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. 

Power in Table Tennis

Some players can blast the ball a zillion miles per hour with hyperbolic spin while seemingly barely trying, while others grunt and grimace and can't break a soap bubble. So where does power in table tennis come from? Power comes primarily from eight factors. They are:

1. Equipment. Offensive rackets and sponges add to whatever power you put on the ball.
2. Strength. It makes a difference, though not as much as some would seem.
3. Muscle Elasticity. This is probably more important than sheer strength. It's a primary reason why older players, even if they weight train, lose power as their muscles lose their elasticity. Elastic muscles are like slingshots.
4. Body Mass and Type. If you rotate your body into the shot, you put your mass into the shot, and more mass means more power. You also might get more power potential from longer arms, the type of muscle (fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch), and even the way the muscles are connected.
5. Type of Contact. If you graze the ball too finely you lose the power potential from the sponge as well as speed. If you sink it directly into the sponge you gain speed from hitting directly into the wood, but lose power that might be generated by the sponge if you contact at more of an angle.
6. Proper Technique. This maximizes power generation as well as your ability to control it.
7. Timing of Muscle Contractions. Each muscle gets the next one started, and if it's not timed properly, you lose power.
8. Timing of Contact. If contact is not done at the point of maximum power, you lose power. 

Let's elaborate on the last two - the timing issues. There are two types of timing when stroking the ball, and both lead to power. (Proper technique technically would include the two timing issues below, but I'm separating them here - but without good technique your power potential is severely limited.)

Timing of Muscle Contractions. Each muscle gets the next one started. The proper order for a forehand stroke is legs, hips, waist, shoulder rotation, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. (Wrist is optional on some shots.) If one contracts a muscle too soon or too late you lose power. If you contract any muscle too hard it becomes nearly impossible to control or to time them all together, so you only contract at whatever percent you can consistently and smoothly control - perhaps 70%, perhaps more on easy high balls. 

Timing of Contact. Contact should take place when the racket approaches maximum speed. Technically, you shouldn't contact the ball when the racket is at maximum speed; you want to accelerate through contact, meaning the racket actually speeds up as you contact the ball, and so is slightly faster the split second after contact. (This might be where physicists can chime in, but from a coaching point of view, this is a key issue - far too many players lose power because they stop accelerating before contact, thereby dissipating some of their power. Or is this an illusion, and you get maximum power by reaching maximum velocity right at contact, meaning zero acceleration at that point?)

So how can you increase your power? All of the items above are factors, though I don't recommend gaining weight (other than muscle mass) to increase power. (I'm not sure how much of a factor that really is, but it's greatly offset by the loss of mobility.) Physical training can help with strength and muscle elasticity. But most of power potential comes from items 5-8 above. A coach can greatly help you with these. When I watch players who have trouble generating power - which is most players - I find that the the most common problems are those that a coach can solve - the technique and timing issues. Grunting and grimacing are just indications that the player is having technique and timing problems that keep him from getting that easy power that comes so easily to some players. (See my related Tip on this, Easy Power.) 

This is a common question. It really depends on the incoming shot. There's a general rule - if the ball is moving toward you slowly, watch it all the way into the racket. If it's moving toward you fast, you only need watch it to the point where you can no longer react to it.

Against slow balls, you should see contact. This includes serving, pushing, flipping a short ball, blocking against a slow loop, or smashing or looping against a push or other softly hit ball. (Of course, on some backhand shots actual contact is hidden by the racket.) It's also more important to see contact on more finely hit balls where you spin the ball by grazing it. You don't need to see contact as much on flatter shots, such as smashes, counter-hits, or blocks.

If the ball is coming at you fast, there's no point in watching it all the way into the racket since you can't react to it at the end anyway. So you only need to watch it until it is perhaps a few feet in front of you, depending on the speed of the ball. Against a medium-fast ball, you might watch it almost until contact.

Some players do appear to watch the ball all the way into the racket. This is probably just habit - rather than stop moving their head as they follow the ball toward their racket they simply get in the habit of following the ball all the way to contact. That's fine for some, and perhaps it helps with their timing. But there's no real need to watch the ball right until contact except against a slow-moving ball. One advantage of not watching the ball until contact is that you can look up more quickly and see what your opponent is doing, and so begin to prepare for your next shot more quickly. Some players even fool their opponent by sometimes looking up early in their stroke toward one spot on the table and then hitting it to another.

Here's a picture of Jan-Ove Waldner (considered by many the greatest player of all time) hitting a forehand where at contact he's already looking toward his opponent or where his ball is going. 

