Too Many Serves Spoil the Broth...

Hi Alois

This past year I've really gotten into serves.  I've been playing around with my serves like a kid with a new toy.  I've spent many hours by myself practicing serve after serve.  When I'm not at the table, I've been watching footage of professionals doing their serves (or watching the pingskills secrets of serve DVD!)...or else thinking up some new variation of a variation of one of my serves I could try out.  Every time I go to play, I have a new serve I want to try out.

While this is a lot of fun, it does have its drawbacks.  I've got so many serves in my head that none of them are particularly dependable.  Sometimes, especially before an important match, I just blank out and can't serve at all.  And even when I am serving well, I generally find I lose a point on a service error for every point I win thanks to my serve.  In other words, net effect zero or negative.

My question is, is this good investment for the future?  By continuously pushing the envelope and trying different serves, will it help me become that much a better server in the future?  Or is it best that I concentrate on a handful of serves and practice them very hard until they become second nature?

Hi Ji-Soo,

I think you have made the investment now.  Start to refine what you are doing with a couple of the best serves.  you will notince most players only have one or two serves that they use, but they have lots of variation with the spin, speed and placement of those serves.  They have confidence in what they are doing because they have perfected those few serves and know what types of returns they are looking at.

It is probably time for you to narrow your focus.  Look at variation and building confidence in the few serves.  When you go to serve in a match it should be a matter of what spin, speed and placement you are going to use, not hoping that the serve goes on the table.

I hope this helps with your thinking.