Deceptive serves

Simon Lewis Asked 13 years ago

Hi Pingskills,

I am after some help to make my serves more deceptive. I have read articles that state that as you contact the ball on a pendulum serve, the racket should move in a semi circle. Is there already a video on the Pingskills site showing this action? I am struggling to understand how a semi circle action can impart different spins. If you go from down to up in your semi circle action, surely that only means topspin...?

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Simon,

This can be confusing.  Think of the semi circle as lying on its back.  You start in a downward motion reach the bottom and then start to come up again.  If you hit the ball on the down part of the swing it will give you backspin and if you hit it on the upswing it will give you topspin.

We have made a DVD for this important topic because there is so much to cover.  Take a look at our Serving Secrets Revealed DVD which will give you a lot of detail about the basics right through to the finer points of serving.