Services to and from left handers

Table Tennis Serving

Last updated 11 years ago

Filippo Rotunno

Filippo Rotunno Asked 11 years ago

Dear Alois

This should be easy for you to answer because it concerns left handers. There is a young, talented player at our Club that has some diffcult services. He is a left hander. Although I look carefully at what he does with his bat, I cannot work out the kind of spin that he imparts on the ball. I can handle some services but there are two that baffle me. A slow one that comes right into my body and must carry back spin because I tend to put it into the net. Also a slow one wide to my forehand again with back spin. He occasionally imparts topspin but I only know that when my return goes up or over the edge of the table. Should I move away from the table and take everything very late? Finally what services can I adopt that a left hander does not particularly like? It would be nice if you could create a video for this. I am certain that there are many right handers that find left handers' services difficult to handle.

Many thanks and kind regards.

Filippo


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario Answered 11 years ago

Hi Filippo,

You are asking me to work against my fellow left handers!

OK, just for you.

When returning against this particular player I would stand a little further back just to get a better look at the serve.  It will give you more time.  Then focus on watching the ball really carefully and as the ball is coming towards you, getting your nose close to the ball.  You will feel a little silly doing this but this will help you with your control.

The close watching of the ball will start to give you more clues about the spin.  It will also get you into a better position each time.

As for the types of serves the left handers don't like, it is very much individual.  I don't like the ball that comes in towards me off the Reverse Pendulum serve.  Others will have different dislikes.  For this particular left hander, serve some balls to the forehand swinging both ways and then do the same on the backhand.  Eventually you will find one that he looks more awkward returning.  Don't even judge it on whether he gets it back or not, but more on how comfortable he looks returning it.

Hope this helps.


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