serving a side backspin serve...and is wrist important?

Table Tennis Serving

Last updated 13 years ago

martin Law

martin Law Asked 13 years ago

Hi...i got a problem on serving side backspin serve...i dont know why everytime when i try to serve side backspin...it always end up side topspin...can you give me some advice on this?and what means eright??

Another question...is wrist important??for a spinny serve....because when i see timo boll's serve...he don't use his wrist and his ball can be still spinny...so can i serve without wrist?


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Martin,

Often when this happens it is because as you come through with your service action you flatten out the bat at contact.  This means that at the point of contact the face of your bat is facing the other end of the table.  It needs to remain facing the side wall to generate the sidespin.

Wrist is extremely important for generating spin.  If you take a closer look at Timo's serve you will see that he is using a lot of wrist.  His wrist moves so fast it is hard to see.


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Leslie Yin

Leslie Yin Posted 13 years ago

Perhaps you should have another look at Timo Boll's serve. From what I see, the spin he gets on the ball is like 90% wrist and 10% from the arm. It looks so simple yet when I tried it, it's really hard to vary the spin and yet keep it very low. I find he is similar to Samsanov in which that it is the one serve I see him consistently use but varies the spin on it well enough that he can continue to serve that way throughout the whole match. 


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