Update Your BACKHAND SERVE - eBaTT |Tutorial #21

Hey guys it's Eli Barati and today I'm going to be talking about the backhand serve. The backhand serve is very very important especially at the domestic level. I think it's lost its value at the top end players such as Dmitry Oshov still uses it a little bit even though he has resorted to the pendulum serve. Nevertheless the backhand serve can have lots of benefits if you get it right. So I'm going to try and give you a few little tips to upscale your backhand serve especially if you're a backhand dominant player and especially if you're a backhand server. Hopefully you can gain some extra tips to help you with your game. Okay so tip number one. A lot of players when they do the backhand serve they either stand too square on or they don't have enough backswing before point of contact. So because they stand square on they start here they kind of just dink the ball into play. It doesn't have a lot of effect. So what you want to try and do is have plenty of backswing before point of contact. Therefore you have to swing the arm back here to allow you to generate lots of energy. So there's a couple of ways of doing it. Number one I kind of tell my players to cross the arms like this. Some players like to start on top or underneath however you feel comfortable. Secondly you can stand slightly off square and you'll see a lot of female players they stand really off square here and that allows them to have plenty of backswing and then generate lots of energy even using their legs. Putting the weight onto the right leg for me as a left-hander and transferring the weight forward onto the other leg. So that's a nice little tip for you to really try and focus on is have plenty of backswing. So here's a demonstration for you to look at the difference between both the less backswing and lots of backswing which allows me to generate more spin. So not a lot of backswing and then plenty of backswing which then allows me to generate lots more spin and you'll notice before point of contact my bat swings right back and then I'm able to generate lots more spin. I'm able to generate lots more spin because my arm has backswing and then I can really make the movement very fast. But if I don't have lots of backswing then I can't generate lots of energy. So a little bit like a punch not that you would ever punch anyone but if you're punching someone from there let's say like a jab you don't get a lot of energy but if you bring the arm back then you get lots more energy. It's the same with the movement here little backswing little energy big backswing lots of energy and like I said you can change your position to generate more spin if you wish. Tip number two is variation and the best way for me to explain to you how to vary your spins with the backhand serve is to vary the contact point on the ball. So if I contact the ball there with the swing from here I'm contacting the ball underneath I generate backspin side spin. If I contact the ball a little bit more in this zone which let's say that's six o'clock if I contact it in between six and three which makes it about 4.30 then I get a little bit of backspin side spin but not as much backspin as the one when I'm where I'm contacting the ball at six o'clock. And the last one is trying to contact the ball at three o'clock. If I'm contacting the ball at three o'clock I'm getting pure side spin. So I'm getting three different variations from three different contact points on the ball and I also need to be aware of the angle of my bat. So for the pure backspin my bat angle is more to around 85 degree angle and then it lifts upwards towards around 60 and then lifts up again towards around 45 degrees to get that pure side spin. So for you you want to try and learn the three different contact points and that will enable you to upscale the backhand serve from just one pure side spin serve. I'm upscale it a little bit for you to show to you on the diagram so it can hopefully help you understand in more detail exactly as to what I'm talking about with the contact. Okay so I've got this little diagram for you to try and help you out with the contact point. So you're going to pretend that this is you and you're doing your backhand serve like that and this is the ball so where you're hitting the ball so you're there and you're serving. So if you're contacting the ball in this zone over here that's for the pure side spin so you're going across the ball that way pure side spin. If you're a right-hander it's the other way around you're going there pure side spin. The next one is side spin backspin again similar movements but the contact point has changed it's gone lower on the ball lower down on the ball and the last one is in this zone over here underneath the ball trying to hit it anywhere there whether you're left-handed or right-handed contacting under the ball and that creates the pure backspin side spin where this one creates backspin side spin but with less backspin and that one creates just pure side spin whether it's left or right depending whether you're left-handed or right. So I hope that helps you and if you learn to adjust those little contact points it's a very small adjustment which is difficult for the opponent to pick up on and hopefully you'll gain little extra benefits by then receiving the serve at a more of a weak return rather than a good smash past you or a good heavy dig or good short touch so I think that will really upscale your serve and we'll move on to the number three tip from now. Tip number three actually I want you to try and figure this one out did you see a difference? Hopefully you didn't because if you did it means my disguise wasn't very good and that is exactly what it's all about the disguise. Tip number three is disguise did you see the difference between the movements and did you see what I tried to implement to do the variations of spins? If not hopefully you'll understand it now. So what I did was I tried to make the serve look exactly the same whether I put heavy backspin side spin, pure side spin or side spin topspin. So how do I do it? The first thing I do is like we spoke about before I have three different contact points although the contact points change a little bit the pure backspin I touch here the pure side spin I touch at number six like we spoke about before but the side spin topspin I actually start from under the ball and I touch the ball there so instead of six o'clock and instead of 4 30 this time we're moving towards the other side of the clock and I'm touching the ball around 7 30 so six o'clock 7 30 for me. Is that 7 30 for you? I hope so. So I'm hitting the ball there and that allows me to generate side spin topspin. So how exactly do I disguise it at the end? With the exact same follow-through for every single serve. So I do the all the elements that I described before with the movement with the technique and once I contact the ball I finish with my elbow up for every single serve. Hopefully when you look at the video a little bit before you'll see that almost every single serve ended with me finishing in and around this position which then makes it very difficult for the opponent to see where and what exactly I have done with the serve. So that's a really really good tip for hopefully for you guys to to implement. Instead of doing things like this I see a lot of players go like this. They do that obviously that is pure backspin or they do this pure sidespin. They finish in a sidespin position and they finish in a backspin position or they do that and they finish in a topspin position where I do all three but I finish with the same movement for all three. Have a look. Backspin, sidespin, oops sorry and sidespin topspin again. So hopefully you can see all three look almost identical but all three are very much different which makes it very difficult for my opponent to receive my serve. Okay so I hope those three tips really help you out. As always I'd like to give you that one little extra bonus tip and this is where we refer to the wrist. Almost every single serve that you do if you want high quality you need to implement the wrist. A lot of players with the backhand serve they don't implement the wrist. They lock the wrist and just use the shoulder but in fact you should be looking to use your wrist as well and that allows you to generate that extra amount of spin. So you're just doing this and you're squeezing the handle with these three fingers. So you're loose at the beginning and then you're squeezing like that at point of contact. So relaxed and loose I'm like this and as I hit I squeeze those fingers which then gives me that extra kick. So let's have a quick look. If I just I'm locked that's me being locked and this is me being a bit more relaxed. I can feel my grip on the blade is a little bit softer and then I lock just at contact which then generates a lot more spin. So hopefully that's a nice little bonus tip for you guys and as always thanks for watching, thanks for subscribing and please hit the like, hit that what's that thing the bell thing and you know please carry on supporting me. I really appreciate it. People are really coming up to me now and saying I really enjoy your videos, leaving some very nice comments as well. So I really appreciate all the support. Like I keep on saying I want to carry on growing and with your help hopefully I can succeed. So thanks again and I'll see you on the next video.