While this Tip is mostly about returning short serves, it also follows for those who aren't ready or able to loop against deep serves. At higher levels most players loop deep serves, and so only have to make a decision on what to do against shorter serves. At beginning and intermediate levels, however, players often do push against deep backspin serves. If they are going to do this, they should at least know how to approach this with their receive.

Many players look to push back most serves - and are caught off guard against topspin and sidespin serves, often popping them up or making a last-second change to a weak drive return. (You can chop down on these and sort of push them back, but it's often better to drive them back.) Others wait to see if the ball has backspin or not, and have to make a last-second choice between pushing (if the ball has backspin) or driving (if the ball doesn't have backspin). If the serve is no-spin, you can do either, but if you push you have to aim low.

If you want to reach the higher levels, it's often better to approach receive with the idea that you are going to attack all short serves - unless you make a last-second decision to push. In other words, rather than looking to push (and messing up against topspin/sidespin) or having to make a last-second decision between two choices (and so not being really ready for either), it's better to know what you are going to do and be decisive about it - and then change your mind at the last second if you see backspin. There are three primary reasons for this.

First, it's a lot easier to change your mind at the last second from attacking the serve to a simple push if you see backspin on the serve than it is to go from pushing to attacking the serve if you realize it isn't a backspin serve. It's easy to simply open your racket at the last second and push against a slow, incoming backspin ball, but it's tricky close your racket at the last second and drive against a faster incoming topspin or sidespin ball.

Second, you can attack any short serve - even if it has backspin - and so if you decide in advance you are going to attack, you know you can do this. If you instead decide in advance to push the serve, you may get crossed up with a non-backspin serve. And if the ball does have backspin and you decide an attack is risky, it's easy to change your mind and switch to a push. There's nothing wrong with mostly pushing against backspin, though at higher levels you'd need to sometimes push them short or attack them.

And third, it gives you decisiveness. If you aren't sure whether you are going to attack or push, that can lead to indecisiveness, which leads to mistakes.

So look to be aggressive in your receives, with the option of switching to a push against backspin if you aren't confident in attacking it. You may still end up switching to a push most of the time against most backspin serves, but that's easy to do, and you'll be better at reacting to topspin/sidespin serves while learning to at least sometimes be aggressive against backspin serves. It's easier to be aggressive and switch to a push than it is to be defensive and switch to being aggressive, and it's always better to be decisive than to go in indecisively and having to make a last-second decision. 

1) Put together a list of tips for yourself.
For example, you might write down "Stay low" if you tend to stand up too straight. Or you might write, "Relax and have fun." You should refer to this list periodically during the tournament.

2) Decide what your mental frame of mind should be.
Some players get too hyped up for their matches, and so don't play well. Others can't get up for their matches, and also don't play well. Decide where you stand in this spectrum, and either calm yourself down or psyche yourself up before each match. Decide in advance what you need to do. You might prepare differently for each match, based on the opponent's playing style. If you anticipate that you will have to be more aggressive against one opponent, you might have to be more "psyched up" for that match. On the other hand, being hyped up might only make you miss more. You have to decide what works for you.

3) Work on specific strengths and weaknesses.
Everyone has specific strengths and weaknesses that many of their matches are won or lost on. Decide what these shots are, and make sure to practice them both before and during the tournament. For example, if you have trouble with a specific serve, have someone serve it to you over and over - even if you have to pay someone to do it! Similarly, if you have a big strength, such as a forehand smash, make sure to get it going BEFORE the match begins, not when you've already dug yourself a hole by missing the first five attempts.

4) Decide what your actual and working goals are.
For most people, the actual goal is to win. This doesn't mean you aren't there to have fun, but ultimately, most people are trying to win. However, if you go out to a match with this in mind, you might not play your best - you'll be too nervous. Instead, have an "acting goal," i.e. a goal that will maximize your chances of winning. Generally, make "playing your best" your active goal. If you play your best, your chances of winning are maximized, right? You may vary this, however; if you tend to play too passive, for example, your working goal might be to play aggressively.

5) Arrange a warm-up partner and practice routine in advance.
The night before the tournament, arrange who and when you will warm up with. Pick someone who you are comfortable warming up with. This is not the time to practice against someone whose games gives you trouble, or plays what seems to you a "weird" style - that's what you should have been practicing against at the club in the weeks before the tournament. On the day of the tournament, you want someone who can help you groove your shots. Once your shots are grooved and warmed up, you can then adjust to the many wacky styles you may face (as well as more standard ones). Decide in advance what drills you want to do; don't just do forehand to forehand, etc. - make sure to do footwork drills and serve & receive drills. Make sure to either play out points or play some games before you go out for your tournament match - you don't want the first real points you play to be in a tournament match.

6) Bring food & beverages, and eat lightly.
Good food & beverage services at tournament sites are rare. Drink water or bring your own drinks (Gatorade, for example), as well as snacks (such as fruit). Avoid eating a large meal during the tournament unless you have two hours or more free afterwards. It's best to snack regularly on easily digested food (mostly carbohydrates), or you will be somewhat tired while you digest the large meal.

