4 Killer Serves (Detailed Tutorial)

And sometimes you don't even have to look. Welcome to four killer serves updated. I think the video is approaching something like 9 million views, which is absolutely crazy. It's been a long time. I'm sure some of my advice and guidance would have changed slightly over the years. So I'm going to revisit all four serves and yeah, feel free to compare and contrast and see if there's any new tips that you can pick up. So let's get into it. So the first serve we're going to look at is the kicker serve. It's a serve lots of people want to be able to perform and to be able to do it well there are a couple of things that you need to be aware of. It's a great serve to have in your armory of serves. Extra little jump and kick is a great way of creating an easy opportunity or just disturbing your opponent. So sometimes we might be able to deceive them a little bit. Other times we might be able to trick them with the amount of spin that we can get on the serve. So one significant benefit of this serve is that we can keep a very similar grip to our shakehand grip when we're playing. Okay, so something I changed slightly is from my normal playing grip, the bat twists in towards this first knuckle and that just helps me keep this 45 degree angle. Okay, so this is neutral and then this is that 45 degree angle that's going to allow me to create some effects and create some deception which I'll explain shortly. Now with this grip once I've completed the serve there's not an awful lot for me to do other than a little adjustment to get back into my playing grip and then I'm ready much quicker, can be much more effective in my follow-up too. So if you struggle with grips then the kicker serve might be a good one for you to try. So to execute the serve I'm turning a little bit side on and a comfortable position for me is just behind the side of the table, just making sure that the ball is behind the line of the table. That's a good and familiar position for me, absolutely fine if yours is behind the table, even from the center of the table. Again you've got to adapt your starting position based on your game and how you're planning to follow up in points. So from this position here as I throw the ball up my back comes back so my elbow is drawing that bat back, you can see I've still got this open 45 degree angle and then from here I'm pushing out and away from my body. I'm trying to focus on hitting that top part of the bat. Now you can see there's a slight bend in my wrist, that means that I'm in a position there for the wrist just to flick upwards slightly on that point of contact and it's that that's going to create the kicking effect along with this 45 but also my bat moving down afterwards that can create a little bit of doubt that it might be backspin too. So that combination of that low finish with the bat and the ball jumping means that people tend to return with their bat slightly open and then the spin takes effect and the ball jumps up quite high. If you can catch it really well sometimes it might even bounce over the bat. Now this angle is really important because it can create doubt, it gives the possibility of backspin happening. If my bat's too neutral and I'm trying to go for backspin it's going to be very limited. If people are seeing a really neutral bat there's a good chance that it's going to be no spin or topspin. This gives the possibility of good backspin as well as good topspin so that angle is really key. Also by having this angle it means that we're lifting the ball slightly when we're kicking it and it's that delivery that creates the kick. So make sure we've got this 45 degree angle. Okay so serve number one is the kicker serve. Give it a try. Can you get that ball jumping? Can you catch people out and get that ball popping up? Start taking advantage of those high returns and win those points a little bit quicker. Okay the second serve we're going to be looking at is the long fast serve down the line. A great serve to catch people out with especially if you've been using lots of short serves within the match and you want to use a bit of variety and we end up throwing something in completely different. It's a great way to catch them out, win a cheap point, create an easier opportunity and then it just sets the tactics up as well for the rest of the match. You've already created doubt just by doing one of those serves. Now when they're returning they've got to consider all of these options. So having a good and effective long pass serve can really strengthen all of your service game. With this serve I'm going to adopt my normal service grip which is finger and thumb onto the bat. Now the reason for this is that this is the grip that I would use if I was going for a straight backspin or no spin serve or my pendulum serve. So I don't want to be changing that too much and let them know what's happening with me serving down the line so I need to keep really similar grip for my short versions. Now as I'm throwing the ball up for me I try and keep this bat really open so I'm trying to keep this edge showing towards my opponent for as long as I can and then as the ball drops I want to leave this change for as late as possible. I'm trying to let that ball drop as low as possible, as close to this line as I can and a nice solid connection. If I can get those things working together then I get this long fast serve down the line. My elbow might need to just come out slightly. You see when my elbow comes out that helps me create this angle. There's obviously that straight serve down the line I'm trying to create. My elbow doesn't quite come out as much. Now my bat is facing cross court and I don't quite create the angle that I'm after. Okay let's take a look. Again I'm standing to the side of the table still making contact behind the line. I find that that brings me in nice and close and that helps me make that quick connection. Again it's fine if you want to take a small step back give yourself a little bit of room but we don't want the distance from the bat to table too far. We're going to lose some speed in the serve. I want to make sure that my shoulders aren't turning too soon. They might have to turn for me to watch where the ball's going and for my recovery afterwards but I don't want to