The key to deception on the backhand serve is the elbow. If you are serving backspin, you should vigorously contact the ball on the downswing, as much under the ball as possible, with a motion similar to chopping wood with a backhand motion. But the swing doesn't end there – you should follow through sideways and up by vigorously pulling up with your elbow. This forces the opponent to have to figure out if you contacted the ball on the down swing, or on the sideways or upward swing.

Similarly, when serving sidespin or side-topspin, you should start with this vigorous downward swing (chopping wood), as if serving backspin, but miss the ball, and instead contact it on the sideways or upward swing with that vigorous upward pull with your elbow. This time the elbow pull gives you spin instead of just being a fake motion. Again, the opponent has to figure out where you actually contacted the ball.

This principle actually applies to most serves, where your racket goes through some sort of semi-circular motion (often very short and abrupt, so opponent can't pick up the contact), where often are more vigorous on the part of the swing where you don't contact the ball. It's just a bit more obvious with the backhand, where much of the deception comes from the elbow. (But you still need a vigorous wrist motion for spin.) One advantage of serving backhand – you are facing your opponent, and so can see what he's doing as you serve. Some players can even change their serve, or at least service direction, in response to the receiver changing position at the last second. 

Every part of your game has a history. If you are a longtime player, you should be able to look at any serve or stroke in your game and remember its history – how it started, how it developed, and where it stands today. If you are a more recent player, it’s even easier as it’s all fresh in your mind since you’ve just started.

The key thing to remember is that your history changes constantly; you are in control of it. Why not take an inventory of your game – all of it – and think about how it got to be where it is, and then, more importantly, think about where it should be. Then begin the history that’ll lead to it being where it should be. Develop your yore.

Suppose your pushes are consistent, but not very heavy. Why aren’t they heavy? Because you have a history of not pushing heavy, and every time you don’t push heavy, you re-enforce the nonheaviness habit of your pushes. So work on pushing heavy, begin to do it, and eventually you’ll have a history of pushing heavy – and it’ll be where it should be. And then you’ll be able to look back at the history of your push, and note that moment in time when you began to create a history of pushing heavy, and so developed that as part of your game.

Every aspect of your game has a history, and you have control over developing the history that leads to each aspect. Take control of this history and develop your game to where it should be. You’re your yore. 

Many players learn to put decent spin on their serves. However, when faced with disguising this spin, they have great difficulty. Why not develop a tricky no-spin serve, with a fast, quick serve contact? Change directions in the split second that the racket contacts the ball, where it is nearly motionless, or contact the ball near the handle of the blade (where the racket is moving slowest) so there will be little spin … but your opponent will be left making a snap decision on what's on the ball. Perhaps exaggerate one direction, often down, then snap the racket up at contact, leaving the receiver to figure where the contact was – and you have three options: on the down swing (backspin), as the racket is changing directions (no-spin), or on the sideways or upswing (light sidespin or topspin). A no-spin serve is just as effective as a spin serve if the opponent thinks there is spin on the serve!

In singles, you can serve to all parts of the table. This means you can usually force your opponent to receive from his weaker side, whether it's forehand or backhand. Not so in doubles! Now your opponent can choose his stronger side to receive. If you serve long, he'll probably attack it, usually by looping. If you serve short sidespin or topspin, he'll probably attack it as well with a flip. If you serve backspin, he can drop it short, push heavy, or flip it to a corner. What is a server to do?

Surprisingly, the answer is often a very shot, very low no-spin serve. At the world-class level, it's the most common serve in doubles, and often in singles. Why is this? A short no-spin serve is tricky to push - it's easy to pop up, and you can't put as much backspin on it, since you don't have a ball's spin to rebound off your racket - you have to create all your own spin. It's also not as easy to flip aggressively as a ball with spin since you can't use the spin of an incoming ball to help your flip. A topspin or sidespin ball rebounds out with topspin when struck properly. A backspin ball can be aggressively flipped, and the backspin continues, except now as topspin. (Often the receiver can put great topspin on this ball, especially with a backhand banana flip.) But a no-spin ball doesn't rebound out, and you can't use its non-existent spin. Plus, it's easy to keep a no-spin ball low. (A slightly high no-spin ball is easy to attack, so beware.) This doesn't mean you should serve all no-spin. But it can be the primary serve, with other serves used as variations, especially short, heavy backspin. 

Should one search for the perfect equipment that matches his game, or adjust his game to match his equipment? This is never an easy question, but here is the main factor to consider. Once you are beyond the beginning stage it’s time to think long-term, and think about what your ultimate style of play will be. Once you decide that, look at some of the top players who play that style. What equipment are they using? If you want to play like them and hit shots like them, it’s helpful to have similar equipment. So once you are past the beginning stage, it’s time to adjust your equipment to the way you want to play.

The comparison isn’t exact; they play at a much higher level and train full-time (including physical training), so depending on your level, you might want something slower, though not too much so. For example, if their sponge is too fast, you might want a slower version.

One other thing to take into consideration is that if your game is centered around looping – as nearly all players at the higher levels are – then you do want something extra bouncy, that allows you to loop nearly anything, in particular one of the tensored sponges.