There are two key differences between practice and important matches: Psychological and Variation.

Psychological. There is little pressure in practice, and so players are loose, both mentally and physically. However, once a game begins, it's easy to get nervous and tighten up. RELAX! Of course, that's easier said than done, especially in a tournament or league match. A great way to prepare for this is to drill as if it were a match. Even if you are doing a simple side-to-side footwork drill, think of it as a match, where you must outlast your opponent, in this case your practice partner. Table tennis is a competitive sport, and to prepare for competition you must do competition.

Which leads to another way of preparing for important matches - practice matches. There's a lot less pressure when you play practice matches, but remember that practice is just that - practice. And so they are a perfect time to practice your mental game. Pretend it's a serious match. Before the point begins, blank out your mind, and just let the shots happen. (Between points is when you think about tactics; once the point begins, you have to just let them happen naturally.) Don't worry about winning or losing practice games; just play your game until it becomes comfortable. Then do the same in tournaments and leagues, where you also shouldn't worry about winning or losing, which only puts more pressure on yourself. The more you do this in practice the easier it will be to do so in important matches.

Always remember that you have your best chance of winning if you don't worry about winning. If your goal is instead to play your best, you will maximize your chances of winning.

Variation. There is much less variation in practice drills than in a game. Most practice drills are somewhat predictable, and so you get balls you are comfortable with. For example, you might do a drill where you serve backspin, your opponent pushes it back to your backhand, and you loop (forehand or backhand). The range of variation in the pushes you'll be looping (amount of spin, speed, height, depth and placement) may be rather small. Drills like this are good to develop your shots, as are pattern drills where you practice footwork.

But in a game, when you serve backspin, your opponent's pushes will vary more. He may push to your forehand or backhand, or short, or he may even attack the push. He may vary the spin more. So you usually have to deal with a lot more variation in a game than in practice, and so it's more difficult to prepare for or react to the many different returns.

How do you learn to react to variation in games? By incorporating that variation into your practice routines. Do drills where your opponent varies his returns. For example, the drill might be where you serve backspin, your partner pushes deep anywhere, and you loop. Or your partner may have the choice of pushing short to the forehand or long to the backhand. Or he may just push anywhere, long or short. When you are comfortable against all these, then you may go for bust, and have your partner return serves any way he wants, including attacking them. (Perhaps serve short so he can't loop, and serve low so he can't flip too effectively.)

All drills can be turned into random drills that incorporate variation. For example, instead of hitting forehand to forehand (or forehand loop to block), once you are warmed up have your practice partner move you around randomly on your forehand side. Or have your partner hit the ball randomly to your forehand or backhand (or to anywhere on the table), and you return each shot to one spot. Or do drills that combine variation with pattern play. For example, your partner may alternate between one shot to your backhand, and one random shot that goes anywhere.

Of course, the ultimate drill that incorporates all variations is a practice match. Play them like tournament matches (though sometimes you should focus on something that needs practice), and they will prepare you for the big matches. Ultimately, to play in games as well as you play in practice, you need to play lots of games - but only after you have really practiced against variable shots in practice.

When developing your shots, you want to use a neutral grip; otherwise, your strokes might not develop properly. (This is for shakehanders.) A neutral grip makes proper strokes more natural. You might be tempted to use a slight forehand or backhand grip as you develop your stroking techniques, but in the long run, this will hurt you.

What is a neutral, forehand and backhand grip? If the thinnest part of your wrist lines up with the blade (so the blade and the back of your wrist both aim in the same direction), then you have a neutral grip. If you tilt the top of the blade away from you, you have a backhand grip. If you tilt the top of the racket toward you, you have a forehand grip. (If you aren't sure what a shakehands grip is, google "table tennis shakehands grip pictures," and a zillion examples will show up.)

However, a neutral grip is not necessarily the way to maximize your play at the intermediate and advanced levels. It's a tradeoff. At the higher levels, the strokes are already well developed, and so experimenting with the grip won't hurt a player's strokes much.

I used a neutral grip roughly the first decade I played. Then I used a slight backhand grip for roughly a decade. Then I went to a slight forehand grip for roughly the past decade. A backhand grip tends to favor backhand blocking and backhand looping, and gives a natural forehand sidespin loop (so it hooks left for a right-hander). A forehand grip tends to favor backhand hitting and forehand looping, and gives a better inside-out loop on the forehand (so the ball curves to the right for a right-hander). 

