Starting at the intermediate level players begin to realize that they can actually return put-away shots, whether it's by blocking, countering, fishing, lobbing, or chopping. There's no magically fast reflexes needed, just a little knowledge and technique. Here are some tips on how to put pressure on your opponent by returning their put-aways - and remember, they are often off balance and rushed if you return them, and will often miss the next shot. 

1) Depth. Probably the most important part of returning a put-away shot takes place with your previous shot. If that shot landed short on the table, then you both have little time to react to the opponent's shot and you have more ground to cover since you've given the opponent a wide angle. So if you are going to make a weak shot that the opponent is going to try to put away, keep the weak shot deep on the table. 

2) Away from Table. You need time to react to the opponent's put-away, so step off the table to give yourself time. Even blockers may have to block from a step back.

3) Ready Stance. You need to be in a proper ready stance that allows you to quickly move in either direction. This means feet at least slightly wide, weight on balls of feet, knees bent, leaning forward slightly from the waist, racket in front of you pointing at the opponent.

4) Watch and Study Opponent. You can read the direction of a put-away shot before your opponent hits the ball. First, watch his shoulders. They usually line up in the direction of a forehand shot. Second, watch the direction of the forward swing, which should also tell you the direction. Third, be aware of the opponent's position. If he's way around his backhand corner but facing toward your backhand, it might be difficult for him to go down the line, and so he'll likely go crosscourt. And fourth, be aware of your opponent's habits. Many players will go the same way over and over, often crosscourt, so if necessary you can anticipate that direction. 

5) Step to Ball. Amateurs react to a hard-hit ball by reaching; top players react by stepping, and reaching only when necessary. Many players believe they just don't have time to step to the ball, but that's because they have developed the habit of reaching instead of the habit of stepping. Learn both; you can cover more ground more quickly if you both step and reach. 

6) Placement. The goal isn't just to return the put-away shot; the goal is to win the point. If you can return a put-away shot, you can also place it. So focus not only on getting the ball back but on placement and depth. Depth is a must or the opponent will just cream the ball again, and likely won't miss. Keep it deep, and he'll both make more mistakes and you'll have a better chance of continuing the rally. If you move the ball side to side you are more likely to force a mistake. 

7) Practice. Of course you can't return a put-away shot in a game if you don't practice it. Can you do anything at a relatively high level in a game without practicing it first? So find ways to practice returning put-aways. It'll not only make you a better practice, it's fun!

8) Confidence. It's not enough to just go through the motions; you have to believe you can do it. If you are confident you can return a shot you won't hesitate to go for the return, and you'll have a much better chance of making the return. Just watch your opponent and the ball and let your subconscious react. With practice, it'll become easier than you'd think. Decide what your primary way of returning a put-away shot will be (blocking, countering, fishing, lobbing, or chopping) and become a master of that shot. 

At the 2004 USA Nationals, Cheng Yinghua, 46, became the oldest Men’s Singles Champion in history, and the four semifinalists averaged over 40 years old. This was unique in a sport that is usually dominated by younger, faster players. When asked what the younger players needed to do to compete with these veterans, four-time U.S. Men’s champ and full-time coach Cheng said, “The younger players had not put enough training time and effort into the fundamentals. 

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.

Some find them boring, but they are probably the three most important things in being a Champion. No one becomes a champion in this sport without a solid foundation in the fundamentals.

Many find it the “boring” part of training, since fundamentals are mostly developed through repetition, but they are absolutely necessary.

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.

They don’t need to be boring. At the beginning level, where repetition isn’t easy, it should be a challenge just to do the repeating strokes. As players advance, they should work in more and more advanced drills, which leads both to more advanced play and more interesting practice.

What are the Fundamentals?

The fundamentals include both proper stroking and footwork technique. Tactics, mental and physical conditioning, even great serve and receive don’t help a lot if you don’t have the fundamentals down.

At its most basic level, table tennis involves moving into position, and then stroking the ball. Along the way, you have to choose which stroke to use, read the incoming ball and adjust the stroke and racket angle to it. But if you can’t move and stroke properly, nothing will help you.

