Now is the time to focus on WINNING!!! A big part of that is playing smart tactics.

Whenever possible, scout out your upcoming opponents. This means three things: watching them play at the tournament; watching them on video; and asking others about that player.

If you watch them in the tournament or on video, try to watch from the far side, as if you were receiving their serve. That way you can see their serves in advance as if you were receiving them. By the time you play them, it’s almost as if you had already practiced against their serves. You not only should be more comfortable against those serves, but you should now know what receives will give that player the most trouble.

Whether it’s before the match starts or during the match, you need to figure out what tactics to use. That means balancing tactics that set up your game against tactics that stop their game. But some think too much about this and are unable to play free. Instead, keep it simple. How do you do that? I’ll give you what may be my most famous quote, the words that open my book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers:

"Tactics isn't about finding complex strategies to defeat an opponent. Tactics is about sifting through all the zillions of possible tactics and finding a few simple ones that work."

And that is your tactical goal in a match. Don’t get too caught up in finding the “perfect” tactic – find a few that work. Experiment to test them out until you find the right tactics to win.

Here’s my tip, Finding Simple Tactics That Work.

Practice matches are just that; practice. If you can’t practice your shots in a practice match, then how can you possibly develop them so you can use them in a tournament? (Or any other “big” match.)

Before you play a practice match, decide what you want to accomplish in that match. Is your goal to win? Then you won’t get the most out of that practice match. Instead, think about how you can win while using the techniques you need to develop for tournament matches.

It’s so easy to use the same shots you’ve always used to win rather than develop other more advanced techniques. Perhaps play weaker players and try winning with these more advanced shots you need to develop – and when you can do that, you’re ready to use them against your peers. (Who you may soon leave behind.) For example, suppose you can win a practice match by pushing and blocking. If that’s all you want, then do so. But if you want to improve to a higher level, perhaps focus on trying to win by playing more aggressive. Sure, you may miss too many of your attacking shots and lose that practice match – but it’s a practice match, and if you keep doing it, you’ll develop those more advanced shots, and soon you’ll be beating players you couldn’t beat before, and dominating against players who used to battle with you.

So, think about what type of game you want to develop, and play that way in practice matches. And soon, that will be your game, and you’ll be a much better player.

One related area – don’t play dumb. Some players are so focused on playing high-level shots they don’t develop the tactics that go with them. If you are trying to win by looping, for example, focus on placing those loops so that placement becomes a habit that will become part of your game. And don’t be afraid to occasionally throw a “trick” serve at an opponent in practice – that’s how you learn which ones are effective and when to use them. Just don’t rely on them – instead, focus mostly on serves that set up the shots you are trying to develop.

Here’s my tip, Use Practice Matches to Practice.

Serve practice is my favorite practice. You want to know why? Because I know most of my opponents don’t practice their serves as much as I do (or used to, anyway), and so I will always have an edge on them!

The most important aspects of serve practice is to develop high-level serves that match your game, or the game that you want to play. (Note the difference there.)

Imagine your game, either as it is now or as you want it to be. What serves would you want to develop for that game? If you are a standard attacker, then you want serves that set up your attack. Some want opponents to push their serves back long so they can loop (forehand or backhand), and so do a lot of backspin serves, with other spins mixed in. (Mixing up short and very low backspin and no-spin serves are especially effective.) Others might want soft topspin returns, and so may serve more sidespin or side-top, and may also focus on half-long serves, where the second bounce, given a chance, would be right at the opponent’s end-line. Or you might want to focus on deep serves, such as big breaking sidespin serves. (This doesn’t work as well at the higher levels where they are usually attacked, but are effective as a variation.)

Besides your standard serves that set you up, what surprise serves should you develop that will both give you perhaps a few free points as well as make the opponent guard against those serves, thereby making your other serves more effective?

Perhaps have a coach or high-level player take a look at your serves, or show you his. Then practice and develop your serves to the highest level you can. Here’s a hint – you may never move or stroke at the pace and consistency of a world-class player, but there’s NOTHING that keeps you from developing world-class serves.

Here’s my tip, Practicing Serves the Productive Way.

Before any practice session, you should ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish.

1. What weaknesses are you trying to overcome?
2. What average shots are you trying to turn into strengths?
3. What strengths are you trying to turn into overpowering ones?

You should, of course, start with a warmup. (If you are practicing with a coach or strong player, you may save yourself some practice time by warming up with someone else first, so your practice time can be 100% devoted to improvement.) Get into the serious training as quickly as possible.

The biggest problems I’ve seen with most practice sessions are:

1. Players practicing the same things they’ve always practiced, and so re-enforcing the strengths those drills develop while ignoring everything else, including weaknesses.
2. Generalized drills that don’t focus on the specific area you need to work on. For example, if you have a good counterloop but have difficulty counterlooping an opponent’s first loop against backspin, then incorporate that into your drill. If you just serve topspin and go straight to counterlooping, you won’t be addressing the actual problem. (An opening loop against backspin is different than a loop against topspin – it has more spin and a shorter arc.)
3. It’s not just about improving weaknesses – you also need to make your strengths overpowering! Do game-type drills that allow you to do this. This includes focusing on developing serves, receives, strokes, and footwork that set up those overpowering strengths.
4. Practicing shots at a pace where you aren’t consistent. If you do that, you are just practicing being erratic. Focus on consistency and good technique, and build up the pace as you improve.

Here’s my tip, Killer Practice Sessions. Make sure to adjust to what you are trying to develop in your game.

Training doesn’t take place only at the table. There’s also shadow-practice, which you can do anywhere. (There’s also physical training, but that’s another issue.) It’s very difficult to change or develop a new stroke, and learn the timing at the same time (i.e. while hitting at a table). It’s much easier to change or develop a stroke separately with shadow practice, and then learn the timing. For example, when I decided earlier this year that I needed to learn to change my grip for my backhands, I spent way too much time shadow-practicing it until it became automatic to change the grip when I moved to hit a backhand. When I finally tried it at at the table in random drills, the change was automatic and reflexive.

While away from the table is also when you should be thinking about how you can improve. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your game? How can you turn the strengths into overpowering ones (both the shot itself and ways to get it into play) and remove weaknesses? How do you see your game in the future? What drills should you be doing to reach that? Perhaps discuss it with a coach, top player, or your playing partners - they very likely know your game and may have a good perspective on what you should be working on.

Here are two tips:

• Shadow Practice for Strokes and Footwork.
• Shadow Practice for Fitness and Improvement