Serve for a lefty

[Dominikk85]

I'm a lefty player, what serve locations are good for a lefty against a righty? When I watch timo boll he often seems to serve short to the middle of the table. What is the purpose of that?

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Learn heavy sidespin pendulum serve that breaks away from a rightie's forehand. You will drive them nuts.

 

[Dominikk85]

You mean wide into their FH corner?

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Yes, or even outside of the corner so that it breaks off the side line of the table.

 

[KM1976]

Well my dear friend, I also had the same question sometime back. However, the more you play the more you will realize is that there is no perfect solution or a closed ended answer to your question. Let me explain. Some players are very good on their forehand be it a flick or a topspin or just a placement push. In either case, you might have to bank on safe play thereby giving opportunity of first attack to your opponent.
You need to judge your opponents game, what kind of spin he dislikes. Your opponent might like the ball breaking away on his forehand corner but might dislike the same spin placed on his elbow. As I said, there is no straight answer. As a general guide, you can safely assume that you should not allow any player to have a complete swing on the serve return. The more your opponent has a chance to swing or free his arms the more probability increases for an opening attack.
Even when you discuss this topic with high level coach, they always base their answer on percentages. For example, you can have a 60% expectation and preparedness that a ball might be returned at a certain place on the table. But still you need 40% preparedness if things don't go as planned.

 

[suds79]

He's beating up on a kid here but I've ripped off my best serve combination from He Zhi Wen

You don't have to play short pips to play this style.

#1 serve:
Nice & wide. Breaks wide to them. You can apply side/top or side/back. Your choice. Great vs short players or those who are not very athletic. Once they start to figure out that they need to stand more middle of the table so they're not reaching so much on this ball, you go to serve #2. IMO it's in the opponent's best interests to loop this ball. If they chop? You 3rd ball attack. Just be ready for a shot to come back at you. if you can block down the win, the point is over most of the time as chances are they're out of position. From there you just play & back & forth game. After a while they will start to predict where you're going. Just mix in the rare occasional placement back to the same spot and that's very rewarding. You'll hit the ball behind them often times.

#2 serve:
The down the line serve. You can do this either long & fast or short. But here you force them to return with their backhand. Again combinations of side, side/top, side/back, etc. Even if they loop, chances are it's not so powerful to where you can't counter loop right back. Unless you're playing FZD, getting someone to return a serve with their BH a lot of times is a good trade off in my book.

 

[fais]

I'm a lefty player, what serve locations are good for a lefty against a righty? When I watch timo boll he often seems to serve short to the middle of the table. What is the purpose of that?

Before you can serve effectively, you must learn to play the 3rd ball effectively.

The purpose of a serve rarely is to give your opponent something to struggle with, rather it is to set you up on the return. For example, for a FH oriented player with a weak BH, a kick ass reverse pendulum serve will fall under the "should not have done that" category.

 

[Suga D]

Before you can serve effectively, you must learn to play the 3rd ball effectively.

The purpose of a serve rarely is to give your opponent something to struggle with, rather it is to set you up on the return. For example, for a FH oriented player with a weak BH, a kick ass reverse pendulum serve will fall under the "should not have done that" category.

Though i would generally agree, i would say one doesn't exclude the other.
A serve that makes your opponent struggle can very well setup your third ball attack and can prevent your opponent from launching his very own 'second' ball attack (e.g. bh banana flip like FZD)

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yeah. You do have to vary things and read your opponent. But for lefties to use a wide angled pendulum to the righty's FH with the the threat of them serving down the line so the righty still has to hold down the BH side, can be very effective. (In other words, what Ilia said.)

From the strategy standpoint, the wide angled pendulum serve forces the righty to hit a shot that goes towards the lefty BH side. Even if the righty goes wide or around the net, the return is still angled towards the BH.

Then all the lefty needs to do is wait in the BH corner for the ball to come back and rip it with the FH. The righty being drawn wide to the FH is not in position for a down the line shot. And if he hurried back to the BH side then the FH is wide open.

I didn't look at the He Zhi Wen video yet. But my money says that was what he was doing there as well.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[Dominikk85]

Basically all the lefty tactics also work the same way vice versa for the right, don't they? So that means actually there is no lefty advantage,right?

Do you know if the serve hold percentages at the pro level are different in L/R matchups than same handed matchups?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Basically all the lefty tactics also work the same way vice versa for the right, don't they? So that means actually there is no lefty advantage,right?

Do you know if the serve hold percentages at the pro level are different in L/R matchups than same handed matchups?

Since you are hijacking your own thread, here: have a look:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/...-Table-Tennis&highlight=left+handed+advantage

That is the subject you are looking for. A thread on the left handed advantage.

If a righty based his whole game on playing vs lefties and 90+ percent of the time played vs lefties and the lefties played righties less than 6 percent of the time, and so, never needed to work on tactics vs righties, who would have the advantage?

Read the thread.

I have two lefty training partners. I get to play and work out strategy against them all the time. I am very used to playing them. This helps me a lot vs other lefty players. How many lefties do you play. From the thread above, it seems, even left handed players have trouble against left handed players. What was the advantage again?

And, yes, all the tactical stuff that works for a lefty against a righty would work the same way in reverse. But a lefty gets a lot more practice against those tactics because the lefty faces them every time he plays a righty.

 

[Dominikk85]

Yeah that makes sense, more practice for the lefty vs righty than vice versa.

