Let’s get right to the point – you must lose to improve. Why? Because developing your game means adding new techniques. When you add these techniques, they won’t be developed yet, so they won’t be consistent nor will you be comfortable yet in using them.

Most players have their “comfort zones.” If you stick with your comfort zone techniques, you won’t develop other ones, and so your overall game will stop advancing. Sure, you can improve the shots you already have, but you won’t be adding anything new, and so your development will be hindered and you will never reach your maximum potential.

For example, my comfort zone when I was coming up was to serve and forehand attack, and when the opponent served, to either attack the serve with my forehand (both looping and flipping) or get into a steady backhand rally, often started with a steady but relatively soft backhand flip. Notice what’s missing here? No backhand attack. So, if I could go back to my younger, developing self, I would tell myself to get out of that comfort zone and develop my backhand attack.

Since I didn’t, as I reached higher levels, players got used to my serve and forehand attack game, and I had no real fallback, such as mixing things up with a serve and backhand loop. Or they’d drop my serve short and then quick-push to my wide backhand, and I’d be stuck with either a weak backhand loop, a rushed forehand loop, or just pushing it back. Or they’d just push or flip my serve wide to my forehand and quick block my first attack to my backhand. In rallies, they’d tee off against my steady but not aggressive backhand. All because I never left my comfort zone of forehand attack/steady backhand. (In my defense, I had numerous arm problems that also hindered my backhand attack development, but that’s another story.)

The first thing to do is to think strategically about what new techniques you need to develop. Perhaps discuss it with a coach, top player, or practice partner. Once you have a good idea of what you need to develop, you know what’s coming next – practice, Practice, PRACTICE. And then comes the final part – using it in games. This means losing against players you might have beaten if you stayed in your normal comfort zone. You should look to play weaker players as you develop the new technique, and when you can win there, then use it against your peers. Ideally, do this in practice matches or perhaps in less important tournaments. But the goal is to welcome this new technique into your comfort zone.

When you miss a shot, how do you react? If your first reaction is anger or disgust, you are going about it all wrong. Yes, some top players do show anger or disgust when they miss a shot, but that’s usually a secondary reaction, one that hits them only after their first and primary reaction.

And what is that first and primary reaction? Surprise.

If you want to improve, you need to have the mindset that you expect to make every shot you attempt. If you have that mindset, then you can get the conscious mind out of the equation and let your training – i.e. your subconscious – take over, so that the shots come fluidly and naturally. And if you do have this mindset, then when you do miss a shot, you will be surprised, because missing was unexpected.

The first step toward this mindset is understanding that you don’t have to develop your shots to a high level before you should expect them to hit. The expectation needs to come first, to better allow you to reach the level where they really do almost all hit.

The second step is to stop worrying about winning so as to take the pressure off individual shots. Then you can just let go and let your training take over in the knowledge that that is the best way to maximize your performance, and thereby maximize your winning. Then, when you miss, instead of anger or disgust at losing a point, you are merely surprised you missed a shot you know you can make every time. (No, that is not literally true, but if you believe it when you play, you’ll maximize how often you make that shot.)

The third and final step? Practice, practice, practice, so that this expectation that you can make every shot becomes closer and closer to reality, to the point that, unless the opponent does something to make your shot difficult, you will make nearly every shot where you aren’t pressed to the limit – and when you do miss one, you will be surprised since, with practice, you know you can make that shot every time.

If, deep down, you fully expect to make your shots, and thereby fully expect to win, then you will not be nervous. To use a metaphor, deep down, you expect to be able to walk, and so are not nervous about falling down and breaking your leg. Same mentality. But it all comes down to learning to expect to make every shot.

The grand test for whether this is working comes the very next time you miss a shot. Were you surprised?

It’s important to play to all three spots – wide forehand, wide backhand, and the middle (the mid-point between the opponent’s forehand and backhand, roughly their playing elbow). But often players inadvertently only play to two of them, and opponents, either consciously or (more often) subconsciously pick up on this and so only have to guard against two spots.

Suppose you attack the opponent’s wide forehand. It draws him out of position as he makes his shot. Then, as his shot comes toward you, he moves back into position as he has to guard both the middle and that wide backhand. Many players, after drawing a player out of position by going to one of these spots, automatically goes to one of the other two spots – meaning the opponent only has to guard those two spots.

