Service Receive Theory

"the main thing in returning is to recognize simultaneously type of spin and depth, in the next moment you have to recognize quantity of spin and adjust racket angle, and finally it's execution." - Chetan Baboor

This tidbit from about.com. Breaking this down, there are four parts two receiving serve. They can roughly be broken down into reading the type of spin first, reading the depth and placement of the serve, last moment adjustments for amount of spin and placement, and then execution.

First is reading the type of spin mainly from the service motion. This is the most difficult part. Good servers disguise their serves well enough that this can be a guess at best. For me I'm mainly trying to determine between side, no, top, and back. The type of side spin is almost impossible to disguise. Though I don't make the adjustments for the type of side spin instintively enough and get caught by my oppenent switching between the two types of side. I find that the more familiar I am with doing the service motion myself, the easier it is to read the spin.

From the speed of contact and the depth of the first bounce, one should be able to tell the depth of the serve. Is the serve going to be long or short? If the serve is on the edge, it's probably better to play it as though the ball were short.

From the first bounce to the second, you need to read the amount of spin and if needed the type of spin. If the serve isn't too fast this is still possible. In fact it was nessessary in the days of hidden serves. If you need to read the type then you can't be as aggressive for the final shot compared to a read off of the motion. At this point you should have chosen the type of shot to execute and be moving to adjust for the depth and placement of the ball. If you're returning a short ball don't forget to step in. If the ball is a long ball and not too fast it's possible to read all of this off of the second bounce and after by chasing the ball away from the table and looping the ball below table height. From knowing the amount of spin, you adjust the angle of your racket, open more for more backspin and close more for more topspin.

From this point it's just execution. Hopefully you've moved to the right spot, chosen the right shot, and the execute that shot cleanly.

I know that I don't read enough off the first bounce. I should pay more attention to it for the depth and placement and possibly be able to read the type of spin off of the slower serves. I could also look for tells from the service motion. Most of the time I'm trying to read what type of spin is on the ball from the direction the server's paddle is moving, but I can probably get some information from people's follow through, the height the ball was struck at, and the height of the elbow. I find that reading the second bounce and amount of spin require lots of concentration, but that I can do it decently already. Reading and returning serves is something I expect to be working on for as long as I play table tennis.