Many players do not really prioritize the importance of getting back into position after every shot. Instead, they might move two feet to hit a shot, and perhaps step back a foot, and think that’s good enough. It’s not. Unless you simply do not have time to do so, you should always get into the best possible position you can.

So, where should you position yourself after each shot in a rally? It depends on the shot you just sent to your opponent, its placement and depth, and on the playing styles of both you and your opponent. And then it comes down to knowing what the proper position should be, and instinctively moving there.

For example, if you hit a shot to the left (opponent’s right), then he has an angle to your right, and so you’d have to position yourself more that way. But the exact positioning is also based on the opponent. If he’s good at angling, then you have to cover that angle more. If he plays slower shots, then you can move a bit to the side to favor your stronger side. If your shot goes deep, you’ll likely have more time to react to the return, and so you can also favor your stronger side a bit more.

You should, of course, also position yourself to favor your strong side if you have one. Some favor the forehand; some the backhand; some play completely neutral. This is where you might do some self-analysis and decide just where in this spectrum you are at your best against any given opponent.

One last note – you should generally NOT be moving as the opponent hits his shot unless you’ve anticipated where it’s going and are already moving there. If you are out of position and scrambling to get back into position, the opponent will likely just hit behind you, and since you are moving away from that spot, you won’t be able to recover. So, if you are way, Way, WAY out of position, then unless you’ve left the table completely open, it’s usually better to get as much into position as you can, then come to a complete stop in a good ready position. Then, once you see where the opponent hits, you’ll be able to move quickly in either direction – and unless it’s a very aggressive shot, you’ll likely be able to at least get to it even if you are out of position. Or, at least you’ll make the opponent hit an aggressive shot, which he might miss!

Where to position yourself on the receive is one of those things that has evolved over the years, especially with the advent of the banana backhand flip. There was a time when many top players favored forehand receives, even against short serves. (I was one.) But now many players are better receiving backhand against short serves, but forehand against longer serves. What should you do? Well . . . it depends on your own receive strengths and weaknesses. There are four main cases.

1) You could just receive where the ball is served, forehand or backhand. If you are weaker on some of these receives on one wing, then by doing it regularly it’ll get better. This is the simplest way to deal with this. But it’s not for everyone.

2) If you are stronger on the backhand against most serves, short or long, then you should of course favor that. Other than perhaps a deep serve to the wide forehand, you can receive almost everything with the backhand if you choose. In this case, you might position yourself well toward your forehand side, and unleash heck on your opponent with your backhand.

3)The same is true if you are stronger on the forehand against most serves, short or long (as I used to be). In this case, you stand as far to your backhand side as you can and are still able to cover any deep serves to your forehand. Some players do not have a good, fast, down-the-line serve (assuming they are serving from their backhand side, as most do), and if they don’t, you can favor the forehand receive even more. Against a player like this, I used to sometimes practically stand outside my backhand corner!

4) The final case is if you favor your backhand against short serves, but your forehand against deep serves. (I’ve evolved to that state.) This is true of most top players. So, what should you do? First, of course, many top players simply train hard to develop their backhand loop receive so they can use it against both short and long serves effectively. This allows them to really cover the table with their backhand receive, knowing that at the higher levels, they’ll get more short serves than long ones. (They’ll also get a lot of “half-long” serves, where the second bounce would be at or just off the end-line – but you can loop these serves, so for our purposes treat them as long serves. Note that even if the second bounce is right at the end-line, that’s long enough to loop – you simply go slightly over the table.)

But if you prefer receiving with the backhand against short serves, and the forehand against deep serves, then what? If you stand more in a backhand position, you’ll be fine against short serves, but you’ll be stuck with your backhand against deep serves unless you have super-human speed and reactions. Instead, it’s perhaps better in this case to favor the forehand, and look to cover as much of the table as you can against deeps serves with the forehand. When you get a short serve, you simply step over and receive backhand. It’s as simple as that. Short serves cannot come at you fast, so you have more time than against an aggressive deep serve. There are highly athletic players who are literally able to forehand loop against a deep serve to the backhand, and backhand flip against a short serve to the forehand.

HOWEVER . . . having said all that, it’s probably best to simply vary your receive positioning, based on the server, and sometimes vary it even as he’s serving, so he doesn’t know what side you are favoring. Trying to cover the whole table with your forehand against deep serves and the whole table with your backhand against short serves is exceedingly difficult and not really recommended. But if you vary your receiving position, both at the start and as the server is serving, then he’ll never know what to do, and you’ll more likely get to receive the way you want to. Personally, I find that even at age 65, I can pretty much cover the entire table with my forehand against deep serves (except sometimes against fast serves to the very wide backhand), while still covering 3/4 of the table with my backhand against short serves, receiving forehand only against short ones to the wide forehand. Or I can cover the entire table with my backhand against short serves, and 3/4 of the table with my forehand against deep serves, receiving backhand there only against deep serves to the wide backhand.

Note the one option I didn’t cover – those who favor receiving short serves with the forehand, and deep serves with the backhand. If this is true for you, then you are a Martian or something as I’ve ever seen anyone who does this!

Where should you position yourself after serving? It depends on your playing style, footspeed, and the opponent.

