OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I still miss topspin and dead balls a lot. It's just practice. I am learning that some of it is to use side topspin and a hook/fade rather than a pure topspin shot.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Agreed about Brett being the teacher and Henzell the "performer". But if you watch the tick whip video, there is a few second clip where we see Williams' stroke and not Bretts. I was comparing that footage of Henzells stroke to the footage in Henzells BH versus block video. So I was comparing Henzell to Henzell. I wasnt very clear.

I can see the tick whip easier in henzells stroke in the tick whip video.

Watch Henzell's video whenever they show his stroke from the side. After that, you will see the tick whip everywhefe.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

So I'm having some trouble determining which serves to practice. Basically I can do the following serves with SOME control and spin:

Pure backspin with FH

Fh pendulum side-under

I can do the following serves, but with basically no control:

No spin serve

BH pendulum serves (all spins)

So I'm not really sure where to go at this point. Should I develop a side-top to go with the side under? A better no spin serve to go with the heavy backspin? Make my BH pendulum serves better to have a better reverse sidespin serve? Something else?

I basically just walk into my basement and practice a hodgepodge of serves, and i dont really make any progressm

The first question is always what are you trying to do with your game. When you answer that, then you can look at what you need to practice. When you answer that question, think about your stronger side, whether you would prefer to attach with one side (and which one) or both, what kinds of spins you prefer to attack, and where ideally you want to receive the ball.

If you want to be generic, you always want at least two variations of each serve that look similar enough to keep your opponent off balance. As a looper, you will primarily serve backspin and no spin of various types. The amount of spin you put on the ball should usually correspond to the quality of your stroke. A common mistake is to serve a very heavy serve but to lack the stroke to manipulate a return that keeps the same amount of spin or increases it. That's why no spin variants are pretty common.

Pendulum serves tend to be for people who want to use their forehands all over the table. Reverse pendulums tend to be for more balanced attackers. I mean the sidespins and not the specific serves.

In the end, you can and should practice a serve that you feel you can get good spin variation and deception out of it. It needs to fit into your overall third ball and fifth ball game. Then just have a traight backspin serve and no spin serve in case your opponent utilizes sidespin too craftily for you. And be able to serve the opposite sidespin of the serve you have initially chosen in case your opponent has issues with that.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

The mist common mistake I see from people who practice serves is that they start their serve practice at the table and do most or all of it there. Usually, the issue is that at the table, people are too concerned with making good serves and never learn to generate spin with their serve motions. You should start on the bed or on the floor and practice producing and varying spin. If you can get spin in those places, then you bring your spin to the table and control it. If not, your serve will get better at a snail pace. Doing high ghost serves at the table is a peeve of Brett's. He wants people to do the backspin tests on the floor and bed and have double bounce perfect length and low height serves at the table.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

And therein lies my issue:

The serve that I have the most control of (FH pendulum from the BH corner) is the serve that least fits my game and third ball attack strategy. I am not particularly athletic and covering the whole table with my FH is not going to be an option in either the near or distant future. The only reason I do the FH pendulum from the BH corner is because... well, that's the serve I learned to do in college because I saw all the professional players were doing it.

Another issue is that I'm not exactly sure whether my FH or my BH is my stronger attacking side. I feel more comfortable looping against push with the BH, but my FH is a bit better against a wide variety of spins (topspin, sidespin, deadball). Basically my FH is currently more adaptable but I have more potential to be a strong BH attacker in the future. My BH just shows more promise.

Given that my ghost backspin serve has pretty decent control, I have probably have some potential to develop a strong no spin/backspin combination. But I have yet to figure out how to control the dead ball serve whilst contacting the ball on the very bottom.

I have issues with no spin as well. Sometimes, my no spin has a decent amount of backspin, sometimes it is fine. I think in general, as long as the backspin and no spin look similar enough and are distinct enough to react differently with the returner's stroke, that is what you need. Absolute heaviness is not the key. Once you can get pushes into the net and a few pop-ups, you are doing your job.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I use a slightly different racket angle for ny no spin and have learned to serve heavy backspin with it.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Is it even possible to serve dead ball by coming heavily underneath the ball and contacting on the very bottom? I mean, I suppose it is possible by contacting nearer the handle, but I can never get a similar trajectory on it as my heavy backspin serve.

My conclusion was no. But again, you need to either understand what you do or what you want to do to make these decisions. You could ask someone who.knows your game to answer. And if you can't attack a certain spin with your stroke, you need to fix that. I saw a guy today with a 2000 level pendulum and a 1500 forehand which dropped his thirdball game to 1300 level because he could not consistently attack behind his serve if you didn't consciously try to give it a conventional spin. But he then couldn't serve a plain serve so what was the point?

If you don't have a serve or know your game well enough, just develop backspin and no spin to a high level with both BH and FH. The other serves are really variants.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I don't have any useful advice, just to let you know I completely feel your pain. Serve is the only kind of practice where I never learn anything. Sometimes I'm serving well and I think "Finally I figured this one out." Then the next time I can't reproduce those results, sometimes only minutes later.

But what choices do we have: keep trying, or give up on ever advancing much further in TT.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

I know a couple of players with pretty Ho hum serves but strong receives and rally games. You guys don't believe me but if you learn to serve low, light and short backspin, most people will push your serve or meekly flip it. Therefore, you will always be able to rally. The problem is that this puts pressure on your thirdball and rally game. That said, this is how Shay developed his game and he reaches 2100 with it.

Serves help you have a more complete game and since spin tends to differentiate levels, a better serve game makes you harder to upset. Some people have problems with at least one of my serves, some don't. If they do, then it makes things easier. I get a few easy third ball opportunities and some free points. If not, I have to work harder.

The problem with serves is that most people were not taught to serve properly early in their TT playing and this results in people using serves that don't really grow with the player. I have been rebuilding my serves for the past year now using what I learned on TTEdge and it has definitely helped me beat people that would have given me tougher matches.

The most important thing is to be able to comfortably handle the moat common returns of your serve and those will depend on the quality of your serve. If you can keep your serve low and short, even if it is obvious and not so spinny, you will get a third ball to attack below the 2000 level. I cannot put it any more plainly.

The problem is when people forget what they need their serve to do as part of their overall game. Always keep this in mind and you will be fine. Once you have a serve that is not so easy to attack, then you have an old faithful (mine is my backhand serve). Then you can build the rest of your game and serves at your own pace.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

NL,

Not only do I believe you, but I wish I would have built my game like Shay's when I was younger. I wish I would have learned to serve short backspin, short no spin, and a deep fast dead ball to all parts of the table. Then I would have just learned to keep all those basic serves as tight to the net as possible and worked exclusively on my third ball attack.

Trying to serve all these different types of sidespin and corkscrew spin has made predicting the location and reading the spin of my opponents receives doubly difficult. This might explain why I still don't have a decent 3rd ball opener against push from both wings, even after many years of play. Starting out with simpler serves and mastering every detail would have benefited me much greater.

Well, it is never too late to do it. This thing is not rocket science or nuclear physics. But you guys live in TT poverty zones and I need to remember that. The thing is this - at some point, you have to accept your game for what it is and figure.out how to make people.give you what you want to use to win the point. Without that realization, you are largely wasting time. Whatever you work on even more so as a hobbyist adult, has to organically arise out of an analysis of your game based on playing to your strengths. Then the feedback from competition is used to refine the process. Without this feedback, one is ultimately thinking too long term or wasting time.

At some point Ringer, you need to share the material results of your training.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus