Wow, just saw some of your olympic trial matches. You are really qualified to teach serves. So many outright points, and if not, then pop-ups for easy kills. Great videos. As an intermediate player, I find the windshield wiper serve of yours the most impressive...and the most difficult to learn myself. I'm 45 years old. I hope I figure it out before I am no longer able to bend that low :)
Thanks! the windshield wiper serve is a tough one to learn and is strenuous on the legs and knees, but if you can do it (especially with backspin) then you'll win lots of easy points from it.
This video is 100% true. In my game, my serve is my strongest point. Mostly high Risk, High reward. I spent last summer dozens of hours trying to master the ghost serve to broaden my serve arsenal. I got the serve mastered almost perfectly , but to my dismay when trying to implement it in my game I lost more points with it then I would gain with it. The only advantage it had, was to do it 1 or 2 time a match and hope to surprise my opponent with the huge amount of backspin. If I tried to do the serve on a regular basis, the opponents would adapt, and like you said , use the angle against me. You can imagine the disappointment after all the practice winding up with a serve that is not really usable in match situations. Like you said it's high risk, because the contact has to be very thin and it's easy to miss. I wish I saw this video sooner
Ah man! Sorry to hear! I guess one of the benefits of you practicing it so much is that you probably have an awesome backspin serve now. If you can do the ghost serve consistently then you have the skill to really get under the ball to generate a ton of backspin. So I guess there's a bright side? I wouldn't use the actual ghost serve in matches though. It's mostly just fun to show off with it haha.
I stumbled upon your channel recently and i really enjoy your videos, they help me a lot in understanding types and strategies of different serves! Its sad that you dont get more views and I hope that you have not quit making videos, since your last video was nine months ago.
I think the ghost serve serves it's purpose most in showing off or just looking good. Like you say, implementing it into your game is very risky, if not executed perfectly (the most common mistake for me was to hit it too high), it is an easy point for the opponent. Thanks for underlinig this in your video.
i always thought that the ghost serve was kinda bad, i dont compete a lot so i dont see it used very often, but when i did play with people that used it, it was not really dificult to read or to respond, but there was this guy that had a very low bounce backspin that was really dificult to respond because it had such a short window of response, also i couldnt attack it because it was so low. i really like your videos!
i hope i found this channel earlier, i'm getting tired of watching korean videos i really don't understand :). thank's for taking your time to share this knowledge with all of us.
Here's a challenge that I'm having with my new "favorite" serve (one I've always wanted to learn anyway). I've put a bunch of time into learning a passable version of the reverse pendulum serve. It seems to have all the same benefits of the regular pendulum serve with a variety of placement and spin. Also, it seems like on the high end it has even more potential for wrist action and more spin, so I see it a lot from pro players. My challenge is the third ball. It's often to my forehand (yay!), but short, and my forehand flick is very much a work in progress. If they do return with a push and it goes long, I can loop it. But then I'm playing a forehand to their forehand, strength to strength. I'd rather be playing strength to weakness, which I've since realized is the reason that my coach taught the pendulum serve and inside-out forehand loop. What I'm getting at with all this rambling, is it would be great to discuss 3rd ball strategies for different serves. Especially with the plastic ball, we're getting fewer winners from servers, and using the serve to set up the 3rd or 5th ball seems more common.
