Berndt Mann from Ohio recently wrote us the following note: "Little Alex Bu, son of Mark Bu, one of our club members, all of 22 months old, loves to try to hit balls (forehands) directed at him by our (club's) Newgy robot. Holding his racket sometimes straight down in a fist grip, or a gently corrected shake hand grip by his father, or even a pen hold grip, Alex maybe 2 times out of 5 makes contact with the ball, and giggles in pure delight when he does manage to hit one onto any part of the table. Best advertisement for the Newgy (Robo-Pong) I have ever seen."

PS-We've asked Berndt to send us a photo of Alex and so that we can publish it in an upcoming newsletter. If you have a story about using your Robo-Pong, please send us an email.

Last newsletter, we introduced the Backhand Serve. In Part III of this series on Serving we will talk about the Forehand Backspin Serve. When serving, remember, that you should primarily use a friction contact and most serves will use a wrist snap at contact to increase racket speed and spin.

The photo to the left shows the basic position from which all forehand serves will start. Take a sideways stance to the right about two feet in back of the middle of your forehand court. Assume the starting position for a forehand serve as shown. Toss the ball up and at the same time pull the right forearm back and up to about shoulder height. As the ball descends, release the forearm and let the racket slice into the ball about halfway between its center and bottom. Continue to follow through until the racket ends up in front of your left hip. This motion feels very similar to chopping a tree with a hatchet. As a matter of fact, some players refer to this serve as a "chop" serve. After you get a feel for this serve, work on keeping it low to the net and short, so it bounces twice on the other side of the table. Strive to graze the ball very finely to produce good spin. To increase the amount of spin, add wrist motion to the forearm snap. This serve is seldom done fast and hard; but rather, slowly and well placed. Practice a return to ready position as part of your serve motion. Practice until you can do 25 in a row without missing when you serve long and 15 in a row when you serve short (so the ball bounces at least twice on the robot's side of the table).