Deceptive Tomahawk
Table Tennis General
Last updated 15 years ago
Ji-Soo Woo Asked 15 years ago
Hi Alois
I find that the tomahawk is the serve that allows me to most easily put maximum spin on the ball. However, it is also the hardest serve to deceive opponents with. Maybe it's just the way the contact between the racquet and the ball is so clearly presented to the opponent. The sidespin is always in the same direction the it is pretty obvious whether you are adding a bit of topspin or backspin. I was wondering whether you had any pointers on how to deceive opponents with the tomahawk.
Thanks
Ji-Soo
Alois Rosario Answered 15 years ago
Hi Ji-Soo,
As you said the Tomahawk is very open, but I think it is a serve that can be used effectively. Because it isn't used as mcuh as the Pendulum, players are not as used to returning it.
For deception with the Tomahawk, try to get the contact for the sidespin swing as close to the top of your swing as possible. that is the point where the bat stops going up and starts coming down on the arc. If you hit it as the bat is going up you will get topspin and if you hit it when it is coming down you will get backspin.
The other thing to do is make th swing as fast as possible to give your opponent the least amount of time to see the contact, however this is still difficult to disguise.
Give this a try and let me knwo how it goes.
Thoughts on this question
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Ji-Soo Woo Posted 15 years ago
wow, that's a real eye opener for me!
I didn't realise you could do topspin or backspin with the same stroke. Up to now, when I did topspin I held the racquet with a pronounced hook, and with backspin I held the racquet much more flat, so it was obvious from a mile away what spin I was putting. I will experiment with trying to vary topspin and backspin with the same basic stroke and see how I go.
Cheers
Ji-Soo
Charles Unknown Posted 15 years ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67S5Er0w7hg&feature=related
One of the most wonderful Tomahawk Serves I ever seen
Ji-Soo Woo Posted 15 years ago
I'd probably pull a muscle trying to recreate THAT tomahawk! :o)
Alois
I tried to follow your instructions last night but I don't think I was doing a good job. Hitting the ball on the upswing was easy because that's what I always do. Hitting the ball on the downswing was really weird and I missed the ball entirely more often than not. Looking back, I probably need to extend my downswing to give myself more window of opportunity to make contact with the ball. Even when I got the ball into play, it didn't seem to have backspin because the opponent never hit the return into the net but interestingly it appeared to have more sidespin because they had a lot of problem keeping it on the table.