Where to Contact your serve...

holy crap lixiao!! LET ME TRY THAT! i didnt c it form that point of view

Well its not that hard, but one thing you could do is place your hand farther left (if righty) or farther right (if lefty) so that if it drifts it will still fall at 1 o" clock.

liXiao wrote: One thing that has given me great frustration when playing is that alot of the time when I hit a back spin serve (penhold) I always miss it into the net, unless I get lucky. Then I discovered something, I was contacting the ball too out in front. I then began to throw the ball behind me more ( so instead of throwing it at 12 o'clock, i'm throwing it more at 1 o'clock). Now I start to hit it with more consistency and spin. Is this true for you guys too, and any other pointers~

Are you tall? If you are, try serving in a more crouched position...

liXiao wrote: I'm 5'4. But I like experimenting with Liu Guoiang's crouching serve.

Well Liu was mostly using the crouch to hide the ball - he was famous for it and after it was forbidden, he retired... so this might not be the best serve to imitate. His serve technique, however, was superb, i agree...

liXiao wrote: Actually I was watching a video on Bokett and Liu was practicing with Ma. Ma was practicing serve returns, and when Liu would hit his serve, instead of having the blade drop, he went through the ball and curved the blades motion up. If you don't get what I;m saying I'll try to find the video. Plus there was so much spin on it, Ma missed alot of the returns.

True, quite often Liu would put some crazy amount of spin on his serves. i watched that happening in some of his matches with Waldner in 1999 and 2000, and J.O. often just couldn't do anything...

It's not as simple as where you contact the ball, though I do also throw at the 1 o'clock angle. The angle that you throw at isn't really the issue, the issue is the position at the point of contact.

The ball is lined up with my back leg when I make contact. But it also matters where you stand. I stand behind the table completely (forehand position) with my front thigh touching the table. Some people actually step around the side of the table and lean over the table, like Rosskopf I believe. For those people, the contact point is closer to the table than for people who stand behind.

Yes jkilla, I throw at 1 o'clock for high tossed serves, but more 12 o'clock for short tosses~

I wish there was a training video of Liu teaching how to do his serve~