Serve and Rubber
Serving
arnab c2003 Asked 13 years ago
Dear Alois, Jeff,
I've been practicing TT for about a year now. I've developed all my shots pretty well. Very consistent with the placement and consistency of spin. Yet, when I serve I get into all sorts of problems. It's the pendulum and reverse pendulum that I've found hard to manage. I'm wondering if it is down to the type of bat i'm using or whether it's just down to lack of practice/technique.
About 7 months ago, I decided to get a better bat to improve my game. So i got this one straight off amazon... for lack of choice and time, i ended up with this one: Stiga titanium (a bit top-heavy), premium rubbers (smooth topsheet), 2.5mm sponge. I'm wondering though if the pendulum serve has anything to do with how tacky the rubber is. Mine definitely isn't and often the ball lands in a place where I don't want it to, or in the rare occasion that I end up getting the landing right, I have to compromise a lot on spin. I don't feel I can really grip the ball from underneath. As a result there's just no rythm to the serve and I just end up hitting the ball rather than brushing it. Please help.
Thanks a lot.
ps. Love your videos!
Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago
Hi Arnab,
I don't think it would be the bat. The Premium rubbers are reasonable enough to be able to generate spin on your serves.
Go back to working on the contact of the bat on the ball and make sure you are getting the feel of this correct. Then once you feel comfortable with this move back to serving and generating spin with your serve.
Often with the Pendulum serve players feel like they are brushing the ball on contact but in fact when they are coming close to the contact they ar eflattening out their bat and getting a flat contact without any spin.
Perhaps get someone to watch you and see if you are keeping the same angle on your bat throughout the swing of the serve or whether you are flattening it out. You may be able to use a video to do this as well.
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