On Serving

On Serving

In tennis the serve has gone through an evolution. In the early days the serve was not a weapon, just a way to start the point. The players were English aristocrats at country houses not crack athletes. The service area was designed to allow the server to have enough space to get the ball in and the receiver not to have too much trouble returning it. There was no significant advantage to the server. In the modern game, recreational players are seldom good enough to gain much advantage by serving as opposed to receiving, but professional players have a considerable advantage. So much so that it would make sense to reduce the size of the service area by a couple of feet, so that the server had to slow it down to get the ball in; or permit only single serve attempt. Then the balance between server and receiver would be restored. In an ideal world such a change might be implemented (what if players got so good at serving that the receiver never won a point against serve?). The professional game now is too serve-dominated. This would also help the shorter player because you need height to get the ball in while hitting it hard. Maybe there should be two types of court so that you could choose what kind of serve to expect. Or three, because most amateur players find it too difficult to get the ball in under the present dimensions. The game could be improved for everyone by implementing these changes. The serve has far too much importance as the game stands (pickle ball may owe some of its popularity to these serving issues in tennis).

The table tennis serve has its own issues. Here the problem is that even intermediate players enjoy a large serve advantage: the server will generally dominate and wilt while receiving. The player with the better serve is guaranteed to win overall. (I know this because people I play with usually can’t return my serve.) This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs—there should be rules of serving that don’t create this asymmetry. With this in mind I have invented a new way of serving in table tennis, by copying a feature of the regular tennis serve: alternate side serving. First you serve into the left side of the table, next into the right side (there is always a line down the center of the table). That way the receiver knows which side of the table he will be returning the ball on, which makes his job a lot easier. It would be possible to combine this with another feature of the tennis serve—a service area smaller than the whole side of the table. This would reduce speed and hence make things easier for the receiver, just like tennis. Short balls are always easier to hit than deep balls. I tried out the alternate side method the other day with another player and we both found it enjoyable and workable: the points were not all about returning the serve. They were longer and more varied. It wasn’t just a matter of whether he can return my serve and I can return his. The serve wasn’t the be-all and end-all. I am going to adopt this rule from now on. I recommend it.