Serving low is one of the most underestimated skills in table tennis. The problem is that while some opponents will attack slightly high serves, more often it simply gives the opponent more leeway for their returns, making both controlled and aggressive serve returns much easier. Players at the beginning and intermediate levels often get away with slightly high serves for a time, especially if they have otherwise good serves (i.e. spinny or deceptive), but inevitably, at some point, they will lose winnable games because of these serves, often without realizing the problem. A low serve forces the opponent to hit up on the ball instead of driving the ball forward, making receives more difficult.

An exercise I sometimes recommend to players is to stand to the side of a match between a very strong player and a much weaker one and see the contrast. You may have to watch several match-ups as there are relatively strong players who don't serve super low just as there are weaker players whose serves almost skim the net. Watch the world-class players and see not only how low their serves cross the net, but how low the ball bounces on the far side.

So how do you keep your serve super low? Here are five tips. 

1. Contact the ball low to the table, ideally at about net height. The higher the contact point the higher the ball will tend to bounce. There are top players who contact the ball seemingly high but that's because they've developed such incredible touch that they can get away with stretching this. It's a lot easier to have a low contact point than to have incredible touch.
2. Barely graze the ball when serving, especially when serving short with spin. The more you graze the ball, the more energy goes into spin instead of speed, giving the ball a lower bounce. (You should graze the ball even on no-spin serves, since the key to a no-spin serve that looks like a spin serve is using a regular spin motion but contacting the ball near the slow-moving handle, so grazing the ball will not create much, if any, spin.)
3. Don't think of it as serving low. Think of it as a struggle to get the ball over the net. If you contact the ball very low and barely graze the ball, there should be little energy in the motion of the ball, and it should barely even reach the net, much less go over it. So instead of trying to lower your serve, think of having to raise your serve so that it barely goes over the net.
4. Note that the key is not just serving low to the net, but making the ball bounce low on the far side. Besides serving so the ball crosses the net low, you do this by having the ball bounce on your side as far from the net as possible. It's easier to serve short by having the first bounce on your side be relatively close to the net, and that's how it's usually taught. However, as you improve, move the first bounce farther from the net. If the ball bounces near the net, it has a higher upward angle to cross the net, and so bounces more downward on the other side, meaning much of its energy is going downward, which means it'll bounce up higher. However, if the first bounce is farther from the net, then it'll cross the net with a lower angle, and so bounces less downward on the other side, with more of its energy going forward instead of up, and so you get a lower bounce. The problem, of course, is that the farther from the net the first bounce is the harder it is to serve short (with the forward energy making it go deeper), so you have to practice and work on seeing how far away from the net you can make the first bounce and still keep it short. (Jan-Ove Waldner is often credited with being the one who discovered this connection between first bounce and the height of the bounce.)
5. Practice!!! When you can start half the rallies with a low, spinny serve, you have a tremendous advantage. If you want to have this tremendous advantage, you know what to do. Go to it.

One of the more subtle ways of turning an effective serve into an ineffective one is to telegraph it. Players often telegraph their serves for years and never realize it. They get away with it because most players don't pick up on it, and so don't realize the server is essentially signaling the serve in advance. However, as you reach higher levels, opponents pick up on these subtle signs more often, often subconsciously, and the server doesn't realize it - he just thinks he's playing stronger opponents who return serves better. The most common example are servers that telegraph whether they are serving long or short.

As an example, I recently played a top player, rated about 2350. He would serve short most of the time, but about every fourth serve he'd switch to a deep serve to my backhand. I could see it coming every time (and would step around and loop it with my forehand), but it took two games before I figured out what was giving it away - whenever he served deep, he'd set up with his racket slightly farther back and more closed than when he was going to serve short. I beat him three straight, and then told him what had happened.

There are many other examples; players tend to set up differently for different serves. They may start with their racket in one position to serve short backspin, another for sidespin and topspin serves, perhaps another for no-spin. Or it might be something more obvious. For example, many players like to high-toss serve, but can't really control them. And so the serve might always be predictably long, or the same type of spin over and over. (Many high-tossers serve only backspin serves that go long.) One player I know always sticks his tongue out at the start of his serve motion when he's serving deep! (I used this against him for years, both as a player and when coaching against him.) At the recent U.S. Open one opponent had an obvious different motion for his short and long serves, and so very early in his service motion perceptive receivers were already moving in for short serves or preparing to loop the long ones. 

