I am a relatively new player, a lower intermediate (USATT rating about 1000). For my level, I have fairly good technique, and fairly good serves—I get decent spin, and can vary the spin and placement somewhat with FH pendulum and BH serves. I now need to develop my match play. “Develop your serve and third-ball attack” seems to be the most common advice, but I cannot find much advice online about which serves lead to which attacks.
Any advice about basic serve and attack strategies, or combinations to work on? (I.e. serve xxx, expect yyy, then do zzz.) What are your most useful serve and attack strategies? Any, and all advice would be welcome.
Hi Gary
some good advice given already. I’ll just add
short balls give many choices to opponent even though they put him under movement pressure. Long balls put him under less movement pressure, but you will find his return more predictable. Its a very valid tactic in some circumstances for instance to give your opponent the chance to loop, if you believe you can counter effectively. Usually avoid the short game against a stronger opponent (unless you need the practice)
Take stock of your current serves and develop them this way.
Assuming you are right handed:
You should be able to stand in bh corner and serve very short low chop to Rh opps fh
you should be able from same position to serve long fast ‘dead’ (flat) to opps BH
Note that these two locations are the maximum distance apart on opponents court.
Using this fact you should adjust your two serves so they will appear identical to your opponent until the second you hit them. So, you have one serve which pulls your opponent forward, and another which pushes him back. So now you can put “Direction” pressure on your opponent. That’s one choice he has to make. Later Add the ability to serve FAST anywhere.
Thats good for you, but really its better if you can add reading “SPIN” as something he has to worry about at the same time as “Direction”
You should have the ability to do your pendulum with the same preparation and appearance as the first two serves. You get the idea - Over time develop a family of serves to all parts of the table with different spins and speeds but looking identical until the last second, and when using them alway keep in mind the principle of having your opponent not being sure what is going to happen next. Each new spin you learn try to have a short and a long or even fast version.
If you are going to follow this advice, you need to practice your serves at least an hour a week. A fast serve should be VERY FAST and varied in Direction, a short chop serve should be VERY HEAVY and SHORT. And above all you should not MISS your serve. This is a problem you are likely to encounter as you develop the FAST serve. In serious match situations you need to have the mental discipline to not give points away by using a serve which you have not perfected.
One tip on disguise: its a good idea to keep your serves as nondescript as possible. Many amateurs delight in having a flashy stroke for each spin variation- but that stroke can be like a signpost for your opponent.
We recently had He Zhiwen at our club and he gave a demo and a sort of master class. His main message was:
practice
have a plan
use the whole table
keep opponent off balance
make him move
I seem to have got carried away!
good luck Gary