Do you want to win easy points with your tricky serve? If yes, here are the 6 weeks training programs (with 16 short coaching videos) provided by the World Class player Par Gerell. He has a unique tricky serve “hook serve” loaded with a lot of spins.
Par Gerell (born 23 June 1982) is a Swedish professional table tennis player. He is a left-hand player. And he is very famous for his tricky serve. With a similar gesture, his serve is loaded with a lot of backspin or topspin. It’s very hard to read his serve. He is playing in Pro A in France for the club Chartres ASTT since 2010. If you want to have a new tricky serve, here are some serving lessons provided by Par Gerell.
Is Par Gerell’s serve illegal?
It’s at the borderline. But after watching his match in the pro-A, it’s not illegal in my opinion. He shows the contact point. But sometimes he throws the ball too close to the body, and it’s very tricky to read the contact point. His serve is very effective, even at the professional level. Par Gerell won a lot of easy points with his tricky serve.
Per Gerell serve is a “hook serve”. It’s very tricky because he accelerates at the last moment. Moving up his wrist to create a lot of topspin, or without moving up to create short sidespin serve with a lot of backspin.
Here are some serving rules that you should know. And here are some examples of illegal serves in table tennis.
In the Olympics, Par Gerell has a fun test with Liu Guoliang.
Par Gerell has confirmed by himself on TTD that,
Some people have asked me how many serve Liu Guoliang returned. I think he took one or two of my six serves
but I had some problems with his as well
Even the head coach Liu Guoliang (the master of hidden serve) can’t read the contact point correctly. It’s very impressive. His service stroke has a very unique motion that makes it difficult for his opponent to read what spin is on the ball.
He keeps the contact position very near his body, some umpire may claim (illegally) behind the body.
In terms of deceptions, he has several pre- and post-contact motions that mask the contact of the ball. The service has a strong side-spin component.
Here is an example of how tricky Par Gerell “hook serve”. There are “hook serve”, “ghost serve”, pendulum serve, reverse pendulum serve, and bomb serve.
Learn Par Gerell “tricky hook” serve
Par Gerell has worked with Dan (TTDAcademy) to explain the tips in a series of video. Par Gerell showing his famous kicker/shovel serve which causes trouble for a lot of professional players. You can watch the full tutorial of Par Gerell here.
TTD Academy has just released a new serving master class video series, with Swedish international player Par Gerell! Par is widely thought of as one of the best servers in the world and has the highest world ranking of 27, he has also been a part of the Swedish national team for many years.
Par often wins a huge amount points outright on his serve, even against many of the world’s top players, which highlights how effective they are. The importance of the service in table tennis cannot be understated, it is the only time during the sport where you have total control of the ball.
Par’s knowledge and skills can take your game serving game to the next level!
This video series is broken down into sections to make it simple and easy to learn.
Advantages of Par Gerell’s serve
Par demonstrates and discusses how to learn and develop his serves that have been a massive part of his game and success over a long career. You’ll see serves broken down clearly with slow-motion sections and detailed explanations of the coaching points and secrets that Par uses to create incredible spin and disguise.
TTD looks at the mechanics of the serve, how to produce more spin, but most importantly how to disguise your serves and create deception. Par talks through and demonstrates in detail all the technical elements, skills and knowledge you need to learn deadly serves.
Here is the Serving Course Content:
The Unique Grip
The unique service grip to serve like Par Gerell.
The correct grip is the foundation for creating any effective serves, Par Gerell will show you his grip and how to get the best position with the bat to create maximum spin and control when serving the jab/punch serve.
He investigates the details of why the grip is the first vital part to focus on and show close up shots of Par holding the bat in the correct grip and explaining the reasoning behind it.
In this video you will learn:
– The unique grip
– Where to position your finger and thumb
– Importance of the wrist
Mastering the action to the serve
This video focuses on the movement and technique for these serves as a whole, Par Gerell talks us through the action needed and the body parts that come together to generate spin with the serves, but also help to disguise the spin and make your serves deceptive to the receiver.
We break down the serve action and look in detail at Par serving in slow motion to really understand the elements needed to begin to learn this style of serve. Mastering this service action will give you the correct fundamentals to understand and progress quickly.
In this video you will learn:
– The service action/movement needed
– Using the body in the serve
– Step by step technique breakdown
– Correct start point and follow through position
How to do the topspin serve with Par Gerell
This video in the series looks at how to generate topspin on the ball when serving the jab serve and why this in combination with other serves can win you points and make returning very tough for your opponents. Par gives you his serving secrets on creating topspin and talks through the contact point and bat angles required to generate high levels of spin and control.
We show match examples of Par using this serve in International events and discuss and demonstrate why it’s difficult to return, even for some of the world’s best players.
We also include slow-motion breakdown and virtual on-screen coaching to help you understand all the elements of this serve and make learning simple and easy.
In this video you will learn:
– Contact required to create topspin
– Where to contact the ball
– Using the wrist to increase acceleration
– Correct bat angle and follow-through
How to produce a heavy backspin serve with Par Gerell
In this video we focus on how Par can create huge amounts of backspin with this serve action, Par shows us the contact that is required to get backspin but maintain the same action to keep the spin hidden and difficult to read.
This serve is perhaps the most important of the whole series, it means the opponent cannot attack strongly and allows you many more chances to control the rally and force a more passive return.