How do you read a telegraphed serve? If you observe the server, you might not consciously see differences in his serve motion any more than you consciously see differences in, say, people's faces. But subconsciously, just as you can recognize a person's face without consciously seeing what makes it different, you can subconsciously recognize different motions that go with different serves. Once you can do that, you can try to figure out what it is that gives the serve away - but surprisingly, from a player's point of view, that's not important. All that's important is that you are able to recognize what the serve is in advance. Let your subconscious be your guide.

How do you avoid telegraphing the serve? It's actually very simple. Set up each time as if you plan to serve the same serve, and only after you are set to serve do you "change" your serving plan to what you really want to serve. This doesn't mean you can't decide earlier what serve you are going to use; it means that after deciding what serve you are going to use, you still consciously set up as if you are serving your most common serve, and then make the mental switch to the serve you are really going to use.

Five-time U.S. Champion Dan Seemiller once told me that he could often tell what an opponent was serving before they served. The subtle clues are often there, you just have to look for them, both consciously and subconsciously. Trust your subconscious when it picks up on something. It usually knows what it's doing. 

Okay, let's be up front about this - the game is not all mental. Or is it? At least indirectly, everything comes from the mental side. Even physical training cannot be effective unless you push yourself - and that's mental. Even more specifically, as a member of the USA Mini-Cadet Team recently reminded me, once you are out at the table playing a match, the game is all mental.

To quote Derek Nie (age 11, rated 2146), "You can't improve your skills at a tournament. So at tournaments, the game is all mental." I was his coach at the Eastern Opens a few weeks ago when he said this. He is a wise fifth grader.

In the middle of a big match, you are not going to get stronger, faster, or improve your stamina. You are not going to suddenly learn how to loop if you couldn't do so before. You won't suddenly learn techniques you didn't have before. What you have is what you brought into the match, and how you use them. The former you no longer have control over; the latter you have complete control, if you know how to do so. And it's all mental.

The mental game generally breaks down into two aspects: sports psychology and tactical skills. Sports psychology is your ability to play your best despite the pressure of a match. Tactical skills are your ability to figure out how best to use what weapons you have - and much of that comes from clear thinking that comes from sports psychology. Together, they should be your primary focus in a match. If you are able to play with relative calm and focus, and are able to think clearly and figure out how best to use your various techniques to win, you have a strong mental game. And that is why the game is all mental.

It can be very tough playing well in tournaments after traveling, especially if you cross several time zones. For example, in the U.S., players on the east and west coast sometimes fly 3000 miles to play in the U.S. Open, USA Nationals, or North American Teams Championships. Often they play poorly, especially on the first day, and are frustrated. Sometimes they come back on day two and play well and conveniently "forget" how poorly they played the first day, and so never really figure out how to avoid it in the future.

Travel messes up your sleeping habits, with jet lag leading to fatigue. (So does dry air and varying air pressure, which can also cause nausea, as well as the general hassle of travel.) West coast players playing in east coast tournaments struggle to play effectively at 9AM, which is 6AM their time - meaning they probably had to get up at 4AM. East coast players have little trouble playing at 9AM in west coast tournaments, which is noon to them - but when they start playing in 7PM matches that go on until 9 or 10 PM, well, that's past midnight for them. Junior players are especially vulnerable to this.

If you travel west to east and don't have morning matches, or if you travel east to west and don't have nighttime matches, then you may consider simply sticking with your own time. If you travel west to east, you might want to get something to cover the windows so bright sunshine doesn't wake you up early and mess up your plans. 

Here are some ways to adjust to changing time zones. (Note - I may add more to this article later on, especially if I get good suggestions from others. One interesting thing I learned while doing some online searching is that some people use over-the-counter melatonin as a way to adjust their circadian rhythms and sleep habits - but I don't really know about this, and there are warnings to consult with a doctor first.)

1) One or two weeks before the tournament start adjusting to the local time of the tournament. Perhaps adjust your schedule by an hour two weeks in advance, another hour a week in advance, and a few days before the tournament you are on tournament local time.

2) Arrive at least two days before your main events begins. In some major tournaments you can get away with arriving the day before if your main event doesn't start on the first day. In this case the first day is more or less your "warm-up" day - but beware, you might not play well at the start if you only got there the day before, and it's sometimes difficult to come back from a bad start. If you go to a really major tournament only once or twice a year, perhaps come out two nights in advance, relax and have a little practice the day before (think of it as a vacation day), and by tournament time you are on top of the world, rested and ready to go.

3) Get extra practice at the tournament site the day before. There's nothing like a good workout to energize the body. Both drills and practice matches are effective. (Don't do this too late the night before or it might affect your sleep.)

4) If you really feel tired, go to the restroom and splash cold water on your face. It's a surprisingly simple yet effective tool. I've both done it and had students do it for years with surprising success.

