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Hard to say by yourself because the pro players today are training 10 times more on the return of serve than the 90's pro players. But still, i've been trained by some of europes best trainers and the all say that Xu Xin got the best serves
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Poly balls still suck.
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Poly balls still suck.
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Simple. The one with the largest variety of spins, speeds and placements, and hardest for his opponents to read, whilst staying legal.
Hence - Ma Long.
Tennis players aim for variety too, though. It's not just about the velocity of the ball, there are other factors too (like arc) but I'm far from being an expert.
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Poly balls still suck.
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Poly balls still suck.
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I love his tomahawk serve, but I don't see him do it that much any more.
He seems to be using his standard forehand pendulum serve more and more, I think.
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There is no such thing as best server in general. Every aspect to the game is related to another aspect. So , in terms of variation creativity and fantasy I think Schlager and Waldner are the best, tremendous capabilities.
Zhang jike's reverse pendulum is also a serve he can do with all kinds of spins/speed and vary the placement, really great wrist work. Now the most well hidden serve is definetely ma longs pendulum, in the first years of his appearance most of his opponents found it extremely hard to read it. Now they have adapted, but still his pendulum sideunder/topspin is very well hidden
Zhang jike's reverse pendulum is also a serve he can do with all kinds of spins/speed and vary the placement, really great wrist work. Now the most well hidden serve is definetely ma longs pendulum, in the first years of his appearance most of his opponents found it extremely hard to read it. Now they have adapted, but still his pendulum sideunder/topspin is very well hidden
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Poly balls still suck.
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Spin and more spin.
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Spin and more spin.
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Just to support what jborras says, here is a video:
He Zhi Wen's serves are pretty amazing. He is currently ranked #67 in the world rankings. When he was 50 he was ranked at around 30. He does not move much but, for an old guy he is darn amazing and, with his serves, he is definitely giving Werner Schlager some dancing lessons.
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The angle He Zhi Wen gets on his serve is incredible! Perhaps Schlager should have received slightly more to the righ however he was probably protecting his bh side to
Great serving!
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Ultimate sarcasm or ??
Not even.
Actually, I noticed he always has a kind of pendulum serve move after touching the ball, but I thought he always touched the ball the classical way... Ok, I suck.
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bebakhshid.
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bebakhshid.
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Great by He Zhi Wen but still Ma Long is better in serving. Ma long can play amazing fast serves like He Zhi Wen and also incredible short ones.
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Not even.
As far as ur post before, IMHO pendulum serve and side spin serve are just two different things altogether or should i say closely related to each other...pendulum, reserve pendulum, tomahawk, reverse tomahawk, etc are the style (name) of serve meanwhile side spin, under spin, top spin, under side spin, top side side etc are the variation or the result of the serve or in other word is the outcome of the serve itself...for example, Ma Long use pendulum serve and with that one serve he can produce all the variations of the serve such as side spin, under spin, top spin, under side spin, top side side etc...however, people sometimes just call a serve with the style and variation just in one straight name to make things easy such as pendulum side spin etc...just my two cents..correct me if i'm wrong..peace
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Penhold players!
In terms of variation and amount of serve spin/placement I vote for the penhold players including Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Ryu Seungmin, Lee Jungwoo, He Zhiwen (former 2 both now retired, not sure about the Korean pair and Zhiwen) and now Xu Xin. Wang Hao has a nice hook serve but is relatively restricted in variation and the type of 3rd ball attacks.
The Cpen has a certain advantage in serve and receive still although it's clearly more restricted now due to no hidden serve, no speed gluing and now proposed larger 40mm+ ball and also someone noted people practice the receive much more than before. Also technically the BH banana flick return has posed many new challenges for the server, still as Xu Xin shows, there are ways to fight this (see match against Fan Zhendong)!
Should mention I am primarily a Cpen player (currently learning shakehand), some bias there
In terms of variation and amount of serve spin/placement I vote for the penhold players including Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Ryu Seungmin, Lee Jungwoo, He Zhiwen (former 2 both now retired, not sure about the Korean pair and Zhiwen) and now Xu Xin. Wang Hao has a nice hook serve but is relatively restricted in variation and the type of 3rd ball attacks.
The Cpen has a certain advantage in serve and receive still although it's clearly more restricted now due to no hidden serve, no speed gluing and now proposed larger 40mm+ ball and also someone noted people practice the receive much more than before. Also technically the BH banana flick return has posed many new challenges for the server, still as Xu Xin shows, there are ways to fight this (see match against Fan Zhendong)!
Should mention I am primarily a Cpen player (currently learning shakehand), some bias there
Nice thread, I'd have to say, for what it's worth, the best serves I've seen and been subjected to were those of Chen Xinhua when he was playing in the U.K back in the late 80's. I didn't have a scooby what was going on and he made some really good players at the time look silly. Things were different then and you could hide the ball which made Waldners serve so effective. Liu Guoliang comes from the same era but didn't bother hiding his serves and still made the best in the world look daft. For the modern players you can look no further than the top Chinese (Jang jike, Ma Llong, Xu Xin) and maybe Ovtcharov, Maze and Matsudeira for players who win points directly from the quality of the serve, be it failed receive or 3rd ball.
Think I've covered all the bases there.
Think I've covered all the bases there.
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ma long I think,,,n sometimes his serve hidden by his head n body movements.
zhang jike,wang hao's serve easy to read,,their serve mostly backspin and sidespin
zhang jike,wang hao's serve easy to read,,their serve mostly backspin and sidespin
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