The actual specifics of how to move and stroke are outside the scope of this article. For these, you really need a coach, although videos and books can also help. (Yes, it would take an entire book to cover the fundamentals.) You can find coaches at www.usatt.org/coaching. You can find books and videos from most major table tennis dealers. (Here's where you can find mine.)

The purpose of fundamentals is to develop consistency in your shots. To be consistent, you need to both be in position for each shot, and use the same repeating strokes over and over. That’s what fundamentals are all about.

Footwork Fundamentals

To be a Champion, you have to develop proper footwork to that you are able to catch every ball in your forehand or backhand hitting zones.

Some players just stand at the table, and reach for the ball. If the ball just happens to be in the perhaps one-foot area that’s convenient for their strokes, they hit a good shot. If it’s outside that area, they have to adjust their shot – and so lose consistency. A good player will rarely hit a ball that you don’t have to move to.

Stroking Fundamentals

To be a Champion, you have to develop repeating strokes, strokes that you can do over and over and over and (my god!) over and over and over. At the advanced level, this means many strokes, including forehand and backhand drives, loops, blocks, pushes, flips, and perhaps even lobbing and chopping. It’s hard enough learning all these shots against all the different incoming balls (different spins, speeds, depth, direction, height, etc.). Now imagine having to do so while changing your stroke each time! Instead, develop a simple repeating stroke, and then all you have to do is essentially adjust the racket angle and perhaps the trajectory of the stroke.

Beginning Fundamentals

Many coaches swear by the “100” theory – you don’t work on much of anything else until you can do 100 forehand and 100 backhand drives with a proper stroke. To a beginner, this is a real challenge, and should be an exciting challenge. The same is true of each of the other strokes – they are a challenge at the beginning level, and striving to do a certain number in a row is a challenge. As the stroke is learned, the fundamental footwork should be learned with footwork drills, so moving to each ball and stroking it properly becomes … fundamental.

For each new drill involving a new stroke or some combination of stroking and footwork, beginners can see how many they can do in a row. It’s an exciting challenge, and sometimes they forget along the way that they are getting better and better!

Intermediate & Advanced Fundamentals

At the intermediate level, the player can do all the strokes consistently with proper repeating strokes. At this point, it’s time to get the fundamentals into game-like situations. This means doing drills that include more and more variation, and more and more random drills. Random drills are where the player doesn’t always know where the ball is going. If the fundamentals are mastered, a player can do this, at least at a slower pace. As the player advances, the speed of the drill can speed up. All players have a maximum speed at which they can still maintain the fundamentals; if you go beyond that speed, their fundamentals break down. By drilling, drilling, and more drilling, a player can increase the speed at which they can execute the fundamentals.

Putting it Together

Table tennis has been called chess at hyper speed. Imagine playing chess where you were missing a rook or queen. That’s what playing with poor fundamentals is. Proper fundamentals mean knowing you can execute the shots you call for in any given situation.

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.

The Chinese tend to dominate table tennis worldwide. Most coaches would say that ultimately, the biggest advantage they have over their opponents is stronger fundamentals. It may be fun to play games, and they are important to improving, but the best players spend the majority of their training on … you guessed it, fundamentals. They may do it at a pace that doesn’t seem very fundamental, but that’s because of years and years of developing these fundamentals until they can do them at that pace. Why are they still working on them? So they can do them consistently at an even faster pace against anything an opponent can throw at them.

If you want to be a Champion, you’ll do the same.

The title is a famous quote form Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese military strategist and philosopher. It's from his book The Art of War, but much of it equally applies to sports. This quote capsulizes what should be obvious to table tennis players - that a match is, indeed, won before it begins. Let's look at what goes into winning a match.

First off is your equipment. That is chosen before the match begins.

Next are your techniques, the most important aspect. This means your strokes, serves, receive, and footwork. But these are all developed before the match begins.

Next is the physical aspect. Again, any physical training is done in advance, and other aspects (height, age, health and injuries, etc.) are also determined before the match begins.

