How to Do a Forehand Pendulum Serve in Table Tennis

Having an arsenal of different serves and strokes at your disposal is essential to the competitive table tennis player. You must be able to perform different serves to keep opponents guessing. A forehand pendulum serve is the basic table tennis serve and one that allows you to do a lot.

Instructions

    • 1

      Move to the backhand side of the table for a forehand pendulum serve. Stand in ready position.

    • 2

      Relax your grip on the blade handle. Your thumb and forefinger should still be holding tight, but the rest of your fingers should only be making contact with the handle loosely.

    • 3

      Start your serve by throwing the ball straight up in the air from your open palm. Bring the blade in and up as you stand up just a little from your crouched, ready position.

    • 4

      Toss the ball higher for a forehand pendulum serve than you would a backhand sidespin serve. Keep your eye on the ball.

    • 5

      Hold the blade so that the face is tilted backward to give your forehand pendulum serve backspin. Note the position of your fingers. Your hand should be high enough up the handle so that your thumb is actually making contact with the bottom of the rubber.

    • 6

      Turn your shoulders to the left in preparation for contact with the ball. Snap your wrist hard when you make contact with the ball and recover back to ready position immediately.

    • 7

      Make contact with the ball in a brush-stroke motion, not a solid head-on contact. You'll hit the ball on the underside and to one side, and by brushing it like this you will achieve both backspin and sidespin on your serve.

    • 8

      Finish your service stroke with a short follow through. Although the forehand pendulum serve is not exceptionally fast due to the amount of spin, if it ends up bouncing high or going longer than you thought, your opponent may have the chance to attack it strongly.

    • 9

      Return to ready position and be ready to either attack a weak return or defend against a strong one.