i-stink-at-back-spin-serve-i-can-hit-side-spin-all-day-but-not-backspin
dconkle asked 5 years ago
I am having a hard time with time or where to hit the ball.. I am not sure. I have watched the video but my primary issue is I either hit the backspin server straight to the net or before the net or miss the ball altogether or it goes over correct. I can hit the side spin serves all day. I was wondering if anyone has any tips for this. I try to get about an hour a day for practice at home and we normally play matches at work during lunch. This serve is killing me with the paddle beingflat
Tom Academy Coach answered 5 years ago
Hey dconkle, yes this can be very frustrating for sure. So what I would suggest to start with is don’t put the bat angle completely flat which gives you a better area to contact the ball, so a slight tilted bat. Slow the serve right down and just try to gently get the ball travelling over the net. Gradually as you improve you can flatten the angle and increase the acceleration of the serve.
To do this focus on where the first bounce on your own side is landing, aim for halfway up your side of the table.
This is actually a common problem that players can get sode spin but not backspin, what usually happens is that the top of the bat drops down as you contact the ball without you realising, so really try to keep the bat level as you contact the ball and don’t let the top of the bat drop down.
Lastly with the backspin serve focus on hitting the front edge of tbe rubber and dragging the bat across,so the leading egde of the rubber makes contact and then the bat brushes under the ball.
Let us know how you get on and if you are still struggling send us in a short video and wed be happy to analyse it for you.
dconkleThanks very much! I will keep these things in mind and if I have a problem I will send a video.
Hey Tom,
So I tried those pieces of advice and still am not consistent with the back spin. What is odd is that I can hit a reverse pendulum backspin 7 to 8 times out of 10 now but my flat back spins are lackluster. Maybe focus on my strengths in the beginning? Here are my stats with serves:
Side Spin(backspin) 9 out of 10 times I can hit
Tomahawk 7 out of 10 times
reverse pendulum 7 to 8 out of ten times
pendulum top spin 7 to 8 out of ten times
float almost 9 out of 10.
pure backspin like maybe 2 or 3 out of 10 (with flat paddle or tilted up.)
So I guess my question here is should I focus on perfecting the top 5 serves then have a focus time on the things I suck at. So far I am getting about an hour and a half a night of practice. Except on weekends but I do hit at least 600 serves every weekend day. I do not have a training partner but I play every weekday at the office with my mates. I do have a robot coming in so I can at least get some practice on my own at night when I get the most time in.
Hey, yes that is strange but the thing with some serves is that it does take time to really master and be confident with. It sounds like your doing all the right things and getting in a lot of practice, I’d say perfect the best serves you have but also spend a bit if time working on improving the backspin too.
Serve practice is so important because its such an important area of the game so keep persevering with it and you’ll see the benefits without doubt. Also great that you are getting a robot so you can practice alone as you mentioned.
Lastly what I would say is that with a pure backspin serve, the ones which I would use in a game wouldn’t spin back to the net and stay on the table so perhaps just focus on getting a decent cut under the ball and aiming for 2 bounces. Overall though keep up the good practice and the backspin will come with time.
Ahh, I feel a little dumb LOL. I have been trying to get them to come back to the net.. I am able to get the ball to bounce 2 to 4 times. I was getting confused in the symptoms of the backspin and the basic float serve. I am assume a float serve could have backspin also but it is just higher/loftier in nature?
No it’s a common mistake, just because the ball doesn’t always spin back to the net it doesn’t mean its not a good backspin serve. The float serve should still be close to the net but will have very little spin at all, so if you can make your float and backspin serves look very similar you will get players sometimes misreading the spin and the ball can pop up high on the return of the float serve.
Thanks a lot, Tom! I have been practicing a bit and have improved a lot from just your guys Youtube videos prior to joining TTD University. When I saw that it was here I had to join to support my favorite youtubers. Then I noticed that outside of support my favorite Youtubers it has also proven invaluable to progress my game.
BTW, you guys should give or sell t-shirts to students! I would wear one to advertise.