Then there's the mental aspect, perhaps the most varied part from match to match. But any mental training (or lack thereof) also comes before the match. Even if you haven't had any mental training, the mental habits you pick up are pretty much set before the match begins. If you are the nervous type who falls apart under pressure, then you were the nervous wreck who falls apart under pressure before the match began. If you are the type who is cool under pressure and plays great when the match is on the line, you were that way coming into the match. If you want to change or improve these aspects, you need to do it before the match.

Finally, there is your tactical game. But again, your tactical skills (or lack thereof) were developed before the match. If you have a coach, that is normally arranged before the match. And if you want to scout your opponent out before the match starts or talk to someone who knows the player, and develop a tactical plan, that too takes place before the match.

Now anyone can get technical and point out that no matter how much preparation you do there is still some randomness - nets and edges, how well the opponent plays, even the accuracy of advice given from others. But while these are unknowns going into the match, it is your preparation before the match that sets the chances of your winning, given the circumstances. This includes the mental aspect, the part that most varies from match to match for most players. Players are often stronger mentally in some matches than others - which really shows a mental weakness in the times when they are not mentally strong, something that can be overcome with sports psychology training. But the preparation before the match sets the odds of being mentally strong in a given match. Perhaps the article could better be titled, "The Odds of Winning a Match Are Set Before the Match Begins." But in the long run, it's the same thing.

So the next time you are getting ready to play a tournament, don't worry about how well you'll play. Worry about how well you've prepared. 

This tip is a bit technical mostly for higher-level players, but it is also for those who wish to understand the game at those higher levels. Thinking about spins and reacting to them in the way that we'll here might give you a headache. You have been warned.

With practice, most players can learn to push short against a simple short backspin serve. (Here's a Tip of the Week, Pushing Short.) However, it takes lots of practice to be able to do this in a match where you don't know in advance what type of serve you'll be getting. The problem with pushing short isn't so much against backspin serves, but against sidespin serves, which are often pushed back high and to the side. (Another problem is pushing short against no-spin serves that look like backspin, where you have to chop down on the ball, but that's a separate issue.) There's a somewhat simple trick for pushing these sidespin serves short.

Imagine a forehand pendulum serve (or another serve with this type spin) coming short to your backhand with mostly sidespin and perhaps some backspin. (We're assuming both players are righties; lefties can adjust.) If you try pushing short and don't adjust properly, the ball pops up and to your right. It's almost like pushing against a topspin. Now drop your racket tip some, and meet the ball a little on the bottom right side with a grazing motion, with a slightly downward motion. Instead of popping up to your right as it would when you push against sidespin, it'll go out as if you were pushing a backspin because you are now meeting the spin head-on, as if pushing against a backspin. With this technique, you'll find it much easier to drop the ball short to the left, i.e. short to the opponent's forehand. 

Now imagine a backhand serve (or another serve with this type spin) coming short to your backhand with mostly sidespin and perhaps some backspin. If you try pushing short and don't adjust properly, the ball pops up and to your left. Again, it's almost like pushing against a topspin. Now raise your racket tip some, and meet the ball a little on the bottom left side with a grazing motion, with a slightly downward motion. Instead of popping up to the left as it would when you push against sidespin, it'll go out as if you were pushing a backspin because you are again meeting the spin head-on, as if pushing against a backspin. With this technique, you'll find it much easier to drop the ball short to the right, i.e. short to the opponent's backhand. 

With some adjustments, you can use this type of technique to drop the ball anywhere, but in general on the backhand side it's easier to drop a forehand pendulum serve type spin short to the forehand, and a backhand serve type spin to the backhand side. You can make the same adjustments with your forehand push, raising the racket tip some against forehand pendulum serve type spins, lowering it against backhand serve type spins. With practice, you'll find dropping the ball short against a short sidespin to be as easy as doing it against a short backspin. (Of course, pushing short against short backspin isn't "easy" unless you practice it to develop the light touch necessary - but it's a valuable tool to have against many players, so learn to do so.) 

If you are having trouble visualizing all this, then imagine the opponent's forehand pendulum sidespin serve. Take a ball and actually rotate it with that type of spin as it comes toward you. Now imagine pushing it, and see how it would jump to the right (the opponent's backhand). Now drop the racket tip, and presto - you are meeting the spin head-on, like pushing backspin to backspin, and thereby getting much more control, just as you do when pushing against a backspin. 

