It’s a simple matter of geometry that if you graze the ball toward the back when serving backspin, you will either hit too much downward and so your serve will be high, or you will have to graze the ball less and so get less spin.

What does this mean? It means that to get a really heavy and short backspin when serving, you have to contact the ball near the bottom, almost as if you are scooping the ball. It takes touch, but with practice any player can learn to do so. The key is that you don’t do this by slowing down your serving stroke for control, as many do; instead, you accelerate into the ball with great racket speed, but barely graze the ball as it drops onto your paddle. This will result in a very heavy and short backspin serve.

If you do this, you’ll have the feeling that you are almost struggling to get the ball to go over the net. This is because you’ll have little downward motion, and with little downward motion, the ball isn’t being hit downward, and so it doesn’t easily bounce upwards and over the net. In fact, this will force you to accelerate even more into the serve as you struggle to get it over the net. When you find yourself accelerating into the ball and grazing it finely, and barely able to get it over the net . . . the ball will not only have a lot of backspin, it’ll likely come to a stop or even bounce backward on the far side of the table!!!

1. Wear appropriate table tennis shoes. They are designed for table tennis movements.
2. Wear relatively tight shoes. If they are loose, your feet will move about inside them as you move, slowing you down. Anyone who’s played me know that just before any match I retie my shoes as tight as I can.
3. On slippery floors, wear new shoes, and step on a wet towel every few points. This will greatly help you with traction.
4. Develop a good ready position, ready to move in any direction, with weight mostly on the outside balls of the feet, knees slightly bent, leaning slightly forward at the waist.
5. Focus on recovering and positioning after each shot. You don’t need to be that quick if you recover and position yourself after each shot for the next one. For example, if you go wide to the opponent’s wide forehand, he has an angle into your forehand, and so you shift your positioning a bit in that direction. And so on.
6. Focus on balance. If you are even slightly off balance, it will drastically slow you down from recovering and getting back into position for the next shot.
7. Take a little hop just before your opponent hits his shot. This allows you to drop down into a relaxed crouch as he’s hitting, with your feet ready to spring you in either direction. Watch the top players and you’ll see how they do this. (Here’s a tip on this – You Can Be Light on Your Feet.)
8. Think of yourself as a mean green moving machine. (Wearing green is optional.) Much of footwork is in the mind – if you think you’re greased lightning, you’ll tend to move more quickly.

When I started out in 1976, the consensus among coaches that I worked with was that you didn’t have time to grip change between forehand and backhand. And so I learned to use one grip for both. I ended up with a more forehand grip and developed a strong forehand. The victim was my backhand, where I became steady but never developed a strong attack. As one of my fellow coaches said after I explained this to him, and he tried hitting with the same grip, “I can’t even hit a decent backhand with my forehand grip.”

Since I’ve recently started a comeback as a player competing in senior events, I’ve been working a lot on my backhand. This grip issue was a big issue. So, how did I address it? The exact same way you should.

First, I went to the table and worked out the perfect grip for my forehand. This took about two seconds since I already had that grip. You should do this as well – find the perfect grip for your forehand.

Second, I went to the table and worked out the perfect grip for my backhand. This took a little longer, and involved putting a little more pressure on the racket with my thumb, and a small rotation of the top of the racket away from me. But once I had it, my backhand was much better in drills. You should do this as well – find the perfect grip for your backhand.

Third, I spent a bunch of time practicing the grip change. I could literally do this while watching TV or while walking about coaching a group session. Just fiddle it back and forth until it feels natural.

Fourth, I spent a lot of time at home with a racket, shadow-practicing moving side to side, alternately hitting forehands and backhands, where I changed grips back and forth until the grip change became automatic when I moved to play backhand.

Fifth, I did live drills where I had to alternate between forehand and backhand shots, thereby incorporating the grip change.

Sixth, I did live drills where I had random shots between forehand and backhand, so that I could incorporate the grip change as part of the recognition of whether I would be playing forehand or backhand. By the time I got to this stage it was surprisingly automatic.

Seventh, I played matches with the new grip changes.

And guess what? My backhand is much better – mostly. When I played a tournament against unfamiliar players, I found myself a bit uncomfortable attacking with the backhand, especially early in matches. It got better as the matches went on and I adjusted to the different opponents, but this part still needs work. And so I’ll add:

Eighth, play lots of matches against unfamiliar player with the new grip changes, especially in tournaments.

The sequence above is actually similar to how you’d incorporate any change or new technique into your game – so even if this doesn’t apply directly to you, it should give you a good idea of how to work the techniques you need work on. Go to it!

You know the ball has heavy backspin. You know you have to either open your racket, hit upward, or both. And yet, players still often attack heavy backspin balls into the net far more often than off the end. In theory, since you are compensating for the heavy backspin, you should go off the end just as often as into the net. Ideally, of course, you’d return it on the table – but you’d do that a lot more if you weren’t going into the net so much. It means that you need to increase your average net clearance (relying on topspin to pull the ball down) – and end up with fewer in the net and more off the end – but overall, more on the table. With more net clearance, your balls will also go deeper on the table, which are more effective than topspins that land shorter, which are easier to counter-attack. (To get this higher net clearance on topspin shots, some find it easier to simply aim deeper on the table, which gets the same effect since you have to arc the ball more to do so.)

If you often attack heavy backspin balls into the net, perhaps video a match where you do this. See what percentage of your misses are into the net and what percentage off the end – as well as what percentage hit the table. Then work on decreasing the into-net percentage while increasing – yes, increasing – the off-the-end shots because of your higher net clearance and increased depth. By doing so, you’ll likely end up with far more balls on the table and a better feel for what you need to do to attack those backspin balls with the right clearance and arc so they consistently hit the table.

If you make a habit of closely watching opponents to pick up on little cues that let you know where their next shot will go, your subconscious will get the message and start reacting to it. The subconscious learns by repetition - but only if you actually observe the opponent so that your conscious and subconscious minds can pick up on them.

An example of this would be trying to judge the direction an opponent hits his forehand. You could just wait and see what direction his racket is going at or just after contact. That’s what beginners have to do – there’s a reason they react so slowly to shots. But more advanced players subconsciously react to the shot well before contact. At the intermediate level, they likely react soon after the opponent starts his forward swing, as at that point you can usually judge where the ball is going to go, basically by seeing the line between the racket and ball and extending it to your side. This works . . . at the intermediate level.

At higher levels, players adjust even sooner to the opponent’s shot. They may react right as that forward swing starts, or even before that. You can usually tell where an opponent’s forehand is going from his shoulder rotation, and from that, see where they are going even before they start their forward swing. That’s why top players sometimes seem to have supernatural reflexes – but it’s not quick reflexes, it’s early recognition of the direction of the shot.

So, start watching opponents for little clues like that – everyone has them, but they are often different. When you see them, you won’t be able to consciously react to them, but the subconscious will – and soon you’ll be reacting like a pro.

One cautionary note – at higher levels, players often disguise or change their direction as they forward swing – such as an inside-out forehand – and so you have to adjust to each player based on this, sometimes waiting until nearly at contact before you know for sure where they are going. As a match goes on, you should react more and more quickly to the opponent’s shots as your subconscious picks up on when they can react against each opponent and each of their shots. Once you do this, you’ll become like a backboard, reacting to anything the opponent does.

And all you have to do is observe the opponent while the subconscious does the work, and you get the credit!