Often I see players do drills where they try smacking the ball back and forth as if they were pros. (If you are a pro, then this doesn't apply to you.) They rally at a pace they can't control, and so their balls fly all over the court or miss. If they do hit but not at the place they are supposed to be drilling to, then the opponent's shots go all over the court or miss. It's pandemonium! Drills should not be, "hit-hit-mishit-miss." They should be "hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit..."

Some think that by practicing at such speeds, they can learn to play at that speed. The part they are missing is that they are practicing missing as much as they are practicing hitting the table! By flailing away at the ball, they aren't improving their technique, control (putting the ball where you aim), or consistency. Instead, work on having great technique, control, and consistency. Have a coach or top players look at your strokes (or watch them on video yourself and compare to top players) so you have good technique. Do drills where you focus on hitting the ball within six inches or so of where you are aiming for control. Count how many shots you can do in a drill to work on consistency. When you have those three, hitting hard is easy.

And then, maybe, just maybe . . . you'll be a pro!

Players often hold back on their trickiest serve (often long ones) until it's close. And that's sometimes a good idea. But there are three problems with that.

First, you won't know until you use it if the serve will be effective against this player. Second, if you use it early in each game, then that game might never get close. As long as you space it out, a tricky serve stays effective, so you don't need to hold back on it too much. If it's effective the first time early in the game, then perhaps come back to it in the middle of the game, and perhaps at the end again. And third, once the opponent knows you have this tricky serve (usually long ones), he has to guard against it - making your other serves (often short ones) more effective!

If a student of mine has a tricky serve - often a long serve - I regularly tell them to use it the first point of the match. If it works, then it's a judgement call how often to use it. The more you use this serving tactic of using your trickiest serves early, the more experienced you'll get at judging when to use them.

One cautionary note - if you want to reach the advanced levels, over-relying on tricky serves - especially long ones - can really hurt your development. Focus on shorter serves that won't give you as many outright serve winners but will set up your attack. Then mix in tricky serves for free points and so the opponent has to watch for them.

Most serves are too simplistic. They get the job done, but simply aren't done with real trickiness in mind. For example, a player serves backspin with a backspin motion. They may learn variations, such as a side-backspin serve, where the racket travels in a different direction in hitting the ball, or a pure sidespin. But the direction of the racket at contact is somewhat easy to see.

Why make it easy on the opponent? Sometimes, just before or after contact, change the direction of your racket so your opponent has to pick up whether you hit the ball before or after the change of direction. Better still, learn to hit it either before or after the change of direction, giving different spins with the same motion. You can also develop a semicircular serving motion, so the opponent has to figure out where in that semicircle you spun the ball - there will be different spins depending on when you hit the ball.

Developing serves where you hit the ball on different parts of the swing are tricky. What's easy is doing fast changes of direction just before or after contract, where the serve itself is seemingly simple, but the opponent is caught off guard by the change of direction of the racket. For example, with a forehand pendulum serve, right after contact pull the racket away from you, as if doing a reverse pendulum serve. Or set up to do a reverse pendulum serve (with racket close to you, with the motion going away from you), but "miss" the ball on the out-swing, and then do a regular pendulum serve, with the racket hitting the ball moving toward you. In both cases, it's a forehand pendulum serve, but you've added deception to make things harder for the receiver. Isn't that the goal?

Some players do this type of thing on every serve; some do it as a "surprise" to catch the opponent off guard. Try it out and you'll be surprised how many "free" points you get!

Developing good serves involves watching players with good serves, getting good coaching, and lots and lots of practice. But sometimes, after all that practice, it's hard to execute the serves in a game as you do in practice. There's a simple reason for that - pressure. There's no pressure when practicing serves, while in a real match there is. It's especially difficult to serve fast & deep under pressure (where players often either miss or slow them down for safety, thereby lowering their effectiveness), in controlling the depth (where that "perfect" half-long serve - where the second bounce would be right on the end-line, now goes long and gets looped), and serving very low to the net. How to overcome this?

Easy - put pressure on yourself! After you've practiced your serves to the point where they are near where you want them, imagine you are playing real games. Imagine an opponent. Really get into the mind-set, and soon you'll feel the same pressure. Then you can practice serving under that pressure. Make sure that, under this pressure, you can still control the speed and consistency of the deep serves, and the depth of the half-long serves (second bounce right about the end-line), and the height of all serves. Most players tend to serve a little longer under pressure, and so their short serves suddenly get looped.

You might also add to the practice by putting targets on the table, to work on your accuracy under pressure. Put a bottle on the corners and practice hitting them with your deep serves at "deuce," or even "down match point."

If you can't execute your best serves under the pressure of a match, then you haven't mastered those serves, no matter how well you do them in practice. So . . . master them!

You push the ball long, and the opponent does a slow but spinny loop. And you block it off, over and over, and can only stare at your racket in frustration. This is often the bane of every beginning and intermediate player. They know they have to aim lower, and yet, the next time they face another spinny loop, they still block off the end. Why? 

It's simple - a player does what he practices. And the huge majority of your blocking practice is likely against either players with less spinny loops, or who are looping against your block, and so have less spin than one against a backspin. And so your natural instinct is to block as if the ball has less topspin – and so you go off the end.

First, the basics. To block a spinny loop, you must close your racket more than you would against a less spinny loop. Your instincts may tell you to do one angle, but you likely have to close it even more, perhaps aiming for the net, perhaps even the bottom of the net. Give the ball at least a light punch - that way the spin won't take quite as much on your racket. Once you’ve made one good block off this spinny loop, remember the feel and the contact, and repeat. (It might also be helpful to watch top players block against spinny loop – the visual image of how effortlessly they do it will help.)

Now that you know the above, it's easy to block spinny loops, right? Wrong. You have to practice it. And that means finding someone with a spinny loop so you can practice against it. And the best way to practice against it is with an improvised multiball drill. Get a bucket of balls for your partner. He serves backspin; you push it back; he loops; you block. And that's it - you DON'T play out the point. As you are blocking, your partner should be reaching for the next ball. Result? He gets lots and lots of looping practice, and you get lots and lots of blocking practice, and specifically against spinny loops. As you get better, block more and more aggressive, and as you improve, perhaps practice counterlooping or smashing them.  

Once you've mastered this, the next time you face that spinny loop in a tournament, you can become the bane of your opponent!