Serve practice - Inviting feedback

[strangeloop]

Hi there,

I have been recovering from injuries for quite some time now and I am about to start practicing. I thought this 'downtime' is a great opportunity to improve my serves.

Yes, my serves reflect the number of hours I have put in. So, please be honest with your feedback. I am a TTEdge subscriber and I tried to copy pendulum serve from that. The hook serve is an attempted imitation of Brett and NextLevel

I created this thread to track the improvement of my serves as I get some feedback here and work on it. I will also try to get my hands on a better camera. Special thanks to NextLevel as I got motivated by his videos and efforts.

Thanks and have a nice day!

 

[Shiro]

You have some nice serves as it seems you can control as to if you want them short or long. My only suggestion so far is to try to practice placement as well. You do not want to serve while your opponent already knows where the ball is going to land. As for your tomahawk serve, it is very nice. For that serve, my only suggestion is it would also be nice if you learned the reverse tomahawk serve (use the backhand side of racket) to do the serve as well, as your opponent won't know which direction the spin would hit.

 

[Luis Nasche]

Some good and spiny serves, it's tough to tell if they are deceptive on this video so my only suggestion is going to make sure you put most balls on the other side of the table.

Missing a serve should really be an exception, work on your consistency.

 

[ttmonster]

For some reason your video was taking a lot of time to load , not sure why .. but anyways ...

Loved your contact , you are generating a lot of spin with the touch. BTW , are you still using celluloid balls ?

Where is your injury ? does it have anything to do with waist/back/legs ?

Because , the only thing I could tell is you are primarily using your touch and hand motion.
IMHO , your pendulum serves are awesome , in the punch serve I thought you are need to use more waist instead of hand , and why is the wrist going down , I think the movement should be a little more forward. I don't do the tomahawk serve so I don't have much opinion on it , but I think the ones you were getting double bounce were awesome.

My advise would be to recover from the injury and then work on stuff. You can work on the simple backspin serve where you were missing more , which will help you keep your touch in form ..

 

[violoniste18]

your serves are pretty good, you have to repeat a lot, in order to remove errors. It seems you could perform at least 8 serves among 10 and then you will get more effective during competitions !

 

[NDH]

I'm not going to repeat what others have said, I'm guessing from the spin and contact, you were of a decent standard before injuries?

The one thing I'd say, as TTmonster has eluded too - Celluloid balls.....

I see a ton of videos of people using celluloid balls rather than the plastic ones - If your local tournaments and leagues still use them, then so be it - But I'd imagine they will be changing to plastic at SOME point in the next few years (although why they haven't already is another question).

You can generate so much more spin with the celluloid, that it'll give you a false outlook of how you are serving (if you then have to play with plastic in matches).

But if you don't have that issue - Top work

 

[anubhav1984]

Dude....you have a table at your home :O :O :O. You never said anything about that

 

[strangeloop]

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement.

@NDH and @TTmonster, Yes, I injured my left foot in an accident. Two fractures, then a pressure sore, Morton's neuroma, collapsed arch et al meant that I couldn't play for almost a year.

Yeah, I am using celluloid balls as I've got plenty of those and the plastic ones are still expensive. If there's any decent (& affordable) 40+ training balls, please let me know. I will be glad to switch to it.

Only after watching the video I realized that my wrist is falling in the hook serve.

Spin on the pendulum serve improved thanks to Brett Clarke's series of videos. However I want a skiddy heavy sidespin-backspin serve that people will be forced to push.

I find it easy to control my serve when there's no opponent on the other end of the table In competition also I send the heavy backspin serve straight into the net. Also, my pendulum serves are floaty/loopy, not skiddy. That I guess is the difference between slow short serves, not fast short serves. Easy to read and react for the returner.

@Violiniste and @Luis Nasche, yes, very good points.. I should work on consistency and try to land my serves with full control even in match situations. Sometimes in matches I compromise on spin to do a short serve which is worse than a fast long serve.

