Defensive style and receiving serves

Receiving

nilesh raghavan
nilesh raghavan Asked 13 years ago

How could I return a smash by a chop or loop?

Also, how to push a sidespin tomahawk serve?

Alois Rosario
Member Badge Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Nilesh,

Take a look at our lessons on the Backhand Chop and the Forehand Chop.  These will help you with these strokes.  It is then a matter of getting the angle of your stroke correct to allow for the amount of spin and speed on the ball.  The more spin and speed the more vertical or downwards your stroke needs to be.

To push a tomahawk sidespin serve you need to adjust the angle of your bat to allow for the spin.  So assuming both are right handed, you would need to push the ball with your bat facing to your right as the sidespin will take the ball to the left.  You can use either forehand or backhand depending on where the serve is placed.

For more tips on receiving serves you can see what is available on our Receiving Secrets lessons.  These are open for our Premium members.  If you want to join even for a month, you can go to the 'My Info link at the top left hand corner of the website and explore your options.

Question actions

More questions

Recommended Video

Judging the Length of a Serve

A really important skill in table tennis is to be able to judge if a serve will be short or long. If it's short you won't be able to take a full swing at the ball and hence will need to use either a push or a flick to return the ball. However, if it is coming long then you can make a topspin attack. In this video we give you some tips to help you judge the length of the serve and hopefully this makes you a better returner.

Watch Now

No comments yet!


Become a free member to post a comment about this question.