direction of the serve though.
So today, I tested it out and found some interesting things.
****
Informal Experiment:
Controls: I'm a lefty penhold (~2200-2300 when playing actively). My partner is a righty shakehand (~1600-1700? very good practice partner though). We all play inverted rubber: DHS Hurricane 3Neo forehands. He serves a short side-underspin pendulum to my forehand. I forehand push down-the-line. My partner forehand loops or pushes and describes the amount of spin for each push.
Independent variable: Direction of my racket during the push*. Going against the serve, my racket goes from left to right. Going with the serve, my paddle goes from right to left slightly.
*Note: because of the direction of the push and the location of where I was pushing it to, my racket angle changes as well. When pushing against the serve, I reverse some of the sidespin back to my partner. When going with the serve, I go along with the sidespin.
****
Results and Analysis:
I would have taken a video, but I didn't have a camera or a camera stand. So I'll just describe them.
According to my partner, pushing against the serve does make more spin. It also makes the push faster, but it slows down when it bounces of the table (probably because of the backspin).
Pushing with the serve seems to eat a lot of the balls energy. You have to do more to the ball to get the same amount of spin. When pushing long, the ball's speed stays fairly constant, so fast pushes tend to stay fast after they bounce.
When it comes to pushing short, pushing against the serve, it seems that you have to rely on the ball's spin to do the work.
When pushing with the serve, it seems that your racket has to go a little faster to get the ball over the net.
It seems that these differences result from how the ball's speed and spin are lower relative to your racket when you go with the ball on this pendulum serve. The difference in spin probably come from whether or not I go against the spin.
In general, I think I had to go downwards more with my racket to keep the push low and spinny when I went with the serve. Going against the serve's direction and spin makes it easy to just send it back and add more. However, going with the serve probably gives more control to you, since you have to do all the work.
****
Possible use cases:
I've been going against the serve for years now, and I've used it to bully lots of lower level players. The additional spin and the little bit of sidespin makes it really tough to handle. I've used it force out a less-aggressive loops to counter-attack.
As for going with the serve, I might start using it for pushing short. If someone is looping underspin well, I might use it for variation, and possible cause players to go out. If someone has a tricky serve, I will try consider it.
****
Can you guys test this out and see if you get the same result?
Also, I need data on this same experiment for down-the-line serve variations and reverse sidespin serve variations. I've played around with the reverse sidespin experiment and I think I got results that agreed with going against the spin and going against the direction idea.
Everyone should know about the scientific method. It's grown to be a little bit more than the old 7-step method, so here it is:
I'm probably going to make a series of these kinds of threads and request others to help me gather data on something specific.
I've been doing this a lot ever since I stopped getting coaching, but I've always kept it to myself. So this time, I want to share what I've been up to.
**********************
Here's my question:
What are the effects and use cases of directly against the serve, or with the direction of the serve?
As a lefty, with my experience with righties serving to my forehand, I feel that going directly against the serve makes it easier to push fast and add spin. I've never really tried to actively push with the direction of the serve though.
So today, I tested it out and found some interesting things.
****
Informal Experiment:
Controls: I'm a lefty penhold (~2200-2300 when playing actively). My partner is a righty shakehand (~1600-1700? very good practice partner though). We all play inverted rubber: DHS Hurricane 3Neo forehands. He serves a short side-underspin pendulum to my forehand. I forehand push down-the-line. My partner forehand loops or pushes and describes the amount of spin for each push.
Independent variable: Direction of my racket during the push*. Going against the serve, my racket goes from left to right. Going with the serve, my paddle goes from right to left slightly.
*Note: because of the direction of the push and the location of where I was pushing it to, my racket angle changes as well. When pushing against the serve, I reverse some of the sidespin back to my partner. When going with the serve, I go along with the sidespin.
****
Results and Analysis:
I would have taken a video, but I didn't have a camera or a camera stand. So I'll just describe them.
According to my partner, pushing against the serve does make more spin. It also makes the push faster, but it slows down when it bounces of the table (probably because of the backspin).
Pushing with the serve seems to eat a lot of the balls energy. You have to do more to the ball to get the same amount of spin. When pushing long, the ball's speed stays fairly constant, so fast pushes tend to stay fast after they bounce.
When it comes to pushing short, pushing against the serve, it seems that you have to rely on the ball's spin to do the work.
When pushing with the serve, it seems that your racket has to go a little faster to get the ball over the net.
It seems that these differences result from how the ball's speed and spin are lower relative to your racket when you go with the ball on this pendulum serve. The difference in spin probably come from whether or not I go against the spin.
In general, I think I had to go downwards more with my racket to keep the push low and spinny when I went with the serve. Going against the serve's direction and spin makes it easy to just send it back and add more. However, going with the serve probably gives more control to you, since you have to do all the work.
****
Possible use cases:
I've been going against the serve for years now, and I've used it to bully lots of lower level players. The additional spin and the little bit of sidespin makes it really tough to handle. I've used it force out a less-aggressive loops to counter-attack.
As for going with the serve, I might start using it for pushing short. If someone is looping underspin well, I might use it for variation, and possible cause players to go out. If someone has a tricky serve, I will try consider it.
****
Can you guys test this out and see if you get the same result?
Also, I need data on this same experiment for down-the-line serve variations and reverse sidespin serve variations. I've played around with the reverse sidespin experiment and I think I got results that agreed with going against the spin and going against the direction idea.
