Receiving long serves into my backhand
martink asked 6 years ago
Hi. I noticed that I have a lot of trouble with receiving long serves into my backhand corner, or sometimes near the crossover. Mostly with slight underspin and left sidespin. Many players use those as a variation against me, and it is very effective against me. I do my best with trying a small backhand loop, but it most often goes into the net or sometimes wide left. Could be too much wrist movement, but the feeling is that there is never enough time for a good return. Suggestions?
Dan Academy Coach answered 6 years ago
Hi Martink,
Good question and I also have similar problems at times in this department. A couple of tips you can try that have helped me and players I’ve worked with is giving yourself a bit of space from the table before contacting the ball. This allows you to judge the depth and gives you more time to prepare for your shot. If the ball comes short, you can still step in for the backhand flick or push.
It’s important to focus on contacting the ball at its highest point, this is key, to early or to late and you can start to misjudge the spin and length.
Another tip is to open the bat face slightly to give you more surface area when you contact the ball. This will allow you to cope with the backspin on the ball. If there is sidespin, try to direct the ball in the opposite direction of the spin and going forward into the shot.
When you try the short topspin shot that you mentioned try to accelerate more on this ball. Often when you are tentative in the stroke you don’t fully release the wrist in front to generate enough topspin, which makes the shot safe.
If you are able to post a video in this topic that would be great, Myself and Tom can provide further feedback but in the meantime I hope these tips help.
martinkThanks for the tips so far. I noticed that the contact point here must be the key. At first I thought this mostly affected my backhand, but I experience those problems on my forehand too. Too often on a half-long or long sidespin with backspin serve I just miss when hitting the ball (since it moves sideways) and too often I move sideways while executing the shot. So there is much more to it, especially the brushing makes me think an even more “back to basics” approach is needed.
DanHi Martin,
Yes definitely you’re right. There is a lot to it, but keeping it simple like you say will help you learn and adapt quickly. Ideally if you can, spend lots of time doing multi ball on this area. Lots of repetition on multi ball will help you improve your half long. Also get a variety of players to serve half long into your forehand and keep practicing your forehand against different spins and serves. You will soon start to feel confident in this area and before you know it will become one of your strengths 🙂
