Most players serve with a purpose. They are trying to get you to return their serve in a specific way so they can attack it. So . . . don't.

The classic case is the forehand looper who serves backspin to your backhand, anticipating a push to his backhand. He steps around and forehand loops. If he's got good footwork, he'll usually follow that shot with at least one more forehand loop unless you make a great return. So he's getting two forehand loops in a row, exactly what he wants.

Why not do a quick push to the wide forehand instead? If he's looking for a return to his backhand, you might catch him going the wrong way; many players have stronger forehand attacks from the backhand side (since the table isn't in the way); and if he does loop it, you can block to his backhand, and so he only gets one forehand attack. You've take his game away from him and so have a much better chance of winning.  

Or you could push the ball back short, and take away his loop altogether. Or you could attack the short serve. The key is to find something to do that he is not comfortable with. If he likes to follow his serve with a backhand loop if you push to his backhand, and a forehand loop if you push to his forehand, then perhaps do a quick push to the middle, rushing him as he tries to decide which side to attack with.

If your opponent likes get into backhand exchanges, and so serves topspin, why give in to him? Learn to vary the return. Go to his forehand first, then quick to the backhand, so he has to both play his presumably less comfortable forehand, and then his backhand on the move. Or chop the serve back, which he doesn't want you to do, or he'd be serving backspin.  

Suppose your opponent has tricky serves that you keep pushing and popping up, and he keeps smashing your returns. Why is your ball popping up? Because you're pushing against a ball that doesn't have backspin. (It could be topspin, sidespin, or no-spin.) He loves it when you push it since it sets up his smash. But since it's topspin, it should be easy (with practice) to return with a simple topspin shot. Shorten your stroke, control the shot back, and you'll take away what your opponent wants you to do. (Sounds easy, doesn't it?)  

Corollary: Once you've established you are not going to give your opponent what he's looking for, a smart opponent will anticipate that, and expect you to do something different. That's when you cross him up with the return he was expecting before, but not now.

So next time you play, figure out what your opponent wants, and give him something else. 

If you cannot match up with your opponent with speed or spin, then you need other weapons. One of the best ways to beat faster and more powerful players ("bashers") is with ball control. Just as an all-out attacker uses his serve and receive to set up his attack, a ball control player uses serve and receive to take control of the rally. For him, it's all about ball control, placement, and shot selection. If he's able to use his ball control to make the basher uncomfortable, he's won the battle. So how do you do this?

Start with receive, for it is while serving that bashers dominate, given the chance. But is he really dominating on his own, or are you letting him dominate? For example, if the basher has a strong forehand, and follows his serve with his forehand over and over, what are you doing to stop this? Few players can really dominate the whole table with the forehand against well-placed shots. Does the basher really do so, or is the receiver keeping the ball well inside the corners, so the basher doesn't have to cover the whole table? Ball control means ball control; the ball control player needs to be able to return the serve anywhere on the table. This means mostly one of two things: either pinning the basher down by relentlessly returning the ball to the extreme wide backhand (even outside the corner if returning crosscourt), or by aiming it there, and last-second returning it to the extreme wide forehand (again, even outside the corner for crosscourt shots). If you can't do this, then you don't have the ball control (yet) to play a ball control game. How can you learn to do so? By practicing it in game after game until you get it down. 

Now supposed your opponent attacks off his serve from both wings, so wide-angled returns to the backhand aren't really effective. Now the basher is ready to bash from both wings - or is he? Try quick returns to his elbow (or a little to his backhand if he favors the forehand from the middle), and watch his shots begin to crumble as he makes last-second decisions. Plus, by going to the middle, it draws the basher out of position, giving you an opening to the corners on the next shot. 

Now we move on to serving. The basher serves so he can attack, usually trying to end the point as quickly as possible. The ball control player should also mostly serve so he can attack, but in his case he's not trying to end the point quickly. He's looking to attack to make the basher uncomfortable, because the basher isn't comfortable when he's not attacking. So attack first, and force him to either defend or go for difficult counter-attacks. The key again is placement. Go to the side that gives the attacker the most trouble. If he can't block or counterloop consistently on the forehand, then nail him there over and over. Even if he does make the return - even a strong one - it opens him up on the backhand side. Or attack his middle (roughly his elbow), which should be your default opening attack anyway. Or if he's weak on the backhand defense (usually blocking), then go there. Or drive him crazy by going everywhere. Just do each shot with a purpose - to make the basher uncomfortable, and to take him out of position for the next shot. 

Once in the rally, the ball control player has a 2-1 advantage over the basher. He wins most of the points when he has the initiative, as does the attacker. But when neither has the initiative, guess who has the advantage? The ball control player, who has successfully taken away the basher's attack, thereby bringing him down a level.  

It's almost a cliché. I hand someone a box of balls to practice their serves. They grab a ball and serve, grab a ball and serve, grab a ball and serve, and so on, all done with the speed and thoughtfulness of firing a machine gun. Then they wonder why their serves aren't any good. There's a lot more to developing great serves than rapid-fire serve practice, where the goal seems to be to empty the box of balls as rapidly as possible. So what should you do differently?

First and foremost, learn the proper way to execute great serves. You can do this by watching players with great serves, or a coach or top player can show you. It's pointless to practice your serves if you don't know how to do them properly.

Once you have at least some idea of what you need to practice, get that box of balls and go to the table. It's generally best done alone; having someone return your serve can be a distraction, especially when you are learning a new serve. (But sometimes you want someone to return your serves, so you can get feedback, and to see how much difficulty they have.)

