Site Products
Development of an Outrageously Great Spin Serve

Development of an Outrageously Great Spin Serve

Development of an Outrageously Great Spin Serve
(By Larry Hodges)

Here are six steps to doing so!

  1. Spin and catch. Practice tossing the ball up, spinning it with your paddle, and catching it. Do this over and over, in various ways with different spins, until you can put an outrageous amount of spin on the ball, with different types of spins.
  2. Spin the serve. Now do the same thing at the table, where you focus, again, on putting outrageous amounts of spin on the ball. Don’t worry at first about serving legal or low, just get lots of spin on the ball. As you get better, make sure you are doing so legally (especially the six-inch toss) and low to the net.
  3. Spin with variations. Now that you can serve with outrageous spin, learn to do different variations. Try serving with backspin, side-backspin, sidespin, side-topspin, and topspin. And don’t forget one of the great serves of table tennis – fake that outrageous spin, but contact the ball near the handle with a stiff wrist so there’s no spin, and then exaggerate the wrist and arm motion aftercontact – i.e. “heavy no-spin.”
  4. Spin with semi-circular deception. Now is where you add real deception. Use a semi-circular motion in your serve. For example, for a forehand pendulum serve (i.e. racket tip down), start with a downward motion, then go sideways, and then up, all in a smooth semi-circular motion. Depending on where you contact the ball in this semi-circle, you’ll get different spins. If on the down, backspin. If on the sideways part, sidespin. If on the upward part, topspin. Plus the in between spins – if you contact on the ball as the racket moves down and sideways, you get sidespin-backspin. If you contact the ball on the sideways and up part, you get sidespin-topspin – which tends to be trickier to learn with this particular serve, but comes with practice.
  5. Spin with quick, deception motion. Now that you can serve all sorts of different outrageous spins with a semicircular motion, it’s time to shorten and speed up the motion. By making it shorter and quicker, it’s harder for the opponent to read what direction the racket was moving at contact. And then, just after contact, move the racket in a different direction, further throwing off the receiver.

Perfect these steps, and you too can have an outrageously great spin serve, with great spin and deception – and with practice, there’s no reason why you can’t do this as well as the pros.

 

Latest News

Serve Into the Body

July 11, 2025
WAIT FUNCTION: Serve long serve to elbow, Robot plays topspin to Backhand, Backhand spin block down the line.… Read More

Playing Kids

July 8, 2025
(By Larry Hodges) Let’s face it; they’re probably faster than you. They might have a coach working with… Read More

#2 A Skill That Is Likely To Score – Backhand Down The Line

July 7, 2025
[[Feature] [Special Feature] American Stars! Jha’s Strengths #2 A Skill That Is Likely To Score – Backhand Down… Read More

United States Smash: Tight Scores and a Big Upset in Early Action

July 7, 2025
(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT) Action is underway in the main round of the United States Smash, the… Read More

MLTT Featured Team: Bay Area Blasters

July 6, 2025
(by Steve Hopkins, photo MLTT) The Bay Area Blasters plan to blast through the upcoming Major League Table… Read More

WAB CLUB FEATURE: Calgary United Sports Table Tennis Association

July 6, 2025
(by Steve Hopkins) Established in 2002, Calgary United Sports Table Tennis Association (CUSTTA) is Alberta’s largest Table Tennis… Read More

Butterfly Players Shine at the 2025 US National Table Tennis Championships

July 6, 2025
(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT) The 2025 U.S. National Table Tennis Championships is one of the premiere annual… Read More

US Nationals Recap

July 6, 2025
(by Steve Hopkins) The US National Table Tennis Championships is in the books.  One of America’s premiere events… Read More
View All News

Get the latest from Butterfly

Stay “In The Loop” with Butterfly professional table tennis equipment, table tennis news, table tennis technology, tournament results, and We Are Butterfly players, coaches, clubs and more.