Points to look for:
- For this player, the elbow position for the reverse pendulum serve is much further away from the body and much higher than for the forehand pendulum serve. You can contrast the different position in this photograph.
- Note the large cocking of the wrist, in the opposite direction to that of the forehand pendulum topspin/sidespin serve.
- The thumb can be seen to have moved up the blade onto the rubber, since the bat is being held between the thumb and the index finger, with the other three fingers being fairly loose on the handle.
- The bat face is held at an angle, since the player wishes to put topspin and sidespin on the ball.
- The player has not kept track of the ball once it starts to descend. This is because this serve has been practiced often by the player, and once he knows where the ball is descending from, he does not need to see the ball to be able to make good contact.
- The free arm has NOT continued to move out of the area between the ball and the net, so technically this serve would be a fault. I was not even aware that I had left my arm in the way until looking at the photographs, so it just goes to show how easy it is to forget to move the free arm out of the way!