For players traveling from East to West:

5) When you first arrive, you may feel like going to bed early local time, since what's "early" locally is late in your own time zone. Resist the urge. If you go to bed too early, you'll stay in your own time zone sleeping habits, wake up too early, and if you have matches the following night you may pay the price. Related to this is that many players sleep while traveling to the tournament, making it that much harder to go to sleep at the right time. Unless you are the type who can sleep at any time, avoid too much sleeping while traveling, since it'll make it harder to sleep later on. (This might be difficult for some, since many do sleep while flying to tournaments.) 

6) If you have to play nighttime matches, consider taking an afternoon nap during the tournament. Just a 20-30 minute nap will get you rejuvenated. But make sure to arrange a good practice session afterwards to get the body warmed up again.

7) One surprising solution: bright light a couple hours before the time you would normally go to bed will often change your circadian rhythms, delaying the time you'll go to sleep and get up, and more quickly get you into local time.

For players traveling from West to East:

8) The big problem here are the morning matches. Hopefully you've been going by local time before the tournament, at least to an extent. It's probably more important doing this for west-to-east players, who otherwise will face very difficult early morning matches when their bodies are still half asleep. To help wake up, get some morning exercise. Go out for a jog before breakfast. After breakfast, get to the playing hall early for an exhilarating work-out, with the focus on drills that are physical to get the body thoroughly awake and ready to play. A huge advantage here is multi-ball training, where you can drill very fast without losing control, as often happens when two players try to rally faster than usual. Or play practice matches, which often get a player going more effectively than just drills.

9) When you first get up, expose yourself to bright light. This wakes up the body quickly. To a lesser degree, so does splashing cold water on your face.

10) The temptation will be to stay up late the night before, since the local "late" isn't so late in your time zone. (This is even more tempting if you sleep while traveling to the tournament.) But if you do that, you'll pay the price when you have to get up. On the other hand, many people can't go to bed early; if they try, they'll just lie awake. But try to find a way. Perhaps go to bed early, but read until you are sleepy, and then go to sleep. Avoid things that will keep you awake in the hours before the time you should go to bed - excessive exercise (try to get this done before dinner time), eating too much too late, alcohol, and caffeine.

Just remember what your goal is when you travel to tournaments: to play well. If you prepare yourself so that you are alert and energetic at the start and finish each day, you'll probably play well. 

How should one deal with people who cheat or have bad sportsmanship? There is a simple answer which would make this article very short: call for an umpire. However, umpires are not always available (and most of your matches will likely be practice matches anyway, where there are normally no umpires), so sometimes you'll have to deal with this on your own, especially if it's only poor sportsmanship, not outright cheating. Besides, you don't want to call for an umpire every time you think an opponent looks at you funny, so when possible, deal with the problem on your own.

Cheaters cheat because they want to win. There are limits to how you can deal with this short of calling for an umpire. If the opponent simply calls the score wrong, the remedy might be to simply call the score out loud every point, so the score is absolutely clear to you, your opponent, and anyone watching. Cheaters don't like this because it's hard to argue about the score when it's been called out loudly and clearly every point.

But there are other types of cheaters. They may serve illegally; use illegal surfaces; call lets on points that are not lets; claim their shot hit the edge or that your edge ball missed; and many other ways. You might be able to deal with some of these on your own. For example, if an opponent serves illegally (probably the most common form of "cheating"), politely explain why the serve wasn't legal. Ideally, catch the illegal serve and explain why the serve was illegal. If you attempt to return it, then the point counts. But you can still ask the opponent to serve legal between points.

If an opponent refuses to serve legally, and you can't get an umpire, then you are basically stuck, so deal with it. In tournaments you usually can get an umpire for this, but rarely in practice. And surprisingly, many umpires are reluctant to call many illegal serves. So you may have to learn to deal with some illegal serves. (Some illegal serves don't really give much of an advantage to the server, other than the fact that if they have to serve legally, they wouldn't be able to use their normal serves and they'd have difficulty serving effectively. Other illegal serves give a direct advantage to the serve, such as hiding contact, throwing the ball backwards into the racket, or excessively short tosses.)

Illegal surfaces are usually easier to deal with. You are allowed to examine an opponent's racket at the start of the match. If he has an illegal surface, even if there is no umpire you can ask the referee to look at it, and let him handle it. If there is no umpire or referee (i.e. usually a practice or perhaps a league match), then you'll have to deal with it on your own, and ask him to use a legal surface, or (as often happens in practice matches), just deal with it, and decide later whether to avoid playing that person again until he gets a legal surface. Except possibly in practice, you'll rarely have to deal with a player using the same color on both sides, but this can come up. Probably the most common illegal surface is frictionless long pips, which usually comes about when an opponent takes a legal long pips and treats it (usually with heat) to make them frictionless. Unfortunately, this is difficult for umpires or referees to judge.

