Serve Return Tips No One Tells You with Seth Pech Part 2

Hey guys, and welcome back to Peck Pong, it's been a while, well, it's been like two weeks, but it feels like a while. Yeah, so this is a channel where I do match reviews and I talk about things that I do to try to get better, and for the last four or five videos, I've been doing some information stuff, like tips and things that, yeah. So the response on the last video was that you guys really liked that serve return, and you wanted more, more information about serve return. So here I am, that's what you're getting. Serve return 2.0, and yeah, I've been working on this one a lot, fingers crossed, it's understandable, I hope you guys can understand this one. And quick note, if you weren't here for the last video, you should go watch that, because some of the terminology that I'm going to be using in this video was started in the last video. So go ahead and watch that, and then you'll be caught up to speed. And feel free to keep asking questions, I love answering them in the comments, and keep recommending video ideas, because believe it or not, I do want to get to them. I'm just pretty busy. But I do want to get to them. That's pretty much all I have to say about that. So let's just get right into it, and see what serving 2.0 tips that I wish people had told me when I was like 5 years ago. So let's get started. So our first topic is backhand push with the spin against forehand natural serves. Now this return is not super common, but a handful of players use it, like Ma Long and Dimitrij Ovtcharov. They use it to good effect, kind of mix it up between the backhand flip and the backhand push against forehand serves, forehand natural spin serves. So the key here is you want to go touch the right side of the ball, and you want to move to the left. And you're going with the spin on that. And it's a pretty good return. Here's Dimitrij Ovtcharov doing it, and here's me doing it myself. You can see I'm letting the ball come to me, and then I'm going with the spin. And then here is a former mentor of mine. His name is Peter Carlson, and he is doing it. So next topic, backhand push with and against backhand natural spins. This is a more common one, especially against backhand serves, scoop serves, reverse pendulum serve. And the key here is to just keep your racket in the natural position and let the spin do the work of taking the ball, because the spin will bite into the rubber and kind of catapult it a little bit forward. So your job is pretty simple, you just have to get the backhand in that natural position. All right, now we're going to go with an uncommon one. It's with the spin, and this one is quite interesting, because you have to go kind of touch the back of the ball, and you're going to go to the right. It's not such a common one, but it can be used for variation to good effect. So you can practice it. So next we have covering the table. I made a cool little diagram here, and it basically covers the five different ways that pros use to cover the table. And they use these different ways of returning serves because it helps them deal with the different sidespins, forehand natural spins and backhand natural spins, and it also helps them amplify their strengths. So for example, Harimoto has a really good backhand flip, and he'll try to cover the table more with backhand, and then Molong has a really good forehand loop, so he tries to cover the table more with forehand. So let's go through these. Forehand 90%. Basically you're covering the whole table short and long with forehand. This is really good for receiving forehand natural spins. And then the next one is forehand long and 50-50 short. So this is great if you feel comfortable with looping everything long with your forehand, and you want to get the benefits of receiving with backhand push against backhand natural spins. The next one is backhand long or forehand short, or forehand long to forehand. And this one is great if you don't want to move, but you want to receive against forehand natural spins with your forehand. And then the next one is neutral, and this is really good if you have a good backhand flip and a good backhand loop, and you want to stay very stationary. And the last one is the ever-so-risky backhand 90% of the table, if you have a great backhand flip. So how do we get into these positions? Well, you have to move a little bit, shift your position a little bit before they serve. So just as they're about to make contact, you're going to shift into the position you want to get into. And let's go through them. So this is what forehand 90% of the table looks like. Ma Long does it to perfection. And then this is what number two looks like, backhand from the backhand short, and everything else long forehand. And then this is what the backhand from the backhand corner and forehand all short looks like. This is what neutral looks like, 50-50 pretty much. And then this is what backhand 85-90% of the table looks like, and you're going to move into that position before. So number five, the last one, can be tricky because you can be kind of out of position. It's still possible to get there, but it's risky. And number one and two, the forehand ones, can also be tricky. So you have to watch out for getting burned. So how do you not get burned? Well, it all comes down to mixing. If you can mix your receives up so that your opponent doesn't get a good feeling for what you're going to do, you can mix them up and sometimes take backhand hold table, and then the next time stay neutral, and then sometimes take backhand hold table, and then stay neutral. And your opponent won't really feel comfortable serving long to you because he thinks, well, maybe this next time I serve long, he's just going to loop it. So you've got to mix them up properly in order to not be too predictable. And a cool fun fact is that you can use the same kind of strategy of getting into position with your own serve. So you can look for forehands and stuff. So the next topic, a game of memory. The key points are, if you can remember what your opponent did with your serve, you can use that information against them the next time you serve that serve. If you can remember placements, receives, patterns your opponent does not like to use, you can use them. Too many players play on autopilot, and you've got to be proactive and not reactive. So in this video, Harimoto knows that Bo Long likes to push short to the middle, so he serves and gets into position. In this next one, Truls knows that Feng Bo wants to flip his serve, so he gets in position. And in this last one, Hugo Calderano liked to play to Fan Zhendong's forehand down the line. So the highly requested, looping long serves. So my first tip is to take a step back, a little step back. And this gives you more time to swing, and it lets the spin die. And it also gives you a little more time to see the bounce of the spin, whether it's bouncing a lot or bouncing a little. And the next tip is to use a lot of spin. And then the next tip is to sometimes switch and use your strong side. And just know that with this method of returning serves, stepping back a little, you are giving up being very fast on the short ball. But this can be used against players who just love serving long against you. So you just kind of step back. You're just a little bit later on those short ones, but it'll be alright. You can still get it in time. And now, backhand flipping, forehand natural spins, and backhand natural spins. So flipping is all about spin with the backhand. You gotta strike on the left side of the ball, and try to use a lot of spin. And a key thing is you have to let the ball come to you, because if you're chasing the ball, you're not going to be able to spin it, you're just going to be poking at it. So that's never any good. And when it's against backhand natural spins, the ball is going to bite into your rubber, and it's going to feel bad. But if you can just be brave and go through the ball and let the spin bite, you're going to have good success. And here's a video of Lin Yun Ju backhand flipping. So tips on dealing with hard to read serves. So every now and then you come across a player who kind of keeps their hand in the middle of the table, and you can't really see the serve. But there are a little bit of ways to get around this. And typically this hand thing is used when they do a no spin or heavy spin serve, backspin. And the player kind of always has the same motion for those two serves. So when they start doing that serve, you can start looking specifically for the logo on the ball. Alright, the next one. So if you're reading a serve, and you're watching the racket going through their whole path when they're swinging it, this can be very disorienting. And what's going to happen is that your eyes are going to lag behind the ball, and you're going to miss contact. So it's really important to watch only where the contact will be made. And this is a video of Fan Zhendong playing against Par Gurel. And basically Fan Zhendong said in an interview that Par Gurel serves were the best things he's ever played against, the best serves. And Fan Zhendong basically waits for all the serves to see the bounce, because he can't see contact, because contact is being made well behind the body. Alright, that is it for today. I hope you liked the video, I hope there's some things in there that are new, or maybe I made ideas that you had in your head concrete, which is what it did for me actually, making these videos. It really helped me concrete the information. So yeah, thanks for watching, and leave in comments if you have any other ideas. Yeah, alright, see you guys! Ciao!