7) Prepare for slippery floors.
One of the most common mistakes I see is not preparing for a slippery floor. Over half of tournaments are played on flooring that is not grippy enough for you to play your best. Many players don't even realize how much they are giving up until they do something about it - and their playing level shoots up. What can you do? There are several options. First, make sure you have good, grippy shoes. Some players even bring two pairs of shoes - one normal pair, and one "extra grippy' for slippery floors. Second, you should always bring a small towel or paper towels to a tournament. If the floors are slippery, dampen the towel, and put it to the side of the table. Every few points, rub your feet on them. Try this, and you'll find it makes a huge difference.

8) Practice your serves.
The day of the tournament, practice your serves. Tuning them up will pay off more for you, time-for-time, than just about any other practice. Yet most players don't warm up their serves before a match, and so don't have their best serves available.

9) Prepare physically.
Prepare your muscles for combat! Before warming up, do some easy jogging to get them warm. Do a thorough stretching routine. Finally, before each match, you might do some short but vigorous physical activity to get the muscles prepared. You might shadow practice, or do a few sprints; however, make sure not to tire yourself out so much that you can't play the match. Somewhat related to this is getting enough sleep in the last few days before the tournament. (I've read studies that have shown that it's actually more important getting enough sleep in the last few days before a sports activity than the actual night before.)

10) Do some meditation and mental visualization.
Let's not get mystical here. However, you will play better if you take some time before a match to clear your mind and do some mental visualization. Go somewhere quiet, and blank your mind out. Then visualize yourself doing the shots you plan on doing. A few minutes of this is worth more than an equal amount of practice time on the table.

The single most important thing to understand about table tennis training is that you are training your subconscious to automatically perform each technique properly. When you do a shot, you don't consciously move your feet into the exact proper position; decide what shot to do and where and how hard; calculate the racket angle; guide your backswing in just the right way; time exactly when to start the forward swing; and contact the ball just the right way. You may be consciously aware of these things going on, but they are guided by a well-trained subconscious, that part of your brain that does things automatically.

A good example of this is tying your shoe. After doing it for years or decades, do you consciously guide each movement? No - your hands just fly about doing what they've done so many times that you no longer need to pay attention. You just watch and are aware of it as it is taking place. As an exercise, try tying your shoes except don't make any move until you've consciously chosen exactly what needs to be done, and do this each step of the way. See what happens?

Similarly, a properly trained table tennis player doesn't consciously guide his shots; he just watches as the subconscious does what it's done so many times before. Of course it's more complicated in table tennis since the ball is moving and spinning, unlike a stationary shoe, which is why it takes a lot of training to get right.

So what should your conscious mind be doing in a rally when training and playing a match? Here are five things it should be doing.

First, the conscious mind guides the training process. You have to decide what type of training the subconscious needs, and then train those skills. It should be analyzing what's going on and figuring out what changes are needed and what type of training needs to be done. But it should only be doing this between points.

Second, the conscious mind should be watching what happens. The subconscious can't see what's going on unless you are watching as well. So focus on what's going on. This primarily means watching the ball, but it also means watching the opponent to see what he does. The key is that you only watch, and let the trained subconscious react. This is the primary - and perhaps only - purpose of the conscious mind during a point. (You should also be listening to the sound of the ball as it hits the rackets and table, which helps with timing and reading the shot.)

Third, the conscious mind should remember the feel of a properly hit shot. (This might be the most important and least applied.) If you know the feel of a good smash or loop, you can essentially ask your subconscious to repeat that feel - and it'll usually oblige, assuming you've trained it well. When you miss a shot or the technique is wrong, the feel should be wrong, and you should focus on remembering what that proper feel should be - and your subconscious will get the message, and try to repeat it. Never focus on the shots that miss or that are wrong or your subconscious will begin to emulate those. (The only exception is if you absolutely cannot get it right, and have to consciously analyze what you are doing wrong - but there the goal is to get it right, and then focus on what is right, i.e. that right "feel.")

Fourth, the conscious mind chooses the basic tactics in a game situation. This should happen between points, never during a rally. This is easy when simply choosing what serve to do. It gets trickier when choosing tactics based on possible situations. For example, if you decide to attack the opponent's wide forehand, you have to wait for the right opportunity to do so. If you decide you need to attack the opponent's forehand, your subconscious will get the message, and when it sees a chance to attack, it'll attack the wide forehand. (Some believe they consciously make these decisions in a rally, but often it is the subconsciously doing what the conscious mind has asked it to do, with the conscious mind simply being aware of it as it happens.) If you regularly think about tactics between points, the subconsciously will get the message and will soon reflexively do these tactics at the proper times. At the advanced levels most tactics are reflexive. When a top player suddenly, say, tactically drops the ball short, he didn't consciously decide to do so; his trained subconscious saw the tactical opportunity and did so.

Five, the conscious minds needs to simply let go, both emotionally and in shot execution. An emotional mind will tend to interfere with shots, which is why professional athletes often look so bland just before and during rallies. A conscious mind that tries to take control will only interfere with the trained subconscious. So during a rally clear the mind and let go, and let the subconscious do what it's been trained to do.

