The best advice I ever received about blocking was to think of it as “Smothering the table.” I don’t remember who told me this, but the advice really works. The point is that blocking should be a quick shot, and to do that, you have to stay close to the table, i.e. “smother it.”

A key part here is on shots to the wide corners. It’s common for players to move sideways to get to these. As they move, the ball angles away from them, and so they are late on getting to the ball. This means either they can’t get to the ball, or they take it late, giving the opponent more time to react. It also means that since you are moving sideways, it’s difficult to give the ball a good, firm block, and so end up just getting the ball back weakly. It also leaves you wide to that corner, out of position and unlikely to cover a strong attack to the other corner.

Worse, when covering the wide backhand, many players twist or rotate their body and end up facing sideways as they flail at the ball, leaving them in an impossible position to make a good block.

So, how should you cover those wide corners? You should move both sideways and in at the ball, cutting it off before it has a chance to bounce out wide. Remember that idea of smothering the table? If you think of yourself as smothering the table, you can move quickly toward the ball and make a quick, effective return, without moving out of position.

So, next time you are forced to defend against an opponent’s wide attacks, smother the table . . . and you’ll end up smothering your opponent with firm and consistent blocks!

Placement is key to winning, in two ways. First, if you place the ball where your opponent is weakest, you put him in the weakest position possible. That’s obvious. Second, it’s not just picking the right placement, but placing it in the most extreme way. This is especially true when playing to the corners, where playing the corners might be safest, but playing even outside the covers might cause the most havoc for your opponent.

But the part that many miss is that good placement leads to good consistency. How? Many players hit their shots with a vague idea of where they want to go, and hit the ball to that vague area. It might be to the forehand or backhand, or to the middle (roughly the opponent’s playing elbow, roughly midway between forehand and backhand).

But if you literally pick a spot on the table to aim at each time, two things will happen. First, you’ll get even better placement as aiming for a specific spot is better than a vague idea of where you are going. Second, aiming for a target leads to greater precision, and thereby more consistency. It’s the difference between throwing darts in the general direction of a dartboard, and aiming for the bullseye. With the latter, you’ll not only get more bullseyes, but you’ll also be far more consistent in at least hitting the dartboard!

At first you might have to consciously aim for a spot. But once you make this a habit, it becomes subconscious, and every time you hit a shot, you’ll be aiming for a specific spot on the table. Most table tennis tactics have to become instinctive as you don’t have time to think things over, and the same goes for placement. Make this a habit, and it’ll become so instinctive that you’ll often be left admiring the brilliant placements made by your subconscious – but you’ll get the credit!!!

Note that in fast rallies, you don’t have time to consciously choose a target and aim for it. Many players think they do, but what’s really happening is your subconscious does this, and as it does, your conscious mind sees what’s happening and (egomaniacs that we are), takes credit for it.

So, choose your targets, and watch the consistency and winning go up!

Many players use running to get in shape for table tennis and other activities, or simply for health reasons. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you get the same thing if you shadow practice your footwork for the same amount of time, plus you develop the footwork technique and the specific muscles used for those movements.

So, if you are a table tennis player who wants to get in shape, rather than run two miles (~15 minutes), why not develop a 15-minute shadow practice routine? You don’t need a table for this, just enough room to imagine there is one that you can move about. Imagine the major table tennis footwork drills, and create a routine. Decide on your own how long you can do each drill – perhaps sixty seconds, then rest ten seconds, repeat. Perhaps do each drill two times. For example:

1. Forehand-Forehand side to side (from wide forehand and middle)
2. Backhand-Backhand side to side (from wide backhand and middle)
3. Forehand-Backhand side to side (corner to corner)
4. Backhand-Forehand-Forehand (backhand from backhand corner, forehand from backhand corner, forehand from forehand corner, repeat)
5. Three-point Forehands (forehand from forehand corner, middle, backhand, middle, forehand, repeat)
6. In-Out Footwork (reach in for short ball to forehand, step back for forehand or backhand loop)

If you do each of these six drills for sixty seconds, with ten seconds in between, that’s seven minutes. Do the routine twice and that’s 14 minutes, or even three times and it’s 21 minutes. Do this three times a week, you’ll get in great shape AND your table tennis footwork and strokes will get better! (Feel free to adjust the various times based on your age and current fitness level.)

(Excerpt from Table Tennis Doubles for Champions by Larry Hodges. April is Doubles Month!)

Historically, most players received with their forehands. This made it easier to forehand loop any serve that went even slightly long. (Some players, even back then, were better with backhand loops and so received backhand, but they were a minority.) Also, in the days before the “banana flip,” many players were stronger flipping against short serves with their forehand than their backhand.

Then came the backhand banana flip, and everything changed. The banana flip allows a player to reach over the table and more easily attack a short ball with the backhand, essentially looping it. It’s basically a mini-loop against a short ball. It now dominates in singles at the advanced levels. (A photo sequence of this is coming up. You might also go to Youtube and do a search for “Backhand Banana Flip.”) However, banana flips take a lot of practice, so below the elite level a more conventional backhand flip works, which is essentially a backhand drive against a short ball, especially against short backspin, where you drive up and forward, with light topspin. (The same is true of the forehand flip, which is done now about the same as it was done forty years ago.)

