Serving effectively also means being able to serve with variation, and camouflaging serves to look alike is valuable. One of the simpler ways to do this is to have two serves where everything is the same except the speed of your wrist at the point of contact. In this way, you can have one serve with no-spin, and another with spin. For no-spin, you will keep a slow-moving, almost stationary wrist at the point of contact. Because the wrist is moving slow, there will be less spin on the ball, and if the rest of your body moves in the same way as it does when you serve with heavy spin, you have the chance to elicit a misread from your opponent.
Here’s a fun way to develop this ability: when you practice serves, don’t decide whether you will serve with spin or without spin (a dead serve) until after you toss the ball, right before the moment of contact. In a way, you are almost tricking yourself into not knowing whether the serve will have spin or not, so you can get better at keeping the rest of your service motion the same and fooling your opponent when applying this in a match. Similarly, you can do this while practicing serving long and short too, and practice keeping the majority of the motion the same.
About Vikash Sahu
Vikash Sahu is a JOOLA-sponsored coach who has coached US National Team players at tournaments like the US Nationals, US Open, and National Youth Ranking tournaments, and earned medals together with players there.
As a player, he has recently won medals at the 2018 US Open and 2018 US Nationals, and won divisions 3 and 4 at the North American Teams Championships from 2016 to 2018. As a junior, he won several medals at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals.