Service Receive Positioning and Footwork

After going to an extreme forehand position for a few months, I've now returned to a more standard forehand position. At present I think there are three valid service return stances, that I should use. Two of these I should use often for serves from the left corner, and one for serves from the right corner. From left to right:

Extreme Forehand Receive
This stance is with my left foot outside the sideline and my body at around a 45 degree angle. I need to use two step footwork to get to short forehand serves, and crossover footwork to cover serves down the forehand line. When the ball is tossed, I have to recognize if the toss is all the way into the backhand corner or not, and if not to adjust my positioning while the ball is in the air.

Advantages

• Can cover 90% of table with forehand, if server is in the backhand corner.
• Don't have to move to take wide backhands

Weaknesses

• Nearly impossible to cover wide forehand serves if server is away from backhand corner
• Have to have excellent footwork. Both for step around loops and covering wide forehand serves
• Step arounds can ill advised on wide serves

I don't think that in most cases this is the best position to play in. It does strengthen the backhand (by not having to move), and allow you to play the stronger forehand most of the time, but leaves you vulnerable to serves that fade away from the forehand. This isn't so much of a problem against the standard forehand pendulum serve, but is a problem as soon as the server moves even six inches into the middle of the table. I have been caught looking at the serve go by when the server sneakily moved a bit into the middle, since he had been serving from all the way into the backhand corner for most of the match. (I've stolen this serve since.) Some of these problems may be alleviated as I get better.

For now, this positioning is best used as a variation to my standard receive. I think it's best used as a surprise when I really need a point. It does give a better angle to view the standard pendulum serve. I've noticed that from my standard forehand position, I'm staring at the edge of the blade for this serve, which makes it very hard to read the type and amount of spin from the motion.

Typical Forehand Receive

In this service I stand with my left foot more or less on the sideline, and my body at a 30 degree angle. I can cover about 75% of the table in this stance if I step around. I can cover serves down the line from the left corner with a shuffle step and cover serves to my wide forehand with crossover footwork. To cover serves to my wide backhand, I need to use one or two step footwork.

Advantages:

• still covers most of the table with forehand

Disadvantages:

• the elbow is more pronounced than the extreme forehand

This is where I typically return service. In this position I feel I can return all serves without extreme movements. If I want to loop wide forehand serves, I still need to use crossover footwork, but can push or counter with just a shuffle step. I should cover my elbow all the time with my forehand, but sometimes will cover with my backhand. I need to get a bit better at returning wide serves to my backhand.

Neutral Position

This stance is with my feet parallel. Depending on how wide the server is, the left foot should be near or a little inside the sideline. With this stance I'm only covering half of the table with my forehand. I can cover the whole table with one step footwork, but can't loop everything without more movement.

Advantages:

• Can cover whole table with one step footwork

Disadvantages

• Weakens forehand with parallel stance

I used this stance for the first time at the last tournament. One of the main reasons was fatigue, as I had trouble covering serves to the short forehand. I don't know too much about this stance yet, but I'm going to be experimenting with this when people serve from the forehand corner. Probably has a big weakness to serves to the wide backhand.