Wang Tao serve training

Just saw this vid on youtube:



Can any of you guys tell the difference between side-top and side-under from his racket motion? I have no clue even looking at the slow-mo from the side-viewing angle...

Start to 1:40 side-top, 1:40 to 3:13 side-under, after 3:13 3rd ball training.




Edited by ZingyDNA - 12/20/2011 at 5:02pm

Called A Topspin wrote: topspin you go up backspin you go down. takes time.

I don't understand this. Can you elaborate?

Must admit that I also do not see the difference clearly, not even in the slow motion
(that has a lot to do with Wang Tao's  quality as a player, of course),
but I think things are as follows:

1) There is not much difference in the shape of the total motion, but there probably is a difference
in the exact time of the  contact (blade moving more down or more up at the point of contact),
and in the intensity of going under the ball. 

2) The toss is above head hight,  which means that even without much upward movement of the blade, the falling energy will be partially transformed into  topspin if there is no 
`chopping under the ball' movement.

3)  These serves  have probably neither extreme backspin nor extreme topspin,
     the point is more that  they look so similar and then there is the hard to read variation between, 
     say,    
                 30% of possible maximum backspin and
                 30% of possible maximum topspin. 

kenneyy88 wrote: ZingyDNA wrote: Called A Topspin wrote: topspin you go up backspin you go down. takes time. I don't understand this. Can you elaborate? He means that, You can see him go down against the ball, when its backspin. When its topspin, you can see him brush up on the back of the ball.

I can't really tell if he's brushing up or down at the moment he contacts the ball...

remmpfremm wrote: 1) There is not much difference in the shape of the total motion, but there probably is a difference in the exact time of the  contact (blade moving more down or more up at the point of contact), and in the intensity of going under the ball.  2) The toss is above head hight,  which means that even without much upward movement of the blade, the falling energy will be partially transformed into  topspin if there is no  `chopping under the ball' movement. 3)  These serves  have probably neither extreme backspin nor extreme topspin,      the point is more that  they look so similar and then there is the hard to read variation between,       say,                      30% of possible maximum backspin and                  30% of possible maximum topspin.

I agree with you on the first two points. You're probably right on the 3rd point also. I guess at Wang Tao's level he just needs slight misread of spin to put the ball away or at least gain a significant advantage. And 30% of his max spin is probably a lot to us!

Brush ball upwards for topspin downward for underspin. That's what the name of the spin suggests? Really? Why the questions

Edited by dingyibvs - 12/23/2011 at 2:55pm

APW46 wrote: It does not matter anyway, these serves are before the rule change, he's shielding with his free arm, and incidentally, it was widely regarded that Waldner had the most deceitful serves of that era.

Would you be able to read it if his free arm is out of the way? And please, don't bring Waldner into this thread as it's irrelevant. It's only gonna bring arguments because someone's gonna say Liu Guoliang had the most deceptive serves, etc.

Waldner? More deceptive than Liu on serves? Surely that's a joke. Do you see Liu missing 5 serves in a row against Waldner because he doesn't know how to return them? The answer to that is no.

APW46 wrote: [QUOTE=ZingyDNA]  I only brought Waldner in because of the comments that RSM, Ma Lin and Chen Qui had the most deceptive serves. Why ask me if I could read his serves? he's shielding the contact point, which does not help, that's why they changed the rules.  They all look to be pure side and side/chop, I can't see any side/ top at all. You wouldn't know would you, you've already said that you can't tell.

I know these serves have either side-top or side-under because the Chinese captions in the vid told me so! They also told me when he's serving side-top and when it's side-under. They filmed at different angles. You can see the ball at some angles despite he's shielding it. If you can't tell side-top from side-under from those angles in slow motion, you won't be able to read that serve even if he's not hiding it. Geez, why do people make such a big fuss about him hiding the ball? That's totally missing the point, which is to study his deceptive serve technique.

dingyibvs wrote: Just to complement this thread with RSM's services:

Is the first one topspin & the second one backspin?

It would be interesting to let people vote on this.