There is a lot to unpack here but I'll start by saying that I love the idea of dedicating some videos to the 3rd ball attack! I've added it to my list and will be creating it soon! --- You're on the right track with the reverse pendulum serve. If somebody pushes it long to your FH and your opponent also has a strong FH block/counter attack then you might want to try placing the ball either into their body or wide out to the FH. Something you might want to consider is that many players who have strong FH attacks actually have weak FH blocks. A strategy I use against many players is to place my aggressive shots into the opponent's FH and my passive shots into their BH. --- If your opponent plays short into your FH I recommend NOT doing the flick unless it is a topspin return or high. If the ball IS topspin then try to get your body close to the ball. This will help you generate both power and accuracy. If the return is backspin and low, then your best option will be either a drop shot or an aggressive push. Both will be more effective than the flick. The flick against backspin is over rated, difficult, high risk, and puts your opponent at the advantage. It should really only ever be used if it is a clear winner which is extremely rare. I'll attempt to break it down. --- In order to do the flick effectively you will need to be close to the table. Being close is essential for catching the ball at its peak and for generating the necessary lift and power. You won't be able to use your legs on this so you'll need to rely on the wrist and forearm movement. These are all very difficult to do effectively and what's worse is that being close to the table is necessary but also problematic for both the actual flick and for the follow up shot. Converting the backspin to a topspin without your body being behind the ball will generally turn your shot into a weak attack with little more aggression than a normal counter drive. This is a perfect setup for your opponent because not only are you giving them a nice easy topspin, but you're also close to the table and out of position. Topspin balls move quicker than backspins and will bound forward. You generally want to be away from the table during a topspin rally to give yourself time and room to return it, but after the flick you're up over the table so you'll have to move very quickly to get back and ready for the next shot. All in all, I've found that either an aggressive push or drop shot is much more effective than a flick against backspin. It's less flashy but will put you in good position and will win you points.
@@TableTennisJunkie so it sounds to me like a short backspin reverse pendulum serve, if returned short, is one where you'd want to plan for a 5th ball attack. Maybe expand the 3rd ball attack videos to include 5th ball? I don't think there are many youtube videos talking about specific strategies for both 3rd and 5th ball, depending on the serve you do. Being able to plan for and visualize the ideal sequence for any given serve would be great. -- All this tactics talk reminds me, have you read Tom Lodziak's new book SPIN?
This is a pretty interesting topic. Too short serves. I think that I do this serve a lot and yeah sometimes I get angled. I mostly do the really short backspin serve to show that I can do it, I hope to have them dump it into the net and then I can do a short top spin or dead deceptive serve. This video is pretty interesting in the fact perhaps I do the short backspin too often and need to focus on having a two bounce backspin serve being more common. Depends on the opponent of course. There are players where the really short serve can get a couple of free points in a match.
Glad it's working for you! Be careful with the "too short" serve though. Unless your opponent is really slow getting into the table I would recommend only having 2 bounces on your short serves. When the ball is only bouncing twice on your opponent's side it means it has more forward energy on it which adds many advantages to the serve.
The ghost serve is effective ma lin is one of the greatest players and he used it quite often but I agree with you . The only way the ghost serve would be a winner is when u mix it with other serves like a short kick serve or disguise the ghost serve so ur opponents aren't 100% sure it's just a backspin serve 👌🏓💯
The problem is, you can't really disguise a ghost serve. You basically have to put 100% into backspin, there is no real room for hiding the angle or hand movement.
@@leonawroth2516 you totally can. You can do side spin on either side, side spin with backspin, or even take the contact a bit later and then you have topspin. You can also vary your motion going into the serve. Start with the head facing up, do the under swing in a hook motion and finish with the head facing down as if you spun the other way. Just by varying the contact points you can get any spin you want. Also it’s a penholder type of serve so the worst case scenario you get into a pushing game as a penholder. Going for the plain old backspin into the net sucks of course, there has to be an element of variation, that goes for any serve. If you can only do the ghost serve with plain backspin, it does indeed suck
Hah! I assume you're talking about this serve vs Zhang Jike? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GUbDgh_Ks9Q.html That's not really the same as the ghost serves you see all across youtube. Ma Lin's serve is second bouncing right on the white line which means it has a lot of forward energy and is essentially the same as a short backspin serve. The difference is that Ma Lin generated so much backspin that it stuck to the table and pulled back.
I think you’re missing the point in both videos. Ma Lin even says in the video you linked that the ghost serve wouldn’t be effective in an actual match. You can do the ghost serve to practice your touch or to practice generating backspin but the actual serve sucks.