If, for example, you favor your forehand, then you might position yourself toward your backhand side, so as to cover as much of the table as possible with the forehand. There are two things to take into account on this.

The first is obvious: how fast are you? If you are pretty fast, then you can favor the forehand even more.

Second, against any given serve, how big a threat is the receiver to return it aggressively to your wide forehand? If he can do that, then you have to be able to cover that shot, and so can’t favor the forehand as much. However, if he’s only going to push the serve back passively, then you can position yourself even more toward the backhand side. If you are in decent shape, you should be able to serve and attack every passively pushed receive with your forehand.

Note that I referred to passive pushes. Stronger players can push quick and aggressively, and so you have less time to get to them – and against them, you’d have to stay more in position or they are liable to get you with a quick push to a wide corner. (They might also be able to push short, but that’s another issue.)

The above used the example of a player who favors his forehand (like me). However, all of this applies equally to a player who favors the backhand. I’ve seen and played players with dominating backhands – and some of them will even backhand loop from the forehand side!

One final thing to remember – if you go out of position to favor your stronger side, recover quickly back into position! (See Positioning Part 4: Recovery, which will come up in three weeks.)

What’s the biggest threat from your opponent? One of the best ways to consistently beat weaker players (i.e., avoid upsets) as well as knock off stronger players is to neutralize whatever his biggest threat is. It’s hard for an opponent to win if he can’t use his biggest strength!

You don’t want to overdo this. Ideally, you dominate with your strengths. But if you and your opponent both have strengths, then whoever takes away or handles the opponent’s strengths best is the likely winner.

So, how do you do this? That would require an entire book! (Yes, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers comes to mind.) But more simply, it comes down to three things:

1. Identify their strengths that threaten you.
2. Find ways to stop them from using the strength.
3. Find ways to handle that strength.

I’m going to use the example of a player I played a year ago in a tournament. He was rated much lower, and shouldn’t have been a threat. But that type of thinking is the quickest way to lose to such a weaker player. So, what did I do?

1. I identified his biggest threat, which was his tricky long serves. So, while he played a match, I nonchalantly stood on the far side, watching his serve as if I were the receiver. By the time we played our match, I was used to that serve, and the strength was mostly gone.
2. How did I stop him from using that strength? Once I had seen the serve enough, I felt confident I could loop them. When I did that, he was forced to serve shorter, simpler serves, which made his serve less effective.
3. Once he began serving shorter, the threat of the long, tricky serves was gone, and I won easily.

Result? The player was not a threat. But if I hadn’t gone through the above, then there was a chance that at least the first game would have been iffy. And giving up the first game is the first step toward a bad upset. Worse, once you lose that first game, it’s easy to lose confidence in your shots, and it’s all downhill from there.

Here's another example. suppose your opponent has a nice backhand loop against push. How do you prepare?

1. You've already identified the strength that threatens you.
2. How do you stop it? Suppose he serves short backspin. Most players would probably just push it back to his backhand, giving him his strength. Instead, you can: push aggressively to the backhand (quick, fast, heavy, low, wide), and see if he can handle that; push aggressively to forehand; push aggressively to middle (his playing elbow); push short; flip; sidespin push. That's a lot of options!
3. How do you handle his backhand loop? Go watch him play from the far side. When he backhand loops, imagine yourself blocking it. Use your racket and actually make the motion, perhaps matching his opponent's blocks when they are effective. Then visualize doing so in your head, over and over. By the time you actually play, you'll be used to it. Perhaps start by pushing aggressively to the backhand, and establish that you are now comfortable blocking it - more than once, if necessary. (But if you still have trouble with it, perhaps use more of #2 above.)

So, why risk losing? PREPARE!

The short answer is . . . whenever you want to. But that ignores a problem players face when both competing and trying to improve.

Let’s supposed you’ve spent a lot of time working new techniques, but haven’t quite perfected them yet. If you play in a tournament, you will be strongly tempted to fall back on what worked for you before . . . thereby setting your training back who knows how much. Think about it – you’ve spent all this time developing new, more advanced skills, and then you re-enforce the old bad habits by falling back into them in the tournament! You’ve literally told your subconscious to forget all that training, let’s go back to the old ways. How much training will it take to undo that?

So, if you think you will fall back into bad habits, then generally avoid tournaments until you are more ready. A very general guideline is it takes perhaps six months to incorporate into practice a new skill. So, perhaps take those six months to do so, and then play tournaments again.

HOWEVER . . . if you are the type who can use these new advanced skills and not worry about winning or losing, or (gasp!) losing rating points, then by all means play tournaments, and use those new skills. You can still play smart tactics, but do so while using the techniques and playing style you are striving for. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll break through, and these new skills will be ingrained.

But here’s an even tougher question. Suppose you play the tournament, and perhaps make the final of an event, using your new skills and the style you want to play. Suppose, in the final, you play someone who you know you can beat with your old game, but are not so sure with your new game.

What do you do?

My hesitant answer is to play to win, while still trying to use as much of your “new” and more advanced style as you can. If you are trying to be a looper, but your opponent struggles with your heavy push . . . then perhaps use both . . . and at key times, throw that heavy push at him. Playing a more advanced style doesn’t mean you forget what you could do before or that you should play stupid – so use that as needed, while perhaps focusing on your new-found skills and playing the style you are striving for.