How to return concealed short combination spin serve?

Table Tennis Serving

Last updated 15 years ago

Michael Vaewhongs

Michael Vaewhongs Asked 16 years ago

I see your site will be making serving secrets revealed. My question is how to concealed combination spin serve? The serve was very short (it would bounced twice if I did not return it).

For example at local club, I faced a right handed shakehand grip opponents. His toss was very high (over three feet). He concealed his serve with body turn and free arm his serve. His point of contact was behind his free arm thus I could not read the angle of the bat contact with ball. The ball landed very short (it two bounced if I did not swing at it). I found push return was the only return that worked but only 1/2 of time. My guess is serve was combination backspin and sidespin. With my dumb luck I was able to return it about 1/8 of time with push. But when I did push is back it landed too high or too long and he looped to end the point.

I asked him how he would return his serve and he just smiled. A baseball pitcher would not reveal his secrets either I suppose.


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario Answered 16 years ago

Hi Michael,

Firstly if you can not see the contact of the serve it is illegal.  If you did have a qualified umpire you could make a point to check with him. For a serve to be legal the contact should be able to be seen by you.

The second problem is understanding the amount of spin.  This comes from a lot of practice especially to understand the subtle changes, however if you understand the basics this will help. Using the push return is the best option to start with against a short serve.  Remember to have a very soft hand when returning.  This will help to absorb some of the spin.  Only use the angle of your bat to adjust for the type and amount of spin.  For more topspin, close your bat over the ball more, for more backspin open your bat face more. For sidespin one way or the other use your bat like a rudder to steer it back onto the table.  Use a very short stroke and avoid playing across the line of the ball.

Use these principles first and see how you go, but also remember that the serve he was doing was illegal and should be pulled up by an umpire. 


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Michael Vaewhongs

Michael Vaewhongs Posted 15 years ago

Dear Alois,

Thank you for the reply.  Your comment prompted me to review the ITTF Laws of Table Tennis.  I will remind this club opponent next time of these laws.  

 For historical sake, was this rule always the case?  I am guessing that this rule (of not hiding the serve with the free arm) is relatively new.  There are such comments in the youtube video of player Ma Lin's serve (http://youtube.com/watch?v=5_kKWeVREwY).  It would seem that in these videos Ma Lin's serve would be considered illegal but these videos are reported from the Chinese national team training video circa 2001.

Sincerely,

Michael 


Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 15 years ago

There have been quite a lot of rule changes since the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Just off the top of my head I can think of the following:

  1. Using the larger 40mm balls
  2. Games up to 11 points and not 21 points
  3. The new service rules.
I am not sure as to the exact date of the service rule change relating to an opponent not being able to hide the ball though. If anyone out there knows then please add a comment and let us know.


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