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I am curious how many of you that prefer BH serves before FH serves and vice versa. I have a theory that defenders are more into BH-serving than offensive players. Could that be true? Personally I would say I serve about 70 % BH at least, but in some matches I only serve BH. What about you?

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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I only have one backhand serve I use but at least 4 completely different ones on forehand so I can't use the backhand one very often. When I do its very effective, got no clue why.

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I noticed that some of the Korean chopper females only ever serve backhand. I think I mentioned it here once before. I suspect perhaps they're then in a better position for a backhand third shot. Joanna Parker (awesome UK modern defender) serves BH 90% of the time. By contrast, Evgueni Chtchetinine seems to serve mostly FH. I guess it depends on what you want to do next, and what your best / most flexible serves are.

I can do more with my FH serve - backspin, either side, topspin, no spin, and variation, plus the option to serve with LP. My BH serve is really only backspin, or top and side.

I think I'm in the 70/30 FH/BH camp.

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Maybe because you do not reveal it to you opponent that often

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Some 5-10 years ago Gionis served mostly BH, now he almost exclusively serves FH. Also, I think he uses his FH attack much more nowadays.

Could it be that we tend to serve with the stroke we also prefer to use more in the game? I mean that BH-oriented players uses more BH serves?

Joo Se Hyuk is interesting in this aspect. He always serves FH the first and mostly second set. Somewhere at the end of the third, or earlier if he is under presure, he starts serving BH. It is like he is a little supestitious .

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

I use variety of BH serves because I face opponent that way.
If I serve FH, I'm sideways to the table so it takes some time to get in right position and I have a feeling my BH side is not protected.

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I think I have better FH serves (heavier spin at least) but I do not move as well as I used to so in general BH serves place me in a more balanced position-even for FH 3rd ball attacks.

Generally , I serve FH from my BH corner. I've gotten pretty decent with spin disguise/intensity.

When I do my BH serve, people think it has more backspin on it, so they push it, sometimes too high, and I can go right into looping. With my FH serve, people are able to push it with more spin, making it more difficult for me to loop, but I'm always good with a short pushing rally.

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I have at least 12 serves about half & half but I never serve the same serve twice in a row.
I twiddle heavily & I also occasionally use a LP serve.

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BH all the way, less errors that way. I think they look cooler too especially when its a high toss or high release point and the other guy just wants to destroy it but ends up netting it. If they are not paying attention, the amount of backspin can still fool them if they are receiving with inverted. And there are enough variations eg serving like koji then pushblocker then seo then manika then dimitri etc etc etc...

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This is an interesting theory, I think this could be true in a way. I personally know 2 higher lvl defenders that serve mostly BH, but... They don't like to attack right after serve. The other 2 (both national champions) and I like to serve a lot of FH serves, but on the other hand we try to attack right after if it's possible.

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I serve primarily on BH. Whether it be with pips, or with inverted and twiddling after serve. I love the feeling of twiddling the bat as I wind up for a big 3rd ball kill on my FH...doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but I love it when it does

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OK, her I go - falsifying my own theory

BH servers:
Wang Yang
Ruwen Filus

FH servers:
Wang Xi (I have never seen him do a BH serve)
Panagiotis Gionis (he used to do BH serves but not often last years)
Chtchetinine (only a few BHs now and then)
Fabian Åkerström
Adam Pattantyus (mostly only FH, but agasintsome opponents he does quite a few BH serves)
Chen Weixin

FH/BH servers:
Joo se Hyuk (about 70 % FH)
Hou Yingchao
Kang DongSoo (bust mostly FH, right?)
Masato Shiono (almost 50/50)
Yuto Muramatsu (if I remenber correctly, or mostly FH?)
Tomas Mikutis

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Wow, that's a nice bit of research there Def-attack!

I think I;m about 50:50 myself....it really depends on who I play on what serves I pull out...

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Out of the "good" serves I have, I only use three backhand serves - short, wide topspin; short, heavy topspin; long, fast topspin. See a theme there? I just can't get enough backspin on a backhand serve for my tastes so I use angles and variable amounts of topspin to try and catch opponents out... but I only use them once I feel like my opponents are starting to get the hang of my forehand serves.

Forehand I can serve short, medium and long with any combination of side/top/backspin thanks to pendulum/reverse pendulum actions. Only thing I struggle with a little bit is straight down the line - but then I just use a "kicker" after pretending to do a normal pendulum or reverse pendulum serve.

However, in practice, especially at the moment, I tend to only use my backhand serves. Partially it's so I don't win as many points on serves against opponents that struggle with my serves; partially so that I'm in the right position to chop and partially because serving topspin tends to encourage my opponents to attack rather than push. False economy for improving matchplay obviously but important for me at the moment in terms of learning to move better, read the game and generally working on my chopping.

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