OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Australia may not be the safest place. Vietnam might be better. Of course I'm sitting in Covid central and we have a hurricane tomorrow night. So my defamation of Australia may be the biggest joke of the thread.

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I'm going to South Australia, which is basically free of covid.

Best of luck with everything there re the hurricane.

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I've been working with Brett on my BH serve.

One of the biggest problems I have is the service toss - I find it really hard to do this consistently, and have it land in front of my body, especially coordinating that with an anticlockwise turn. I figured out this morning that if I could get a consistent rhythm of a toss up and down taking 1.5-2 seconds (ie time for me to say up... down... or something) that gives me time to move nicely.

However, I still find it incredibly difficult to throw the ball up straight and have it come down straight. Any tips? It sounds trivial, and as if I could just "practice", but believe me I have practiced, and I'm still rubbish at it... so something a bit more targeted might help.

Any ideas?

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Toss it slightly back into your body. Makes it easier. Zero players have a completely legal serve. Don't make serving harder for yourself trying to be the only one.

Sorry, bad reading comp on my part, I missed that this was bh serve specific. Tossing back might still help but idk.

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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

Practice the toss with the racket in your hand and then try to start the toss around the area where you intend to strike the ball. I usually have to toss the ball over my left hip on the backhand serve. At least, that is how it feels.

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Learn how to juggle 2 balls (not TT balls) in 1 hand. I already had this skill so the toss was pretty easy to pick up. Sometimes I still have poor tosses tho.

What do you think?

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This is a very interesting point. I've never been able to master even simple three ball juggling, because I don't toss the ball in a predictable arc... I end up chasing the ball around. So I guess it's the same problem. Narrowing that down to juggling with two things in one hand could really help.

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If he is training footwork then it should pointless for table tennis -- there is no footwork in the game!

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Tactics Enthusiast

Okay, you made me lol and you have solid points.

I'm still very interested to hear other opinions.

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I think the benefit here is in reactions and reading, rather than footwork. I've done a similar exercise with tennis balls thrown at a player with their back to a wall - they have to use their playing hand to stop the ball hitting the wall, left or right, at various heights. I found it useful for anticipation / reactions.

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If those guys seriously want to improve their anticipation, they should play the TTEdge app instead of this silly exercise.

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Those silly Koreans, always goofing off instead of training.

NL has been brainwashing me with Korean YT TT videos Clockwork Orange style, and iirc the eng subs, they want to get their foot lined up with the ball to play their stroke.

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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

This is would be categorized as a "defensive" open agility drill, and I think they have their place. It's hard to comment on an exercise or drill in isolation, out of context. Personally, I'm not a fan of the "kicking" component. I like to use these drills to help work on the raw fundamentals of movement (push off angles, braking, etc.) before sport-specific practice. Having to kick the ball interferes with that a bit too much, imo.

I would have the player slap the ball instead. Palm on the forehand side, back of the hand on the backhand side.

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I think I would try a higher toss. I personally have an above average toss height I think. It makes it easier for me to time it.

Also, this is probably completely irrelevant, but I sometimes see people with the ball toss hand above their racket hand and vice versa. I don't know if one is more correct than the other, but might be worth considering if you're still having trouble. Then there are people who have a straight on to the table stance and a backhand favoured stance, too.