Should You Hit or Loop the Backhand?

This depends partly on your level. Beginners should learn to hit their backhands first. However, it’s also important for players should learn to loop early on, so as to develop good habits. So it might be a good idea for beginners to learn early on how to open with a backhand loop against backspin, followed by backhand hitting against the incoming block and the rest of the rally. A backhand loop against backspin, followed by a backhand hit against an incoming block, is a very strong combo.

I do recommend learning to backhand loop against backspin. It’s good to be able to hit against backspin, especially against a short ball, but a backhand loop is more consistent and takes control of the rally, as well as setting up your follow-up attack. And it's better than just pushing over and over, which gives the opponent the chance to attack and take the initiative.

At the intermediate level, backhand loops are mostly done against backspin. However, as players approach the higher levels, more and more players can backhand loop over and over during a rally.

Backhand looping over and over in a rally takes a lot of practice. On the forehand side, the ball is taken from the side, so you have a large hitting zone. (“Hitting” here means where you contact the ball, not a backhand hit itself.) On the backhand side, the body is in the way, so there’s a much smaller hitting zone. Contrary to what some believe, backhand loopers need great footwork to get their hitting zone to overlap with the incoming ball. The faster the ball is coming at you, the more difficult it is, which is why it’s generally easier to backhand loop against backspin than against an incoming topspin or block (which usually come at you faster).

At the highest levels, backhand looping dominates. USA Team Member Sean Lonergan wrote in his blog at the 2008 Worlds, “The Backhand Hit is Dead.” At the world-class level, nearly every player loops on the backhand side. (Even penholders backhand loop now, using reverse penhold backhands.) The extreme topspin in a loop gives the shot consistency, allows you to loop with great speed as well as spin, and puts your opponent in a difficult position. A backhand hit doesn’t have as much topspin and so there’s less margin for error.

So if you are aspiring to be a world-class player, then you would want to learn to backhand loop over and over. However, if you are aspiring to, say, win a senior event or reach a strong level that's somewhat lower than world-class, then you might want to focus on backhand hitting, while learning to backhand loop against backspin. (If you develop a good backhand loop against backspin, then later on you can learn to loop against topspin as well.) You might want to develop a good backhand loop against backspin and follow that with a backhand hit. (Here's a Tip of the Week on that - "The Backhand Loop and Hit One-Two Punch.")

So what is the answer to your question on whether you should hit or loop on the backhand? It’s your choice, based on your abilities, goals, and preferences. 

It’s a common mistake for beginning players to develop their attacks, but not their defense. You need both. The problem comes about because a beginning player usually starts out learning to hit forehands and backhands, and once developed, these are primarily offensive shots. These are important shots when attacking, but what about when the opponent attacks?

Against many attacks, you can counter-attack. However, this can lead to some rather wild, low percentage shots. A little defense would be the better option. So it's important to learn to defend, such as blocking.

It doesn't have to be passive blocking; you can block aggressively. Take the ball quick off the bounce and quick-hit the ball to the opponent's wide corners or middle (the transition point between forehand and backhand), and keep moving him around these three spots, and you'll often force a miss or weaker shot you can attack. The most common way to beat an attacker is to attack first, but if you can block, you take much of that advantage away, and turn your defense into a transition back to your own attack.

Many table tennis drills involve one player attacking, the other blocking. When you are the blocker in such a drill, take this just as seriously as you would when you are attacking. Many players treat drills as something where the two players take turns drilling. Never!!! A drill is a two-way thing, and whatever your opponent is doing, you are drilling against it. You learn to block by blocking, and the best time to do that is by focusing on your blocking in drills. Work on precision - if you learn to block the ball accurately and consistently in drills, this will show up in matches as well. You can also practice advanced variations, such as topspin blocks (i.e. mini-loops), dead blocks, and chop and sidespin blocks.

