You Need at Least Three Different Serve Patterns
This is a brand-new technique-focused column in Q&A format. The experts are two former Chinese national team players — now seasoned coaches — who prefer to remain anonymous. They just want a quiet life and a good night’s sleep, with no desire for fame.
I feel sharing these technical insights is genuinely valuable, and a fitting complement to this channel.
And so the “Summit” column was born.
I started as a child playing shakehand, but when it came to serves, my wrist wasn’t flexible enough and my serves lacked spin. So my coach told me to switch to penhold. Is that actually the right call?
No need to switch to penhold — find a solution instead.
In terms of difficulty, ranked from hardest to easiest: 1) penhold chopper; 2) shakehand chopper; 3) penhold; 4) shakehand. Shakehand has the lowest barrier to entry. Look at where we are now: penhold choppers are essentially extinct, shakehand choppers are nearly gone, professional penhold players are rare — everyone plays shakehand.
A quick addition on why chopping looks simple but is actually the hardest: chopping relies almost entirely on body weight to control the contact — the forward force and downward force both come from the body, with a very relaxed hand. That’s how you feel the opponent’s spin and create room to adjust. For chopping and pushing, keep the paddle close to your head; don’t reach with your arm.
I play shakehand inverted on both sides, mostly relying on forehand stepping-around, rarely using the backhand. But now against stronger opponents, they control the game well — if I step around for a heavy loop, they counter-loop or push hard to my forehand. I can’t figure out how to balance forehand and backhand usage. Should I use the backhand more, or keep committing to the step-around?
Increase your backhand usage. If you’re still young, by all means focus on the forehand. But if you’re in your thirties and already fairly skilled, facing opponents at a similar level, stepping around and failing to finish in one shot just leaves your forehand exposed — and then you have no answer.
With the backhand it’s different. You can loop it up first, turning their push into a topspin ball. Your second shot becomes a power shot. You can then pressure their backhand and dominate that wing — after all, you’re on offense, they’re on defense. As long as you don’t make errors, if your level is similar to theirs, your win rate is decent.
But that first backhand loop opening — watch the angle and spin. Don’t float it high; they’ll push it hard. The loop can be soft, but it must have angle and spin. Add speed if you can.
For the backhand loop against backspin, there’s no need to drop your hand way down. Just have the wrist slightly below the ball, and accelerate with a flicking motion. Your body needs to press forward and drive through. The ball quality will be fine. If the incoming ball is heavy with spin, angle the blade slightly more upright; if it’s not very spinny, loop normally.
I’m considering dropping my forehand serves entirely. I’ve been working on them for the past two years, but against stronger players they’re less effective than my backhand serves. They’re not fast, not spinny, and lack variety. Would it be better to simply develop richer backhand serve variations?
You need at least three distinct serve patterns. Otherwise, once opponents get used to one or two of your serves, you’re stuck. Your serve-attack game suffers badly.
The serves don’t have to be supremely heavy, tricky, or impressive — but you have to have them. The goal is simply to keep opponents uncomfortable. Once your serve variety grows, opponents have to think about more possibilities, and their receive quality drops.
It’s like a player who defends power loops brilliantly but panics at a slow, heavy float loop. The main reason is the rhythm changed — less speed, more spin. They can’t borrow pace off the incoming ball anymore.