Speed of Serve
Serving
Krishan Patel Asked 10 years ago
I was wondering how to serve fast balls to make it hard for the opponent to send it back. How could you improve the speed of your serve?
Alois Rosario Answered 10 years ago
Hi Krishan,
It is really difficult to serve a ball fast enough to trouble your opponent. To get it faster you need to hit it quite flat and contact the ball right behind the ball.
However you will find that as you go higher in the levels you need to combine spin with any of your serves to make them effective.
Recommended Video
5 Essential Serve Strategies in Table Tennis
Serving in table tennis is about much more than just getting the ball into play; it's about setting the pace, controlling the game, and exploiting your opponent's weaknesses from the very first touch. In This Video, You'll Discover:
- The Danger Zone: Learn why serving to your opponent’s comfort zone is a mistake and where you should aim instead.
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- Targeting Weaknesses: Tips on identifying and exploiting your opponent's weaker side with precision serves.
- Varying Your Serve Position: The benefits of serving from different positions and how it can confuse and unbalance your opponent.
- The Crossover Point: How to target the elusive crossover point (the transition between forehand and backhand) to force errors or weak returns.
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Thoughts on this question
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Mark Jung Posted 10 years ago
The way to get the most speed is to make sure the ball travels as low above the net as possible, so be sure to hit the ball as low as you can. Even ignoring spin considerations, a ball will travel the fastest when it's as low as possible (the higher the bounce, the longer it takes for gravity to pull it back down to the table).
However, as Alois said, the fastest serves aren't so fast that they're hard to send back, but are definitely fast enough for a scary counterattack; not a great combo. Remember, it's much easier to develop a slower serve that gives a pop up on a bad return (that you can smash for a nigh guaranteed point), than to develop a serve that always gets you the point on a bad return (and also isn't attackable).