Serve Receiving Motion

Dear all,

I noticed most professionals move before the opponent really serve (bat touches the ball). It seems like they know exactly the opponent was serving long or short, left or right even before they serve. You can see clearly they will move in much earlier.

How do they do so? Is there any valid way to determine that in advance of their serve? Like certain motion etc?

It depends on how deceptive the server is. Sometimes they can 'hint' what kind of serve they are doing before making contact. But some can hide it until the very instant they hit the ball, so you can't foresee it.

The backhand serves are usually more predictable; it's harder to hide and serves aren't as fast. But forehand serves you can very easily serve fast serves deep to both sides with a last-instant change, so it's hard to predict.