What is "easy power"? It is the ability, through proper technique, to generate great force in your shots, whether it's looping or smashing. Given a high ball and enough time, most players beyond the beginning stage can hit the ball pretty hard. But often they strain to do so, which costs them both power and consistency. Players with good technique can do the same without straining, and end up with more power and consistency. Most of us have seen such players, who seem able to generate point-ending power (both speed and spin) with ease while others strain to do so. What is their secret?

It's all about timing and using the whole body. Most players, when hitting or looping hard, strain to add power, and the result is they get nearly 100% force from only a few muscles, from the upper body and arms. They are losing the power from the lower body, from the legs and waist. (Some may use waist, but without the legs you can't really use the waist muscles effectively.)

Watch videos of top players as they rip forehands, and see how they almost rock into the ball as they rotate into the ball, smoothly putting their entire body into the shot. They aren't even using 100% power from any of these muscles, because to do so would mean to basically jerk one muscle at full power, and so you only get power from that one muscle - and you can't really control a muscle that contracts at 100%. Instead, use all the muscles, but at perhaps 70%. This allows you to use them all in smooth progression, from legs to arm. When you can do this, you too will have "easy power" - and both your power and consistency will shoot up.

Here are two videos of Wang Liqin (three-time world men's singles champion) that illustrate this. He is considered by many to have had the best forehand loop of all time. Here's video of him looping in a drill (45 sec, including slow motion), where you can see how he rotates all of his body into the shot, starting with the legs and moving up to the arm. Here's video of him (9sec, also slow motion replay) ripping a winner. 

These are rarely front-line serves as even intermediate players have little trouble attacking them if you use them too often. However, they are a great variation to spin serves, and if used a few times each game will often catch the opponent off guard. With experience, you'll get a feel for when and where to throw one of these fastballs at an opponent.

The keys to an effective fast serve are:

1. Speed
2. Depth
3. Placement
4. Spin (or lack of)
5. Consistency
6. Surprise

Let's look at how to execute the serve while doing all six.

Speed. This is the whole point. The problem is most players don't understand how to maximize this, or chicken out under pressure. To serve fast, you must:

1. Serve aggressively. You can't serve fast by patting the ball over the net.
2. First bounce near your own end-line. You want to maximize the amount of table between bounces so the ball has a chance to drop. To do this you need to contact the ball far enough behind the end-line to allow this.
3. Low contact point. Otherwise the ball will bounce higher and will take longer to drop and hit the other side, and so you won't be able to serve as fast.

Depth. You want to serve as deep on the table as possible in order to jam the opponent. Just as important is that if the fast serve isn't going deep on the table then you aren't maximizing the speed. A fast serve should, by its very nature, go very deep or you aren't serving it very fast. There's a simple way to increase the depth of the serve - serve faster!

Placement. All fast serves should go to one of three spots: wide forehand, wide backhand, or to the middle (the opponent's switchover point between forehand and backhand, usually the playing elbow). Fast serves that go to the middle forehand or middle backhand are just feeding the opponent. Make him move to the corners or make a decision and move to cover the middle. To practice this, put targets on the far side of the table and see if you can consistently hit them.

Spin. To maximize speed, put some topspin on the ball to pull it down. However, sometimes you want to vary this by serving with sidespin or a fast, dead (flat) serve, often at the middle. You can create topspin or sidespin by essentially slapping the ball with an upward (for topspin) or sideways (for sidespin) motion. You don't want to graze the ball too much with a fast serve as you won't get enough speed that way - that's how you create a spin serve. To serve a fast, dead serve, you need to contact the ball with a very slight downward motion, putting a very light backspin on the ball, sort of a downwards slap at contact, just as with topspin or sidespin. After two bounces on the table the ball will be dead.

Consistency. It's pointless having a fast serve if you often miss it. You need to get a feel for both the proper contact with the ball and where to contact it (both the height and how far behind your end-line), and practice it until it's second nature. Then make sure to practice the serve before tournaments and big matches so you can execute the serve under pressure. As noted above under Placement, one way of practicing the serve is to put targets near the opponent's end-line and see if you can consistently hit them. You might also put a target on your own end-line and see if you hit that when you serve, to make sure that your first bounce is near your own end-line. Also, while some develop the serve by gradually building up the speed that they can serve fast, you might consider the opposite - serve as fast as you can, and gradually slow it down to the point where you can get it to hit the table. Then work at controlling that pace.

Surprise. Your fast serve loses most of its effectiveness if the opponent sees it coming too soon. So set up as if you were serving your normal serves. Learn to do the fast serve from the same stance and starting with the same motion. The only difference might be that for a fast serve you might have to toss the ball back a little further so as to give yourself room to hit the ball so the first bounce is near your end-line, but if you do, that should be minimized. But your backswing should look the same whether you are serving fast or not. You don't want to telegraph to the opponent that the fast serve is coming.