You can also learn other defensive shots, such as lobbing, fishing and chopping. Lobbing is a high defensive topspin shot, usually done off a smash. It's often a desperation tactic, but in the hands of an expert, it's a valuable way to win a few points that otherwise would be lost. Fishing is a lower defensive topspin shot, where you keep the ball roughly one to four feet high. Fishing defense is central to many players' games, especially loopers, who play off the table and need an off-table shot to defend with. Fishing and lobbing, done at the higher levels (where the ball goes deep with topspin and sometimes sidespin), are basically just defensive loops. They are a bit more advanced than blocking, but if you have mobility off the table, they are valuable shots to have. Fishing and lobbing tend to go together as most players who do one do the other as well.

Chopping is a more specialized defense, and while I don’t recommend most offensive players to back off the table and try to chop down an opponent, it’s valuable to be able to throw in a chop now and then, especially on the backhand when you are out of position. Plus, of course, many players play a chopping style, in which case chopping is central to their game.

Note that I don’t include pushing as a defensive shot. A defensive shot is done against an incoming offensive shot. A push is more a sparring backspin shot against an incoming non-offensive shot, such as a backspin or no-spin push or serve. If done poorly, it’s a defensive shot, but that’s because it’s done poorly. It should be more of a neutral shot.

Many years ago Cheng Yinghua (former Chinese team member, once the #1 player in the U.S. for a decade as he won Men's Singles at four Nationals and two Opens while making the 2000 Olympic team) said that the biggest weakness of most top U.S. players were their fundamentals, in particular their defense. When these players attacked against the best players in the U.S. at the time - Cheng, David Zhuang, Ilija Lupulesku - they faced great defense (blocking by the first two, fishing and lobbing by Lupulesku), and struggled to win a point. When these three attacked, opponent after opponent would crumble due to their lack of defensive skills This is true at all levels. So learn to play defense, and make your opponents be the ones who crumble when the other player attacks.  

You don't need to be a chopper to win with backspin, even in this modern age of topspin. Backspin will always have its place, when used properly. Of course, even attackers often serve backspin, hoping for a pushed return (backspin) that they can loop. However, when should an attacking player use backspin in a rally?

Backspin Against Topspin: Chopping (which is backspin against an incoming topspin) can be tricky, especially with a fast attacking racket, and so usually an attacker will use backspin only against an incoming backspin, i.e. a push. There is one main exception. If you are forced off the table, and attack from the wide forehand, an opponent may quick-block to your backhand. Ideally, you can attack this as well, either backhand hitting or looping. However, if you are out of position and have to reach for the ball, a better answer might be a backhand chop. This keeps you in the rally, gives you time to get back into the point, and it may throw off the opponent's timing.

Short Pushes: If you push short (so the ball would bounce twice on the opponent's side of the table if given the chance), then your opponent can't loop it. If you keep it low, it's very difficult to attack effectively, and will usually result in a pushed return that you can attack. Key to this is keeping the ball very low to the net. Don't just dink the ball back; brush it back lightly with backspin, which will make it easier to keep the ball low and short. Learn to change directions at the last second, dropping the ball short to the middle, left, or right. Short pushes are especially effective if you push both long and short, so the opponent never knows what's coming.

Long Pushes: There are many ways an attacker can win with long pushes. The key to long pushes is to push quick, low, heavy, deep, and at wide angles (or to the middle against some two-winged players). You should also often aim one way, and at the last second change directions. (So aim to the backhand and go quick to the forehand, or vice versa.) Here are some other ways to win with long pushes:

• A quick push rushes an opponent, forcing mistakes and weak shots.
• Heavy backspin gives many opponents trouble, forcing mistakes and weak shots.
• Against an opponent who doesn't attack backspin well and often pushes (such as many choppers or blockers), pushing allows you to pick and choose which shot you want to attack.
• They force an opponent to drop their racket and shoulder to lift the ball, throwing off their timing not only on that shot, but on the next shot.
• If an opponent attacks a push to the backhand with the forehand, you can quick-block to the often open wide forehand - and if they get to that, you can quick-block again to the wide backhand. Also, after looping from the backhand corner, many opponents anticipate a block to the wide forehand, so a quick block right back to the backhand catches them. The same tactics often work against a player who opens with a backhand loop from the backhand side.
• A quick push to the wide forehand can catch an opponent off guard, and if he does attack it, you can then quick-block to the wide backhand. If he moves quickly to cover that, a second quick-block to the wide forehand can catch him moving the wrong way.
• They slow down play, thereby throwing off an opponent's timing.

Happy Backspinning!