Ma Long Loves the Standard Forehand Serve, Wang Hao the Hook Serve?
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in a question-and-answer format. The mystery figures answering are two former national team members, both now veteran coaches. So the “Reaching the Summit” column was born.
For teaching kids the basics, what counts as a good beginner’s coach?
Do not rush to make a kid produce results; above all, do not let them fire too early. In the early stage, require the kid to: one, plant the feet solidly; two, rely on the center of gravity to find the ball; three, let the body lead the hand; four, no firing; five, learn weight transfer; six, lean the body forward. After these six, then focus on arm strokes. If your coach emphasizes these points, the kid will not be bad later. If you teach the kid to fire from the start, the kid struggles to go far. Because once these points are done, the body will not be loose, and its longitudinal and lateral axes will be stable — this is the basic requirement for non-fixed-point striking and continuous quick-exchange. If you demand firing from the start, it is 100 percent hand strokes replacing the body, with no stability, let alone quick-exchange.
Wang Hao mostly uses the hook serve, Ma Long mostly the standard forehand serve. Xiaopang used to mostly serve forehand too, but now has the reverse serve. Do these directly relate to their technical traits?
The hook serve and reverse-spin serve favor backhand technique use. Wang Hao and Zhang Jike used them a lot. The forehand serve favors the forehand, which Ma Long uses a lot. Take a right-hander: say we use a forehand serve, a side-underspin, and the opponent lightly pushes it back — if his control is poor, the ball flies out past the backhand or into the net. To ensure landing, the opponent generally pushes to your middle or forehand, so your forehand can easily loop — that is why it favors the forehand. If the opponent loops it back, the spin also tends toward your forehand, and you can borrow the spin to loop back with even stronger spin.
In today’s fast-tempo matches, is it impossible to switch both wings and produce thick, solid loops on both, like Gerell back then? Most players have one solid side and one crisper side — for example, the now common case where the backhand grips the ball very deep but the forehand does not grip as deep; and for the classic-loop forehand-dominant players, the forehand holds deep but the backhand not as deep.
Close-mid table it does not work, but mid-far table it can — not just loops, hitting too. Look at Ma Long and Xiaopang. Including Lin Gaoyuan, known for speed, who mainly borrows pace, quick-loops and quick-rips. (Heima’s aside: I read this question twice and found it seems to be a gear question again — I need to think it over before answering.)