Other types of cheating are harder to deal with. There's not a whole lot you can do if your opponent claims your edge ball missed or hit the side, or that his shot off the end or into the side hit the edge, or if he calls illegal lets or disagrees with your own rightly-called let. Of course, he may have just not seen what you saw, or perhaps you missed seeing what he saw, so don't be too quick to judge the opponent a cheater. Regardless of who is right, the only way to resolve a dispute like this is to call a let, which favors the one who is either wrong or outright cheating. It's up to you whether to call for an umpire (if available), using your own judgment over whether you think it will happen again.

Now the good news about cheaters: there are surprisingly few of them. Part of this is that repeat offenders get to be known, since not only opponents but people on the sidelines see it happening, and so most who might cheat quickly stop rather than face ridicule. However, there are always a few players, even at tournaments, who are regular cheaters. They are often well known to referees, who often watch these players and are quick to assign an umpire if needed. I've played tournaments where well-known cheaters informally had full-time umpires assigned to their matches.

There's a large overlap between cheating and poor sportsmanship, since cheating is simply a major form of poor sportsmanship. Players with poor sportsmanship outnumber actual cheaters. At tournaments there simply are not enough umpires to deal with every problem, so unless an opponent actually cheats, try to deal with most poor sportsmanship on your own.

There are two types of people who have bad sportsmanship. There are those where poor sportsmanship is simply a bad habit. And there are those who do it intentionally to gain an edge.

Examples of poor sportsmanship are forcing you to wait for them as they show up late; taking excessive time between points; constant complaining; any type of derogatory or belittling talk at an opponent; excessive yelling; or general bad behavior. Sports can bring out both the best and worst in people, and in many cases, it's the worst. One way to deal with most of this, if it doesn't actually break the rules, is to ignore it. Better still, become stronger because of it. If an opponent is constantly complaining or yelling, then he's obviously under great emotional stress. What a huge advantage that is for you if you are calm and relaxed!

The worst type of poor sportsmanship is when it's done intentionally to gain an edge. Suppose you show up for a match, and your opponent intentionally makes you wait for him. You can't really prove he did it on purpose, but the effect is the same: you are stuck out on the court waiting for his grand entrance. Just smile to yourself, knowing the opponent is so worried about the match he feels he needs even this tiny edge - and by doing so, you gain the edge.

The same is true of other types of bad behavior. Some opponents yell a lot between points; ignore it, or perhaps (if it is in your nature) occasionally yell yourself when you win a big point. The key here is that you don't want to feel intimidated by the opponent's yelling. Again, remember he's doing so because he's under emotional stress, and because he's worried about losing. So take it as a compliment, and turn it into your own edge.

It's when an opponent yells directly at you that he goes completely over the line. It's one thing to raise your fist and yell "Yes!" after winning a point. It's another to raise your fist directly at your opponent while looking him in the eye. There's no real rule against this, but it's poor sportsmanship, and some umpires and referees will warn an opponent against this. The worst case I ever saw of this was when a top 13-year-old was up 2-0 in games against a top U.S. player in a best of five. It was looking like a huge upset. In the third game the top player (who was over six feet tall and towered over his opponent, who was small for his age) won the first point, walked over to the 13-year-old's side of the table, put his fist right in the kid's face, and yelled "Yaaaaaah!" I was coaching the 13-year-old, and called for the referee immediately. It turned out the referee had seen this, but rather than default the opponent as I requested, he only warned him. The kid I was coaching was badly shaken and could barely continue. He played on half-heartedly, and lost badly three straight games.

 How can one deal with such a situation? It's very difficult unless you already were playing with a clear mind. Then you can look at it analytically, realize how scared the opponent is of losing, and turn his outburst into your advantage. Confidence usually beats nervous displays of arrogance.

Here are three simple points to remember when dealing with cheaters and poor sportsmanship.

1. If possible, call an umpire. But be ready to deal with it on your own if necessary.
2. Calling the score loudly every point will deter most score-changing cheaters as well as those who simply forget the score.
3. Always remember it is their fear of you that causes them to act this way. Turn that to your advantage with your own confident play.

Last of all, there are those who read the above, and are copiously taking mental notes on how to use cheating and poor sportsmanship to gain an edge. I have one word for you: DON'T!