Pendulum serve angles

Tevia Sapire Asked 15 years ago

hi pingskills

I have a question about the pendulum serve. at the basic level, we are told to swing sideways in a pendulum motion to generate the sidespin. an example of this would be in your serving dvd.

Although now I have really noticed the serve done slightly differently, instead of going sideways across the sideback of the ball(for pure sidespin) the player swings strait forward through the side of the ball.

Is there any essential difference in these two serves?, in my opinion the second one is more deceptive as the returner does not see the full face of the rubber so the motion of the serve is deceptive wether its sideback or sidetop as well as dead.

Here is a sample of the serve done by Waldner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA74UCFmru0 at about 3:37 while at about 3:23 we see Perssons serve the angle of the face is facing the returner more, not much but more.

is there in difference in the spin production in the serve?(angles for sidetop and sideback)