Instead, often play the same spot twice in a row. Be aware of what your opponent is doing. If you’ve played a wide corner and your opponent is way out of position, then probably go back to the other wide corner. But often the opponent expects that and recovers quickly to cover the other wide corner – but in quickly vacating the first corner he leaves it wide open. So, play two shots in a row and watch him flail about trying to recover for it! It forces the opponent to make two opposite moves – a quick move back into position after the first shot, and a quick move right back for the second shot.

This also works when you attack the middle. To cover it, the opponent has to move out of position to play either a forehand or backhand from the middle. Immediately afterwards he likely moves back into position so he can cover both wide corners – thereby leaving the middle once again open, where (if you attack it), he has to again decide whether to cover it with the forehand or backhand and move to do so. Not an easy thing to do!

And the nice thing about this is that hitting to the same spot twice often means you do the same shot twice, meaning the second one is easier.

So, learn to move your opponent around by not moving your shot around!

There are two reasons for practicing down-the-line shots. First, because in games you want to use the whole table so the opponent has to cover the whole table, and to do that you need to be able to play wide in both directions, crosscourt and down the line.

Second, to quote USTT Hall of Famer David Sakai, who I used to practice with regularly, “If you can attack down the line consistently, then crosscourt is easy.” And it’s true – crosscourt, the table is about 10 feet 3.5 inches, while down the line it’s only 9 feet, so you have a shorter target. If you can attack down the line, then that extra 15.5 inches crosscourt looks HUGE! So, one of the best drills is to simply attack down the line (forehand or backhand) while your partner blocks. (At the advanced level, players might even try counterlooping down the line.) Focus on consistency and placement. On the forehand, it means adjusting your foot positioning a bit (right foot more back for righties), turning the shoulders back, and taking the ball a little later (relative to the body) than usual so you can better line up the shot.

You can let the ball come out more so you can better line up the shot down the line with the forehand. But if you have time, you can also step in a bit while rotating your body to the right, allowing you to hit the ball just as quickly as usual, but with your body a bit closer to the table, allowing you to take the ball later, relative to the body. (Another option is hitting the ball inside-out, often with inside-out sidespin, but that’s perhaps for another tip.)

It might be helpful in a drill to put towels or another long object that blocks off the inner half of the court each player is hitting to and from. This forces both the attacker and blocker to keep the ball within perhaps 15 inches of the sideline (less for advanced players). Try to keep the ball more toward the sideline side of those 15 inches – if you miss, it’s better here to go too wide, not toward the middle of the table. This is how you learn to play the ball wide down the line.

One variation – put a target on the wide forehand side opposite the attacking player. After they’ve made five or more strong shots down the line, they have the option of “ending” the point with a crosscourt winner where they try to hit the target.

The simple answer to this question, for most people, is obvious: WIN!. But there are really four things you should be doing in that first game.

First, you want to force your game on your opponent. This means both finding ways to set up your shots and getting those shots going. If you do this successfully, you’ll dominate from the start and won’t have to worry about the other three things I’m going to talk about. (But if you are really dominant, then you need to find stronger competition.)

Second, you want to adjust to your opponent. This partly goes with the first item above, where you are looking to set up your shots – and to do that, you need to figure out what your opponent does. For example, suppose you like to follow your short serves with a forehand (like me). But if your opponent pushes your serve aggressively to wide corners and quick-blocks if you go out of position, then you might have to adjust and loop from both wings. Or you might have to go to perhaps side-top or deep serves to stop that quick push. However, the bigger issue here is adjusting to an unorthodox opponent. It might be one with a weird stroke or with a surface you aren’t used to. You absolutely do not want to go into game two still uncomfortable with what your opponent is doing, so adjust in the first game.

Third, find a way to win. This could be the first item, but the first two items are ways to make sure you win. But if those two items don’t ensure a win, then find a way. For example, I used to be a slow starter, taking a game to get my shots going – and so I often relied on tricky serves to win the first game, and then the rest of my game would catch up. (Meaning, of course, that my opponent would see all my tricky serves in the first game, making them less effective the rest of the way.) There are all sorts of scrappy ways to throw an opponent off for the few points needed to win a game – a sudden heavy push, a slow spinny loop, an angled block, and so on.

And fourth, in the first game you should learn what you need to do to win the match, even if you lost the first game. It’s better to lose the first game but know with certainty how to beat the opponent, then to win the first game by luck (nets and edges, opponent missing easy shots, blow a big lead as the opponent figures out how to play you but barely comes up short, etc.), and go into the second game uncomfortable and unsure of what to do.

Bring this foursome to the table and you’ll be a force to fear!