Returning spinning serves: very hard for everyone. Here's me thinking about it.
I think of the spin on serves as having two axis: Up/down, left/right. Some serves combine the two axis.
Up/Down
So if the server cuts the ball on the serve (ie undersping), my return will tend to go low and hit the net. So I need to angle it up to get it over the net. Probably, I should cut it back to keep it low and hard to hit.
If the server brushes upward and applies topspin to the ball, my return will tend to popup and maybe go off the end of the table. I close the angle of my racquet to keep it down. If possible, I put topspin on it by brushing up behind the ball.
Left/Right. Note: as the returning server, I think in terms of my left and right. And for this primer, I'm assuming we're all righties.
If the server uses a back hand serve and brushes the from MY right to left, my return will tend to fly off to my left and miss the table. So I hit the ball back toward the right side of the table. Mostly simply, I return the ball towards the side that the server racquet's come from.
If the server uses a forward serve brushing the ball from my left to right, my return will tend to fly off to my right, so I hit back towards my left to keep it on the table. Again, I hit towards where their racquet came from.
BUT, in competitive table tennis games, the server is adding a lot of deception and hitting the ball in such a way that it's hard to see which axis they are on (this is a great line from Ping to Pong's video).
More experienced coachers don't talk (or think) in the simple axis concept that I do, they seem to categorize by the type of serve. Here for instance is a video which analyses the tomahawk, pendulum, hook, reverse pendulum, and so on.
Here is Ping to Pong's (film author) categories:
Before I jump into trying to reconcile his way of thinking with mine, I want to highlight a great point the makes. Look at the contact point between the server's racquet and ball: ignore all the fake movements before before and after the contact point. Great advice. Nicely said. Effing hard to do.
Category 1 - The ball will curve to your left side this means that all the serves in this category will have a clockwise spin to the left. This is a pendulum serve.
Category 2 - The ball will curve to your right side this means that all the serves in this category will have a counter clockwise spin to the right. This is the backhand serve, reverse pendulum, hook, and tomahawk.
Cat 2 such as a backhand serve = a server pulls from my right to left. So I need to return towards my right or more simply, towards where his racquet came from. More generally, if they do any of the category two serves, I think of it as a backhand serve and I hit towards their backhand. So everything except a pendulum serve goes back towards their backhand.
So now I need to recognize a reverse pendulum serve and send it back to the server's backhand. Also, the hook and tomahawk. And send them back to the server's backhand.
And I need to recognize the pendulum and send it back to the server's forehand.