It’s also thrown the whole forehand-or-backhand receive into question. Even if you don’t really have a backhand banana flip, more and more players these days prefer to backhand flip against short balls rather than forehand flip. You have three options:

1. Receive forehand. This is the more conventional way and puts you in position to forehand loop any ball that goes even a little bit long. If the ball’s short, you can forehand flip, or push short or long.
2. Receive backhand. This allows you to reach over the table and backhand banana flip. If your backhand flip is more conventional, you still may prefer this. However, it means you’ll be using your backhand against long serves as well. If you have a good backhand loop or drive to go along with your backhand flip, then this is often the preferred method. At lower levels, where you can get away more with pushing (even against long serves), this is also common as most players have more control on the backhand side. If the opponents play passive, then by all means receive backhand and push more, especially if your partner has a good attack against backspin.
3. Hybrid forehand and backhand receive. For this, you set up as if receiving forehand. If the serve goes long, you forehand loop. If the serve goes short, you step over and in and receive backhand, pushing or flipping, since many players do this both better on the backhand side. This takes practice as you have to make a quick judgement call on whether the serve is long or short. But it may give you the best of both worlds—forehand loop against long serves, backhand against short serves. Personally, I like to receive forehand against most serves, but against short backhand sidespin serves (or a lefty’s forehand pendulum serve), I (and many others) find it easier to receive backhand, and so will either switch if I see this serve going short, or even set up for a backhand receive.

Receivers should normally set up to receive with their strongest receiving side against serves. If they are stronger on the backhand or have a good banana flip, then they may receive backhand, even though the serve is going to the forehand corner. The main exception is if you have a lefty-righty team, where if the righty received backhand, he’d be in the lefty’s way

As note earlier, in the past, most players received forehand. These days many players are so much better receiving short serves with the backhand (often with banana flips) that as long as they can also loop the deep serve with the backhand, more and more are receiving backhand. However, if you are uncomfortable looping deep serves with your backhand, then you should probably receive forehand.

When receiving in doubles, be ready to attack any deep serve, mostly by looping. Vary the receive against short serves, but don’t push deep too often or your partner may be faced with a strong attack. Mix in well-placed short and long pushes, and flips. It’s often effective to attack the ball wide to the server’s side so that he gets in the way of his partner. If the server’s partner has a good loop, and the server is serving short backspin or no-spin, the ideal receive is often a short push. (If you have good touch, you may even drop short sidespin-topspin serves short by chopping down on the ball with a light grazing touch.)

Short serves to the wide forehand give the receiver a wide angle to the opponents’ wide forehand, which can cause havoc for the serving team, as noted in the section above on Doubles Serves. Use them sparingly . . . unless the receiver has trouble with them! It brings the receiver over the table and a quick return right back at the receiver often tangles the opponents up.

(Excerpt from Table Tennis Doubles for Champions by Larry Hodges. April is Doubles Month!)

In both singles and doubles, I usually advise players to choose to receive first, if they win the choice at the start of the match. This is the time when a player is most likely to miss easy shots—he may not yet be fully warmed up or he may still have early-match jitters—and it’s better to blow a couple points receiving than on your serve, where you hope to win a majority of the points. It also means you’ll be serving at the end, such as at 9-all, when there’s lots of pressure!

In doubles, it’s even more important to receive first. This allows you to set the order of play for the match. (Remember that in doubles, whichever team serves first has to choose which player serves first, and then the receiving pair sets the order for that game by choosing the receiver, with the order changing each game and when a team reaches five in the fifth.) You want to set an order that favors your team. How do you do this?

Suppose you have an order that favors your team, while the other team is favored with the other order. If you start the match with the bad order, then you may lose the first and third games, win the second and fourth, and start out the fifth by falling behind—but halfway through the fifth game, you’ll switch sides and the order of play, and then you’ll be in the good order in the second half of the fifth game, when the match is on the line. And if the two orders even out in that fifth game and you reach deuce, you’ll have the good order at deuce, and probably win. So, surprisingly, it is often an advantage to start out a match with the “bad order.”

However, you don’t really change the order halfway through the fifth game; you do so when a team reaches five. What does this mean?

• Short version: It means you play more points after switching sides and order of play when a team reaches five.
• Long version: Suppose your team starts the fifth game with the bad order. Suppose your team is down 4-5 when you switch sides in the fifth, and then the order changes to the better order, and now you outscore the other team 5-4. It’s now 9-9, and you have the good order, both here and at deuce! Or suppose the order makes an even bigger difference, and you are down 3-5 at the switch, and then outscore them 5-3 with the good order. Then it’s only 8-all, and you have the good order the rest of the way! So I recommend starting with the weaker order in the first game so that you’ll have the strong order at the end of the fifth game.

It’s actually more complicated than this, since about half the time you will only play two points when you reach deuce, and so the whole order of play—four different servers (and corresponding receivers) in a given game—is reduced to only two, and so the order that favors you overall might not favor you for those particular two. Few if anyone actually works it out that far, but it’s something to consider in a big match.

The main reason to choose to serve first is if you or your partner needs to build up confidence, and so prefer to serve first. If you have a very nervous team (compared to your opponents), then you might consider this, though you might want to consult a sports psychologist later on.