So learn to work with your subconscious. Train it and let it go. In the end, it'll learn to execute, while you, the conscious part that's in charge, mostly just watches during actual play. You should almost feel guilty about this - you just stand around watching while the subconscious pulls off the shots, and guess who gets the credit?

To improve you need both good technique and match experience. You can get match experience at a club, but you get a lot more in tournaments, where you play new players and find out where your game really stands - feedback that helps you pinpoint what you need to work on. The question is what to do when you are working on new techniques. If you play tournaments - or matches, for that matter - you'll likely fall back into your old habits, and re-enforce them. So sometimes it's better to skip tournaments and matches for a time while you work on the new techniques.

But how long should you skip them? There's an easy measure. When you are changing techniques, it's best not to play matches - practice or tournaments - until you've mastered the new technique to the point where you'll reflexively use it in matches. This doesn't mean you should skip playing matches until the technique is perfect and you never get it wrong, but it means waiting until you can do it in a match situation most of the time. Otherwise you'll just be re-enforcing bad habits.

By playing matches when the technique is almost perfected, but not quite, you'll re-enforce your ability to do it under pressure - and that's half the problem with developing a new technique. In fact, the best measure of whether you have learned the new technique is to see if you use it not only under match pressure, but under the intense pressure of a close match. If you can do it at deuce, you can do it anytime.

A famous example of skipping tournaments and matches in general was Hungary's Istvan Jonyer. He made the Hungarian National Team in the early 1970s mostly by blocking. While on the team he developed his powerful forehand loop and became Hungarian National Champion. But he had a weak backhand, and couldn't really compete with the best players in the world. Then he spent six months up in a mountain training, where he did essentially nothing but backhand loop. He didn't play matches as he worked on this. When he finished, he had a great backhand loop - though other aspects of his game had deteriorated, and he had to practice them to get them back. About two years later he became the 1975 Men's World Champion, and was #1 in the world for two year and a dominant top ten (usually top five) player for over a decade.

So take a look at your game, and decide what techniques you need to fix. Then decide if it's worth spending a lot of time fixing it while skipping matches. In the short run it can be frustrating, as you are just dying to play matches. In the long run it'll pay off. 

Many players improve by using practice drills that mimic something they need to improve on in matches. But why not turn that around, and play matches that mimic something you need to improve on in matches? It's not redundant - it's a matter of playing Improvised Games instead of regular ones.

For example, play a game or match where you always serve short backspin to the opponent's backhand, he pushes deep to your backhand, you backhand loop, and then you play out the point. Keep score like a regular game, and do your best to win in the improvised rules.

Here are ten Improvised Games you might try out. But don't restrict yourself to these. Look at your own game, figure out what you need to work on, and design Improvised Games that allow you to work on those techniques. (POP = Play Out Point.)

1. Serve short backspin to opponent's backhand; he pushes to your backhand; you backhand loop; POP. Alternate versions: Your first backhand loop goes to a specified location, then POP. Or take it one step further, and opponent's first block goes to a specified location. For example, you backhand loop to his backhand, he blocks to your forehand, and then POP. You can also vary the short serve with no-spin serves.
2. Same as #1, except opponent pushes serve to your forehand, and you loop the forehand, and then POP. Or use alternate versions, as explained in #1. You can also have opponent push to your backhand and you forehand loop, if you have good footwork.
3. Serve short side-top to forehand or backhand. Opponent flips either anywhere, or to pre-arranged spot. You attack, POP.
4. Serve varied long serves to opponent's backhand. Opponent soft loops serve back. You attack, POP.
5. Put a box or towel near the middle of the table, cutting of perhaps half the table. Play a backhand-to-backhand game where the server starts the rally be serving topspin. Or do a variation where it's forehand to forehand, or forehand to backhand. Or variations where one player loops, the other blocks. The goal here isn't just to win the point, but to play great rallies that'll carry over into real matches.
6. Need to work on your pushing? Play a pushing game where both players can only push, with rallies starting with a backspin serve. But since most players push better on the backhand, there might be a tendency to push to the forehand in this game, since the opponent isn't allowed to attack. So set a rule where you can never push twice in a row to the forehand. Or set a rule where players can attack, but if they do they have to win the point on one shot.
7. To work on serve and attack, play a game where the server has only two shots to win the point, not including the serve. Or, as long as you don't get into the habit of trying to rip every ball, only one shot after the serve.
8. For very fast forehand-oriented players, play a game where you can only play forehand shots. Or perhaps you can only play one backhand in a row. (This is one of my favorites, but it's gotten harder as I've gotten older.)
9. To work on short pushes, play a game where each player serves short backspin and then both players continue the rally pushing every ball short (i.e. given the chance the ball would bounce twice). If either player thinks the ball is going long he lets it go, and if it goes long he wins the point; if it bounces twice he loses the point. An alternate version is where players can attack, but if they do they must win the point on one shot.
10. Play a lobbing, fishing, or chopping game to work on your defense, where you aren't allowed to attack. Alternate version is where you can attack, but must win the point on one shot if you do.