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Serving

Serving

Frank Hillier
Frank Hillier Asked 14 years ago

i notice on nearly all serving tutorials not enough information is given to the first bounce on the servers side of the table

Alois Rosario
Member Badge Alois Rosario Answered 14 years ago

Hi Frank,

I think most serves you can bounce the ball close to you on your side of the table.  For the fast serves it needs to be really close to your endline.  For a short serve just inside your own endline.

Is this where you get the ball to bounce?

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Thoughts on this question (6)

6 comments from the PingSkills community.

Frank Hillier

Frank Hillier Posted 14 years ago

on your wonderfull serves on serving secrets revealed  your first bounce looked further in  which is more difficult especially if it has no backspin

Alois Rosario

Member Badge Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 14 years ago

Hi Frank,

It can be a little further in if the serve is slower but for a faster serve it needs to be closer to you.

Rory Scott

Rory Scott Posted 14 years ago

I think of the table as a mirror in that the ball tends to bounce an equal distance away from the net on both sides of the table. If you want a long fast serve the ball needs to bounce near both ends of the table, if you want a very short serve (3 bounces or more), you need the ball to bounce near the net on both sides of the tables & if you want a short serve (2 bounces with 2nd bounce near the end of the table) or a half long serve (with the 2nd 'bounce' just missing the end of the table) the bounce is half way between the end of the table & the net on both sides of the table.

By the way Alois, what do you call the serve where the 2nd 'bounce' just misses the table? I know you use half long to mean a 2 bounce serve.

Alois Rosario

Member Badge Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 14 years ago

Hi Rory,

For the short serve it is better to get the first bounce closer to you as well.  You just need to brush the ball a bit finer it will go shorter.

Alois Rosario

Member Badge Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 14 years ago

The serve where the second bounce goes just off the end of the table, I call a just long serve.

Rory Scott

Rory Scott Posted 14 years ago Latest

Ok maybe it depends on the serve you are doing? I find that for short backspin serves, the principle I outlined seems to work well. For a sidespin serve, a bounce near the end of the table is probably more effective.

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