So back to topic, basically sidespin serves out wide (fast or slow and short?) and occasionally serving down the line fast to change it up? Should the down the line serve have a different spin?

 

[Archosaurus]

I guess I should mention that you should be ready to serve anything and not just stick to a rule-book. At some point you're gonna play someone who has no definitive weakness, and it's just compromise.

Of course, if one thing works, and keeps working, just keep doing it.

 

[songdavid98]

Hello, I'm a lefty.

I mostly use pendulum serves, so my most common serves against righties are short underspin to the forehand, long fast light side-underspin to the backhand, long side-topspin to the backhand, short side-topspin to the forehand, and extremely wide sidespin to the forehand (like He Zhi Wen).

What serves you will do will depend on the player you are up against. Not only that, but what you will serve also depends on how good your own serves are and what your strengths are.

If you are good at disguising serves, you can serve a lot more side-topspin and no spin and get away with it unpunished.
If you are good at opening attacks, you can serve short underspin to easily get the chance to attack first.
If you are good at counter attacking, you can serve long and counter attack.
If your opponent is good at looping serves, you can serve short to prevent that from happening.
If your opponent is bad a flipping short balls, you can serve more short topspin.
If your opponent like hang around near his backhand corner, you can serve really wide to his forehand (not too long, make him step in).
If your opponent is wary of those wide forehand serves, serve long and fast to his backhand (I found that disguised side-underspin works best).

 

[NextLevel]

While I am not a lefty and lefties do have advantages, the key is to be able to have a good variety of spinny and deceptive serves with good spin variation. Then be able to place these at various points on the table. Then to practice attacking behind them to get an idea of how to handle a wide range of returns. Many players have return weaknesses that you can exploit only if you have the tools to do so. But while in general most players struggle with spins that go away from their stroke, familiarity can change things and you need more than just one serve to avoid being stuck.

At the very least , master placement to the short forehand, the long backhand and the elbow.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yep. Good posts by DavidSong and NextLevel. I was going to add some stuff that they covered. I think they said it better than I could have.

I will give a few more details.

I personally like it if I can get an opponent to make a "safe" return and push either high enough or long enough for me to loop. It could be half long because I can loop over the table. But I am much more comfortable if the third ball is backspin or not too fast so I can launch an attack. Because of this, a lot of what I play with when serving is medium to heavy backspin and no spin. Every once in a while I mix in a top/side serves to keep the opponent on their toes. If I find that my short top side serves give a particular opponent trouble, I will use them, provided the match is close. But if I am playing someone who successfully chooses to attack all of my serves and he is good enough to do that, I will have a long day and I will have to go with different strategies.

How you serve will depend on what your opponent is good at handling and what works for you for taking control of the point and helping your third ball.

I know this guy named Rocky Wang, he is decently high level. At this point, with no training, maybe he is in the 2200s. When he was a kid he was 2600. He coaches. But he does not really train and does not really care too much about his level. He likes to serve fast topspin challenging his opponent to attack because he is a great counter attacker. So he uses his opponent trying to rip his serve to launch his third ball counter attack. In other words, he does exactly the opposite strategy as I would want to use and it works for him at a decently high level.

In the end, serving is not an end in itself. When you play guys who are good, no matter what you serve them, it will come back. So, ultimately, you actually have to learn to serve in a way that gives you the third ball that you want. And you also have to train to handle whatever third balls that you are faced with.

 

[ttmonster]

I am not a lefty but regardless my two cents about serves , I personally think its a good idea to have all kind of serves. Meaning, its better to try out different serves, ones with complicated spins , like side top, side under, corkscrew etc. where the serve itself comes with a bit of deception along , along with comparatively simple serves like underspin, no spin , heavy under etc. where you have to consciously add the deception bit. The thing is, attacking the third ball of complicated serves with a high percentage of consistency is not necessarily an easy thing to do, since the returns are also hard to read and you need a lot of practice either reading the spin coming back and using it or using a really powerful stroke to overcome the spin coming back.... unless you practice a whole lot , there is this issue where sometimes with especially corkscrew serves even the server is not 100% sure of what spin they have served .... attacking third balls of comparatively simpler serves is easier ... and it also helps in developing other facets of the game like controlled attack with placement etc.

I was someone who always leaned towards fancy serves , I used to get a whole lot of success at my level with players who could not even return the ball ... however, as I started playing more higher level players , it made sense to use them as surprise weapons ... because most of them adapted and started giving me third balls which were not that easy to attack if I kept on serving those serve... also tips from NextLevel and Der_Echte on this forum on using underspin no spin combination along with playing a lot of doubles with those serve combinations helped me realize their worth ....

 

[langel]

For me changing spin, speed and direction every time works good. My most effective serve is a semi-short, semi-fast side-backspin with the ball diving low and near by the side edges. The extremely effective is to hit the side edge /but not so fairplay/.

 

[tropical]

I am a lefty. That said, I do not think lefty has any more advantage than righty. You will need to serve many different ways and learn how to attack the 3rd ball. For me I learn how to attack the 3rd or 5th ball as my key serve is heavy away from FH of the righty. They normally return the ball deep or short to my BH thus I could flip attack with my long pips. Then I attack and kill the next. I sometimes mix up a lot, flat serve to FH, BH, fast/slow side/top/under spin serve to FH/BH, etc.