@Shiro, good suggestion.. I will work on reverse tomahawk. My tomahawk wins more points than my pendulum. But my pendulum sets me up nicely for rally.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks for the kind words, strangeloop. Your wrist acceleration is really good. Aspects of your form can be improved but that usually comes with lots of coaching or lots of video practice.


Have you sent your video to Brett? You can join us here (you don't have to though):

http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28641

 

[strangeloop]

No, I haven't sent my video to Brett.

Thank you for the link, I will post this over there too.

 

[Der_Echte]

A few things to look at on your short tomahawk.

Look at what you did when they went too long. Consider your squat or fail to squat. Look at your hand pressure. Too tight on the long ones. Look at your overall loose muscles to make your small whip. Look at the depth of your first bounce. Look at the angles you use.

Look over the video on the ones that landed and you will see some of this. It takes timing and touch mostly and that takes a lot of time to develop.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[ttmonster]

Friend, make sure you are completely healed before you come back to sport. A serious leg injury is really scary , especially coming back to a sport where leg is pretty much everything. Make sure you follow through all your post operative care, physiotherapy , weight training diligently. That is more important than training your serve. Your serves are really good for the time being, as I said you can work on the touch just sitting on bed and trying to spin the ball as much as you can. One of the best servers I personally know achieved his spin from that , so you don't really need to do a full serve practice now, you can actually practice your waist motion while sitting down in bed , as your leg heals you can put things together.

I don't know if Butterfly Easy balls are available in India , are you from Hyderabad ? I met a guy there once who used to supply Nittaku , if you can find that guy he might be able to get you some cheap plastic balls. I liked Butterfly easy balls as the cheap alternative, haven't come across anything near to the quality and consistency of Nittaku 40+ *** , but then they are expensive in INR terms.

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement.

@NDH and @TTmonster, Yes, I injured my left foot in an accident. Two fractures, then a pressure sore, Morton's neuroma, collapsed arch et al meant that I couldn't play for almost a year.

Yeah, I am using celluloid balls as I've got plenty of those and the plastic ones are still expensive. If there's any decent (& affordable) 40+ training balls, please let me know. I will be glad to switch to it.

Only after watching the video I realized that my wrist is falling in the hook serve.

Spin on the pendulum serve improved thanks to Brett Clarke's series of videos. However I want a skiddy heavy sidespin-backspin serve that people will be forced to push.

I find it easy to control my serve when there's no opponent on the other end of the table In competition also I send the heavy backspin serve straight into the net. Also, my pendulum serves are floaty/loopy, not skiddy. That I guess is the difference between slow short serves, not fast short serves. Easy to read and react for the returner.

@Violiniste and @Luis Nasche, yes, very good points.. I should work on consistency and try to land my serves with full control even in match situations. Sometimes in matches I compromise on spin to do a short serve which is worse than a fast long serve.

@Shiro, good suggestion.. I will work on reverse tomahawk. My tomahawk wins more points than my pendulum. But my pendulum sets me up nicely for rally.

 

[strangeloop]

Hey there.. I am alright now.. I am able to play 45 minute sessions. I invariably stop because of exhaustion than any pain in the injured leg.

Balls - Yeah, I am from Hyderabad. I have ordered Yinhe 2*. I think that should suffice for service practice. BTW, are you from Hyderabad as well? Its not easy to get Nittaku around here.

 

[strangeloop]

@Der_Echte, Thanks! yeah, after this video only I realized I strike my serves almost one foot above the net height. Should bend more and make contact at net level.

 

[ttmonster]

I am not from Hyderabad, but I worked there between 2013-14 . There was a table tennis tournament in our office and I met the guy there. I will ask my friends if I get a chance , somehow I was not able to remember his contact info. Glad to hear that you are fully recovered...

Hey there.. I am alright now.. I am able to play 45 minute sessions. I invariably stop because of exhaustion than any pain in the injured leg.

Balls - Yeah, I am from Hyderabad. I have ordered Yinhe 2*. I think that should suffice for service practice. BTW, are you from Hyderabad as well? Its not easy to get Nittaku around here.