how to efficiently brush the ball during a serve ?

Guys can you please tell me how to efficiently brush the ball during a pendulum serve. When I serve it feels more like that I am hitting the ball and not brushing it. I know brushing is essential for maximum spin but I just can't do it properly. I hope you all will help me overcome my problem.

Do not compress the sponge rather contact the ball lightly with the topsheet.

The exercises mentioned are pretty good. My advice would be to focus on getting decent backspin with this motion first, once you get the contact right, it is easier to just tilt top of the bat for side and topspin. You can also practise at the table, by hitting horizontally or a bit upwards in front of the ball and making it bounce back over the net. Do not worry about getting a low bounce at first, it can bounce quite high, you really want to get the contact right. A short example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWM_...=youtu.be&t=18

Notice that developing the feel and getting a decent serve can take really a long time, unless you are one of those few where it comes naturally If you spend 5 minutes on it before every training session it will do wonders. Yes, it may be really, really boring.

Originally Posted by whocarez

The exercises mentioned are pretty good. My advice would be to focus on getting decent backspin with this motion first, once you get the contact right, it is easier to just tilt top of the bat for side and topspin. You can also practise at the table, by hitting horizontally or a bit upwards in front of the ball and making it bounce back over the net. Do not worry about getting a low bounce at first, it can bounce quite high, you really want to get the contact right. A short example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWM_...=youtu.be&t=18

Notice that developing the feel and getting a decent serve can take really a long time, unless you are one of those few where it comes naturally If you spend 5 minutes on it before every training session it will do wonders. Yes, it may be really, really boring.

HEY what do you mean by hitting horizontally. Do you mean underneath the ball.

This maybe just me, but I like to toss the ball a bit higher. It's counter-intuitive, but one of the main things that impedes my spin production is tensing up and ultimately being anxious about all the variables: wrist action, height of contact, place of contact and angle of contact. If I toss the ball higher, I can consciously relax and focus on delicately catching the ball, not forcing it over the net. The timing is more difficult as the ball is moving faster (and the playing area's light might annoy you), but it allows time for all your muscles to relax, before the point of contact. At that point, get your foot down and explode backwards into ready position. Serving should be relaxed, purposeful and graceful. I got into a bad habit of not getting into ready position because I'd spend hours serving again and again from the same position without ever practicing the move into ready position. But in general, I think it's the mark of a passionate TT player to hone service.

The more variables you worry about the less learning. Focus on 1 or 2 areas only first. Step by step to be exact.

Quality review. Thank you,. I still can't make a lap on the serve. With this video, at least I can study on my own first at home

Take it with a grain of salt as I'm not a high level player but what has helped me was keeping the bat low in the take back of the serve. Basically if you watch the pro guys the don't swing a lot high to low but they swing pretty horizontal and get the spin more by hitting the underside or side of the ball.

After doing that my underspin got much better, before I tried to generate backspin by going high to low like you do when hitting a tennis underspin slice but it didn't work so well.

But keep in mind I'm a lower level player

https://youtu.be/9UMsiHPb9HM

some serve practice.

https://youtu.be/9UMsiHPb9HM

not sure it worked last time!

Hi PPP,

that clip was from a while ago, it’s set up in my fathers garage, I moved out because of covid and just popped in to practice, both parents were classed ‘as at risk’
I rented with my partner, that lease ended in July so we rented again but a furnished property, all our stuff went into storage, bed sofa etc in the garage!!! 😪
Gradually stuff has been distributed amongst family members and last week I managed to get the table set up again!!!😀
CANT EMPHASISE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO PRACTICE!! lost some touch and feel on some serve types, especially reverse pendulum!! And yeah you can just lose yourself for an hour or two!!!

I practice this while waiting for my practice partners. I serve the ball so it rolls to the end of the table and then rolls back. This is very hard to do and still keep the ball low over the net.

I like USDC's 3rd video although his blade is a little tilted you can see it results in significant curve too.

The blade should be flat and move horizontally. The ball must be tossed up high enough to be legal but also it must hit the rubber with enough force so there is a lot of tangential friction which produces torque to spin the ball and enoughspeed to move it forward. The problem is that if you toss the ball too high, it will bounce high off the paddle so height above the table where contact is made is lower if you throw the ball higher.

I tend to use my wrist a lot to get extra speed and have better control than using just the speed of the fore arm. This means I get more backspin and speed if I I contact the ball towards the tip of my paddle. Trying hitting the ball near the handle to just for variation with the same motion.

Swing with a slightly upwards motion with the leading edge being a little higher will provide more spin and less speed but it is very tricky to do.