In this video you will learn:
– Contact required to create Backspin
– Keeping the action the same as topspin
– Using the wrist to increase acceleration
– Correct bat angle and contact point
How to do the Kicker serve with Par Gerell
This video goes into great detail about Par Gerell’s infamous Kicker serve.
This serve is what he is well known for, it’s a long fast surprise serve used to catch out opponents and force error. When this serve is performed correctly it makes the ball jump and kicks up on your opponent’s side at a fast pace, this is how it got the name the kicker serve.
When you master this serve you will find your opponents often mistime their returns and struggle to play a quality ball or miss the serve outright.
In this video you will learn:
– Getting the ball to kick/jump
– Generating speed and good length
– The surprise element
– Correct contact, bat angle and wrist movement
How to make your serves deceptive with Par Gerell (3 Parts)
The most important part about any good serve is creating deception, even if you can produce high amounts of spin on your serves they still may not be effective if your opponent can easily read them. However, if the opponent is unsure of exactly what spin is on the ball or how much, this causes doubt in the mind and makes your serves much harder to return strongly.
Par talks about how he creates uncertainty in the mind of the receiver and what is required to create deception with the spin on your serves. He also demonstrates the fine details that allow you to keep the service action the same but create a different spin on the ball and the importance of the contact point and bat angle when using these serves.
Super slow motion and virtual on-screen coaching are great to highlight this in greater detail.
In this video you will learn:
– Disguising the spin
– Creating doubt in the opponent’s mind
– Maintaining the service action
– Varying spin and placement on serves
How to take advantage of a good serve/weak return
Having effective serves is not only about winning points directly, but you also need to be able to take advantage of weak returns from your opponent. This bonus video goes into detail on how Par gives himself the best possible chance to play a strong shot after a weak return and ensure a good service is followed up well.
Par demonstrates what signs he looks for and the positions he’s trying to adopt in order to make it difficult for the opponents. We look at the ideal ball placement after the serve and also what type of response to expect when you serve each different type of spin.
In this video you will learn:
– What to expect after serving
– Most probable returns
– Mindset when using each type of spin
– Type of shot to use on the 3rd ball
Effective Serve training with Par Gerell
In this video, you will get an insight and take a look through the eyes of Par Gerell into exactly what he does during a serve practice session.
Par talks about what he tries to achieve in a serve practice session and most importantly how to make it fun. Par talks about his different serve training methods that help him make his serve training as match like as possible.
In this video you will learn:
– The best methods for serve training
– What to include and making it fun
– Things to avoid in serve practice
– How long to practice for
6 week serve challenge with Par Gerell
It’s now time to take what you have learned from the videos and implement it into your practice. This 6-week training program developed by Par Gerell will help guide you through to serving success. To make this training program as enjoyable and interesting as possible we’ve created it as a 6-week challenge, which encourages you to reach targets and strive to maximize these training videos!
This training program has been broken down into 6 weeks as Par feels its important to really develop each part to the serve. By the end of the 6-week training program, you will have effective serves that will enable you to force weak returns and win more points.
Overview
Week 1 of the Par Gerell serve training program is focused on creating spin and feeling the ball as well as working on the grip we learned over the serving course with Par. At this stage, it’s good to experiment with your serves and find the action and movement that you are comfortable with and where you can generate spin.
Week 2 of the Par Gerell serve training program is all about the variation between the backspin and the topspin and generating these different types of spin. This week we work on and encourage you to really grasp the difference between these serves and watch the finishing position of them to judge if you are creating the desired spin and how big the difference is between the 2.
Week 3 of the Par Gerell serve training program is all about the kicker serve and working on creating the jump and surprise element to this serve. Here we are looking for a long serve and getting the ball to kick up and surprise the opponent but maintain a similar action both the short backspin and topspin versions.
Week 4 of the Par Gerell serve training program looks at the deception and disguise you are creating and improving this aspect of the serves. This is probably the most important area of the training program and the serves as a whole, if you can put doubt in the opponent’s mind by changing the spin on each serve but maintain a very similar action then you will see results. So this week, we focus on generating different spins and keeping the action the same and adjusting the contact on the ball to produce serves that are well disguised.
Week 5 of the Par Gerell serve training program is a challenging week and you will be bringing together the serves ready to put into a game situation. This part of the program will ensure you can serve each of the 3 serves consistently and under pressure which is a vital part of successful and high-level serving.
Week 6 of the Par Gerell serve training program is the final week and now we look at how these serves can be built into your individual match strategy and fit in with your strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to know how best to take advantage of these serves and which to use at specific times. All players are different so you need to know which serves benefit your game the most and also which types of players find certain serves more difficult to return than others.
Here’s what users have had to say so far:
Arnon: “The serves are explained and shown by Par himself, packed with valuable information you would not be able to obtain just by watching videos. I particularly love the serving session which Dan and Tom learned to serve while Par offered comments on the side. Dan and Tom also asked questions I would ask Par myself. All in All, this masterclass is great and I’m sure Par Gerell’s serves will elevate my game to a new level. Highly recommended.”
Ryan: “Thanks for the new serving video course guys! The detail here is great, you are really showing a lot more than the average YouTube video. Grip detail, mechanics of the body through the service, what’s important in learning the serve and what to expect after doing the service types.”
Eric: “What I liked is the different modules that allow understanding the important points. The interventions of Dan and Tom are also very useful because they allow you to see put in the view of a good player and not a champion. Par Gerelle is also an excellent teacher and these tips will also be very useful.
Hook Serve Tips by Par Gerell (Join Now)
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