serve-practice

Coach Corner › Serve and Receive › serve-practice

Dipak1974 asked 5 years ago

Hi Dan/Tom. Hope your both safe and healthy. Quick question re serve practice, would it be better to focus just on one serve during a serve practice session or multiple. During matches I use variation of serves, ie pendulum, reverse, backhand, jab, fast serves… question is during practice should I focus on one? I want to improve all lol…. I never use to practice serves too much up until 8 months ago but since I focussed on that aspect as well they have got a lot stronger and catching same opponents out . Even though serves are way better than before there’s always scope to improve.
thanks in advance

Deep

12 Answers

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Dan Academy Coach answered 5 years ago

Hey Deep, we are both good thanks I hope you are staying safe as well. I think with serves it’s good to practice a few serves in one practice session and just spend a bit of time on each one before moving on. This stops the practice getting boring and also means you can keep improving all your serves. 10 or so minutes focused on each serve at a time and then moving onto the next one I find is quite good. Once you have done a few sessions like that you may find there are certain serves you want to work on more than others so then you can adjust and do session just looking at those serves on their own.

I think experiment a bit and find what works for you and keeps you engaged and focused during serve practice, I think if you can do a bit on a regular basis that’s great. Your absolutely right though, serve training can make a huge difference to your overall game so keep it up! 🙂

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Dipak1974 answered 5 years ago

Morning and thank you for the early reply. Your right boredom can kick in if doing just one serve but I guess repetition is key at improving. At the moment I’m trying to improve the backspin reverse. I can do top spin but backspin reverse I think it lacks the quality I want. Also with pendulum I’m comfortable doing both back and side and too and side but I’m now working on a after action disguise but sometimes I noticed working on disguise can make the serve itself less spinny specially the back and side. what is a good way on working on disguise without sacrificing spin as spin is more important.

also in terms of length would you say half long is better than a short serve? I seem to practice keeping them really short but I don’t know whether half long so second bounce is close to white line would be better?

lastly great channel both here and YouTube and great work in the British league and your debut!!! Good fun to watch. Only match I didn’t route for TTD was when you played my club Archway with Joe Kiloran taking honours. My lads hooked on your Channel just as much as his Xbox which is saying something!!! ?

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Dan Academy Coach answered 5 years ago

Hey Deep, Yes you make some good points there with the disguise. i think the best way to improve this area without sacrificing spin and quality is to focus on keep the action the same when you change the spin, keeping the acceleration through the ball and just focus on the contact point on the bat and ball which is the main difference when changing spin.

Try not to change the action when changing the spin this is the most common error, also i think just by keeping your serve practice enjoyable and not allowing it to get boring means you can keep it up and continue improving serves. The reverse serve is a really useful one so keep practising that for sure and anytime feel free to send us in videos of you doing the serves and we will give you feedback.

Wow that’s awesome I’m glad you are enjoying the videos and British league match ones too,I’ll have to convert you into full time TTD fan even when we are playing Archway haha!

Dipak1974
replied 5 years ago

Hi Dan.

I seem to struggle with reverse back spin. Even when I think I’m putting sufficient back spin I don’t think I am. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as all season my opponents have played the serve assuming it’s loaded with back spin and have either popped it up or actually hit their return off. I think I need to have variety but also have a focus of a couple of serves I want to improve on the most.

Are half long serves better than really short?

On a separate note how does Dignics 09C compare to Dignics80? I moved from tenergy 05 and T05FX to Dignics80 on both sides and found great control. T05 I found too bouncy in short game and countering not so easy. Dignics 80 has made consistency a bit easier. Looking forward to your full review after the lockdown is over!! With butterfly having released new blades as well I’m sure you will be busy getting your hands on them. ?

Dan
Academy Coach replied 5 years ago

Hey Deep, Yes revere backspin is a tricky one to really get right and takes time to develop as the wrist movement is quite awkward. Yes I would say a group of 5 serves is more than enough and you can add more variation through using the sames serves but with different placement or spin variations. That way you won’t overload yourself trying to learn too many but will have a small group f effective ones you are happy and confident with.

Half long serves can be very effective but like lot of things it depends who you are playing against , some players struggle a lot with them and others can pick them up and attack them of they drift loose.

The Dignics 09c has a more tacky and grippy top sheet I would say, compared to the 80, so it is slightly close to a Chinese rubber top sheet. The speed is fairly similar but 09c you get that slight bit more dwell and n spin from the ball staying a bit longer, but both dignics have brilliant control and 09c does as well for sure. Yes we’ll have plenty to keep myself and Tom busy after lockdown I’m sure! 🙂

Dipak1974
replied 5 years ago

Hi Dan. I have follow up question regarding reverse serve and combining it with pendulum. I have been practicing the reverse backspin and it’s seems to be ok, (effectiveness in game still to be tested) my technical question is stance from where it’s served from. When I serve the pendulum I’m square to table so more side on however when doing reverse as momentum needs to go forward with the action I find I’m starting more face on. It’s not much face on only a variant from the pendulum but to opponent it would become apparent from my body position whether I’m going to do reverse or pendulum before I serve it. My question is for pendulum should I be so sqr on? Ideally I would like my body position the same whether I’m doing pendulum or reverse so it doesn’t advertise the type of serve too much in advance.

With current season concludes and potentially no league table tennis till October it it would be good to really improve my already established serves.

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Dipak1974 answered 5 years ago

Thanks Dan very helpful. Stay safe

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Dan Academy Coach answered 5 years ago

No problem Deep, same to you!

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