Serve to Surprise Opponents

Hi Alois and Jeff,

I want my serve to surprise my opponents, how can I do that? Should I do the fast serve?

Hi Archel,

It's important to realise that different opponents will have different abilities and skills. Hence what will work really well against one opponent will not work so well against another. That's why we recommend you use the PingSkills Vault to record your tactics against your different opponents.

As a guideline, we recommend you serve 80% of your serves short and 20% fast and long. Of course if your opponent is brilliant at returning the long serves you want to serve less of these and vice versa.

Try and work out what serve your opponent has the most trouble with. Do they dislike serves to their forehand, backhand or middle? Do they dislike backspin, sidespin or topspin serves? When you first play an opponent you may need to experiment a bit to find out the best serves to use.

I hope this tips help you out.