During a match, irrespective of professional players or beginners, the hardest part should be receiving serves. Usually, if you can handle the serves of your opponent, you have won already half of the match and you would feel playing quite smoothly. Pay more attention to the three points below when you receive table tennis serves, it can be much easier and no longer in a flurry.
Judgment Is Crucial for Table Tennis Receiving
Judgment is the crucial part of good receiving. Eyes come before your hand. You must completely focus on the move of your opponent, staring at the moment his racket touching the ball. By watching his blade angle, power, and friction, you can judge the spin, speed and placement of the serve.
The biggest reason of bad receiving is you do not know what the spin is. Spin is one of the largest features of table tennis. It has the strongest spin among all the ball games in the world, although the ITTF has been changing the ball materials to reduce it. The reasons why it is so formidable of those serves of high-level players are that their moves are fast and there are fake moves to cover up. When the judgment of receiver makes just a minor mistake, the ball will fly up to the ceiling or sink down to the net bottom, losing a point directly. If you are told the spin and placement, table tennis receiving would not be so difficult.
Three Main Points of Receiving Table Tennis Serves Well
(Image courtesy of Remy Gros at Flickr)
Adjust Blade Angle
Secondly, you need to flexibly adjust the blade angle. Based on your judgment, boldly and quickly use suitable skill to return the serve. If it is top spin, the blade angle has to be turned closer to avoid going out when you drive back. If it is backspin, the blade angle should be more open to avoid falling down to the net. As long as your judgment is correct, with competent basic skills, this part would not be hard.
Sense of Defense and Transition
Besides, the sense of defense and transition is extremely important. As the name implies, table tennis receiving is to “return,” “meet” the serves of your opponent. However, the most common mistake of many people playing competitions is that they are so impetuous and reckless, including those senior players. They do all their might to “smash,” “attack” those serves of opponents. Needless to say, it is easy to make mistakes.
It is the most passive and fragile moment when you are receiving. Using strong power to kill is so unwise. The most important thing is to break the deployment of your opponent, making a safe transition first and looking for opportunities afterwards.
Next time when you receive table tennis serves, try to bear the above three points in mind and see whether the result is different?
