Four Useful Tools for Improving Your Long Fast Serves in Table Tennis

 Still in the process of getting all of my videos summarized and up here on the blog, I'm hoping to get more productive moving forward. I know I keep saying it, but this time cross your fingers and hopefully it will be true :)

In this article I will do a quick four point summary of my tutorial video on the long fast serve!

4 Key Factors for High Quality
Long Fast Table Tennis Serves

See below, the video tutorial which covers the 4 points, you can also read the summary points I have written below - the video is 13 minutes long in more of a detailed style, so if you don't have time now, perhaps save it for later! :)

1. Serve Depth

An effective long-fast serve needs to consistently be deep on the table, this means getting as close to the back edge, side edge or corners as possible. A good exercise for this is to put a towel on the table or a marker and ensure that you can consistently serve inside a deeper 'zone' on the table.

2. Serve Speed

In order to make your long fast serves most effective, they need to have a quick and low trajectory. A long serve which lacks speed is not going to be useful in matches. A good way to practice this is to put a slightly weighted object (usually empty boxes are good) on the end of the table, and practice serving fast to try and knock the item back towards and off the table edge. 

3. Serve Actions

It is important that you are able to reduce any tells with your service actions. Long fast serves need to be a surprise to your opponent in order to have maximum effect. You should practice connecting short, half-long and long serves with similar actions - in order to disguise them. You can practice serving in pairs of short/long with the same/similar actions.

4. Serve Precision

Putting a ball on the table or some kind of small target can help increase your serve accuracy. As your table tennis opponents get more high level, it is important to be able to target specific places on the table. Knowing how to adjust your weight transfer, direction and contact in order to achieve a pinpoint placement is vital, and so using small targets as demonstrated in the video can be useful.

These are all things that can also add to making your serve practice more engaging and purposeful. If you are trying to improve your long fast serves, perhaps some of this information can be useful to you!

Thanks for reading, and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and help share some of the videos to get them to others who may find them useful too!