The same technique can also be used to push long, but is not always as effective there since for deep pushes you want to maximize the backspin. For this, you'd more likely just aim the opposite way as the sidespin, and chop down on the ball. 

The middle is the weakest spot for most players. When I say middle, I don't mean the middle of the table; it's the mid-point between the opponent's forehand and backhand, usually where the playing elbow is. Most beginning players play to the opponent's forehand or backhand, while most intermediate players play wider angles. Advanced players know that while angled attacks are good, the best place for the first attack (and often follow-up attacks) is right at the middle.

Why is the middle so weak when attacked? There are five (yes, five!) primary reasons.

1. The player has to make a decision on whether to play forehand or backhand, and often hesitates. When the ball goes to the forehand or backhand there is no such decision to make.
2. The player has to move in an uncomfortable direction. Most players find moving wide to cover the forehand or backhand an easier move since you are moving into the shot. Covering the middle means essentially getting out of the way of the ball, which is usually a more difficult move. 
3. When you attack the middle, it forces your opponent to move out of position to cover it. This opens up the corners. One of the best one-two combos is an attack to the middle followed by an angled attack. Or you can go to the middle a second or third time as your opponent struggles to cover it. 
4. Attacking the middle takes away the extreme angles for your opponent. If you attack a wide corner, your opponent can return at an equally wide angle.
5. Players don't get much practice covering the middle, both because opponents don't give them this shot much until the higher levels, and because most don't practice against it. (Here are three Tips on covering the middle: Covering the Middle; Covering and Recovering From the Middle; and Covering the Middle with the Forehand.)

Attacking the middle isn't just an option; it should be the default place to attack unless you have a reason to go elsewhere, such as an open corner, a slow opponent who doesn't cover the corners well, or an opponent who is weaker on one side. The nice thing about attacking the middle is that even if the opponent knows it's coming he can't really prepare for it. If he tries to favor one side to cover it, you simply move your target over to compensate.

While you should usually be aggressive when going to the middle, there are at least two other times you might go to the middle with a less aggressive shot. First, against a two-winged attacker, you might serve or push deep to the middle to make him decide whether to forehand or backhand attack and then move to do so. Second, going to the middle cuts off the angles, so a passive shot can't be attacked at a wide angle. (But a smart opponent might instead attack your middle!)  

Why don't players attack the middle more often? There are two primary reasons. First, it's difficult to hit because it's a moving target. When you attack the wide forehand or wide backhand, it's the same place no matter who you play. But the middle changes not only from player to player but throughout the rally against the same opponent, depending on where he is standing or looking to do. (An example of the latter is if the opponent is looking to attack with his forehand, then going to his middle only gives him an easier forehand, so his "middle" moves toward his backhand side.) The only way to develop the ability to attack this moving target is by doing it over and over in matches and drills until it becomes second nature. And this leads to the second reason players don't attack the middle more often: because they don't practice attacking the middle.  

Most players practice their attacks either crosscourt or down the line to their partner's block, and so they go to the partner's forehand or backhand, over and over. This becomes a habit. If all one does is attack to the forehand or backhand in practice, how likely is the player going to go to the middle in a match? You have to practice it if you want to do it in a match. Here are some drills you can do to practice attacking the middle.

1. Attack the Middle Drill. Have your practice partner stand in a neutral position so you can see where his middle is. Then drill into that spot, either looping or hitting. Your practice partner blocks moves over and blocks, either all forehand or all backhand. However, there are two variations to this. You partner can also block with either all backhand or forehand, but moves back to a neutral position after each shot, so he can practice moving to cover the middle. A third way, the most difficult, is he stands in a neutral position and blocks back either forehand or backhand.
2. Serve and Attack Middle Drill. You serve backspin, your partner pushes back (either to a pre-arranged spot or random), and you attack his middle. Then play out the point.
3. Practice Matches. Play practice matches where your first attack goes to the middle every time.

So learn to attack the middle, and soon you'll leave the middle of the pack as you move up the ladder of table tennis success!