declare it too soon and open my shoulders up too early to show that I'm trying to create that angle. So really important you're assessing your short serve to see what your preparation looks like and feels like and it's that that we're trying to copy when trying to be nice and loose with my grip and then on the point of contact there's a squeeze with the finger and thumb that just helps me accelerate into the serve a little bit more. So give that a try that little squeeze of the finger and thumb on the point of contact really driving that ball into your side of the table and sometimes you don't even have to look. So serve number two is the long fast serve down the line. Perhaps not a serve you're going to use all the time but a great serve to have to complement your other serves and there's nothing more satisfying than sending a long fast serve down the line someone's turned around the corner and you've managed to ace them so always worth practicing long passes. The third serve we're going to look at is the super wide serve. We're trying to get it really short and exploit that angle as wide as we possibly can. Now this serve can be really effective because many people haven't explored that part of the table. We practice behind the table maybe even off the side a little bit but rarely do people find themselves this close to the table and then they lack the feeling and control to be able to deal with a ball that's very spinny also super wide and very close to the table. So we're trying to put them into parts of the court that they've not explored before and then it's tough for them to have the answers there and then. Plus it can help us with some really simple tactics of pushing someone out really wide and then simply sending the next ball to the wide corner afterwards. So for this serve my grip again thumb on the middle of the bat finger on the middle of the other side it's very much finger and thumb and my fingers resting on the handle here so it's that wrist finger and thumb that are snapping into the ball that's creating that spin. Now to be able to get the ball really wide I need to really open the angle of my bat up I almost need to be lifting the ball up. So all the camera there can see is my edging tape and I want the direction of my bat to almost go towards the camera. So once I've got this action here and then looking to pitch the ball quite close to the net close to the center line and that'll give the ball time to stand up and for the spin to swing around. Let's have a look. So I'm actually by hitting the center line on my side I'm getting two bounces on my opponent's side so if I move that bounce a little bit further over on my side I should be able to get one bounce and get it even wider. I don't want it to be quick I want it to be a slow serve so I can bring them in closer to the net. And one way to really put my focus in the right area is to use a prop. So I've got a cone here I know the part of table that I'm aiming for and that keeps my focus on the accuracy of the serve. So really important with this that we've got this little tilt here although we're showing the edge to our opponent we're just lifting the handle up slightly that creates this angle here we're trying to keep that angle all the way through the shot and it's that that will help us create that side spin and backspin. So the super wide serve give it a go make your opponents uncomfortable and exploit those angles afterwards. This is a great one to practice on your own you don't need anyone to practice these sort of angles section the table off and experiment with that slightly different delivery. And the fourth serve we're going to look at is the ghost serve. The one that looks super impressive everybody wants to be able to get that ball to bounce and come back it looks impressive to our friends to other players it can be a really tricky serve to deal with too so it's a great one to have in your back pocket. It's a serve that's very much reliant on spin and touch with that combination of acceleration as well a tricky combination to master but it can be done. So the first thing we need is a nice light brush on the ball we can hear that snick once we've got that then it's adding in this wrist having this finger and thumb squeezing on the bat and snapping forwards and that helps increase the amount of spin that we can get on the ball and then it's just being careful that we don't hit the ball down into the table here so we can get very good spin by hitting the ball down and that's a perfectly legitimate serve we won't necessarily get the ball to come back on the table so be careful that this isn't happening definitely backspin definitely a decent serve but you won't get that ghost effect so to get that ghost effect we need to really open our bat we need to be showing the edge of the bat to our opponents maybe even showing them the black rubber really tilting this bat back okay we want that light brush but then we want that wrist accelerating okay and then it's just the forearm that's adding in that forward momentum when we combine all of that together we get a serve that's really short really spinny and we should get that ball coming back to the net i'm really thinking about accelerating on the point of contact i'm trying to get a really thin contact at the same time as having that snap and i suppose that's kind of what i want to see at the end of my little training session is the balls coming back towards the net hopefully they're accumulating or they're falling off the table and they're somewhere around here it's good confirmation that i've achieved what i'm trying to with this practice so the ghost serve really flat bat if anything tilted back a little bit light contact quick acceleration finger and thumb squeezing on the point of contact all of that stuff combined is really going to help accelerate the amount of spin that you can get on the ball okay so that's the four killer serves which two are you going to try and perfect make sure you go back and watch the original compare it to this one can we get this one to 10 million views let's try and beat it thanks again for watching make sure you're subscribing go back and watch another video and i'll see you at the next one sometimes you don't even have to look sometimes you don't even have to look