By Larry Hodges

Table tennis is supposed to be fun. And nothing (except perhaps lobbing) is as fun as counterlooping. There is something magical about throwing yourself into the ball from off the table and arcing the ball back on the table with topspin. If you haven’t counterlooped, you’ve missed out on quite a lot--but you have a lot to look forward to. Unlike lobbing, however, counterlooping is an important part of most top player’s games, and if you’re a serious player, you need to learn how to do it.

By Larry Hodges

The most basic and common third-ball attack in table tennis is to serve short backspin, and loop the receiver’s push return. Many players find it very difficult to stop this pattern when receiving, and end up losing match after match to this one tactic.
The next time you face this tactic, try one of the following:

By Larry Hodges

Many players practice looping against both backspin and topspin, against blocks, pushes, chops and loops, even against (!) lobs. However, once they get into a game, they find all this practice to no avail as they loop serve after serve off the end or into the net.
The problem is they are not used to looping against a sidespin serve. There are two things to be considered when doing so.

By Larry Hodges

Returning a short serve, especially one to the forehand, can be quite difficult. Most players don’t understand the techniques used in returning short serves, often making them easy prey for a good server.

By Larry Hodges

One of the most underrated strengths in table tennis is the ability to serve very low. How high your serve bounces on the far side of the table makes a big difference in how much clearance your opponent has in returning it. A very low serve means the opponent has to lift the ball, which makes an aggressive return difficult. A higher serve gives the receiver the clearance to be more aggressive.

By Larry Hodges

One of the most effective serves in table tennis is the high-toss serve. First used effectively by the Chinese, it is now used, at least sometimes, by almost all top players. Since the ball drops further on the high-toss than on the short toss, and so at contact point is traveling much faster than it would otherwise, the high-toss server can often deceptively throw an opponent’s timing off by unpredictably choosing to put more or less spin on the ball than he would normally.

By Larry Hodges

One of the most fundamental rules of serving is that you have to be able to serve short. A deep serve may be effective against some players, and up to a certain level, it may always be, but if you cannot serve short, you will always be handicapped against most good players.

By Larry Hodges

Serving deep has one major advantage and one major disadvantage. The advantage is that it forces an opponent to contact the ball as far from his/her target (your side of the table) as possible. The disadvantage is that it allows an opponent to attack more readily, especially with a loop drive. (Note – a short serve is a serve that, if given the chance, would bounce twice on the opponent’s side of the table.)

By Larry Hodges

Many players, when serving, move the racket as rapidly as possible in a straight line through contact. With good racket speed and a grazing contact, you can get great spin this way--but little deception.

If you want to really fool your opponent – make him push way up in the air, go off the side, or block the ball into the net--you have to use semi-circular motion.

By Larry Hodges

One of the first things table tennis players are taught is how to put spin on their serve. So it comes as quite a surprise to many to find that most top players often serve with no-spin. What is the purpose of this?