Grab a ball and get ready to start. You might want to first hold a ball in your fingers (tightly) and practice the actual contact you are going to make with the ball. (But don't rub the sponge into the held ball too hard or you'll damage your sponge.)

Now go into your serving position, and come to a complete stop. The rules actually state that you must start the serve with the ball resting freely on the palm of your stationary free hand--but there's a more important reason to do this than complying with the rules.

This is where you visualize the serve in your head. Don't just grab a ball and mechanically serve it; from now on, never serve a ball without first seeing it done exactly as you want it done, in your head. This is what the top players do. Visualization is one of the best tools in sports, and for serving, it's especially good since there are no outside influences--it's just you and the ball. In your head, see how you swing at the ball, the contact, and the entire trajectory of the serve as you want it.

After you've visualized the serve in your head, go ahead and serve. Don't try to guide it; let the subconscious take over. (You should do this for all table tennis shots.) Let go; you're just an observer. Watch the ball as it leaves your racket. Did it bounce on each side of the table at the spot as you visualized? Did it bounce low to the net as you visualized? Did it go at the speed you visualized? Did it have the spin you visualized? Did it go short or long as you visualized? Am I emphasizing the word visualize enough for you to make clear its importance?

Now visualize the next serve, making corrections for what went wrong in the previous one, and emphasizing the aspects that went right. You are now well on your way to developing great serves. You should also be tired and sweaty pretty soon--serving is a very physical motion. You can't make the ball spin at extremely high speeds if you can't get your racket moving at extremely high speeds, like a whip.

Does any of this sound boring? It shouldn't. If you just grab a ball and serve, grab a ball and serve, grab a ball and serve, that's like working an assembly line at a factory. That's boring. But serving is the trick part of table tennis, and practicing your serves, and all the tricky, deceptive things you can do with them, while revving up and varying the spin, is like practicing a magic trick. That's not boring, and neither should practicing serves. 

(This is an excerpt from "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.")

This grip was named for and popularized by five-time U.S. Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller, who was ranked in the top thirty in the world in the late 1970s. He was followed by Eric Boggan, who reached top twenty in the world. No other U.S.-trained player has come close to these rankings in the sponge era (since the 1950s). Four of the five U.S. team members at the 1983 World Championships used this grip - Dan Seemiller, his brother Rick Seemiller, Eric Boggan, and 1983 Pan Am Men’s Singles Gold Medalist Brian Masters. (All four are in the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame.) The grip is sometimes called the American grip, but is more commonly called the Seemiller grip. (Here's a video of Dan Seemiller, the lefty, in the final of the 1989 LA. Open.) 

The grip is sort of a variation of the shakehands grip, with the top of the racket rotated to the left so that the index finger curls around the side of the racket. The forehand is played about the same, but on the backhand the arm rotates about so that the same side is used on the forehand and backhand. Despite its promising start, the grip never came close to the popularity of shakehands or penhold, and in recent years fewer and fewer players use the grip. However, you will face these players in tournaments (especially in the northeast U.S.) and need to be ready.

Like shakehands and penhold, the Seemiller grip also has its backhand and forehand variations, except here it is more extreme. If the top of the racket is rotated to the left, it is a backhand grip, as used by Eric Boggan and Brian Masters, which weakens the forehand loop. If the racket is rotated to the right (almost becoming a regular shakehands grip), it is a forehand grip, as used by Dan and Rick Seemiller, which weakens the backhand.

The Seemiller grip has four major advantages. It is probably the best grip for blocking, especially on the backhand. There is very little weakness in the middle - in fact, the grip is at its best there. It gives a very natural wrist snap on forehand loops against backspin. And since only one side of the racket is used, and because the racket is easy to flip with this grip, it allows a player to have an off-surface on selected shots, usually antispin, though some use long pips. A player with this grip can flip to use that side as a variation, and then flip back to the regular surface, usually inverted. (All four of the U.S. team members mentioned above used antispin on the reverse side, inverted on the other.)

The disadvantages are that the wrist can make it difficult to play the corners (and so players with this grip often have trouble with players who play to the wide corners); it limits the backhand mostly to close-to-the-table blocking and hitting, with a very limited backhand loop; and it can be difficult to counterloop with this grip.

Because of the lack of a strong backhand loop, deep serves and pushes to the backhand can give this grip problems, unless the player has very fast footwork and can play the forehand from the backhand over and over. (Others, like Eric Boggan, learned to hit backspin serves with his antispin side, and then flipped back to inverted for the next shot.)

Some players with the Seemiller grip can be absolute walls on the backhand, and it makes no sense trying to overpower that side - but if you attack the forehand side first (and perhaps force them a step off the table) and then come back to the backhand, then the backhand wall might crumble. The grip is weaker from off the table, and like most shots, is less consistent when you have to move.

Most players with the Seemiller grip use the off surface to return serves, especially short ones. Some have the ability to quickly judge the depth of the incoming serve, and use anti against short serves, inverted to loop or otherwise attack long serves. If they use the anti to return most serves, serve deep, and you should get a relatively weak return or an erratic anti attack. Often a deep serve to the forehand is especially effective. If they try to flip the racket based on the depth of your serve, mix in short spinny serves and fast, long serves, and watch them struggle to flip their racket appropriately - it’s not easy! It is very important not to telegraph your serves - players like this are very good at picking up small cues, so try to use the exact same motion for both short and long serves, at least until contact.

How do you get maximum power on your shots? Many players at the beginning/intermediate levels might say "swing hard!" But that's the worst thing you can do. Until your muscles are trained properly, swinging hard means spastically using a few muscles but not all of them. It also means putting less weight into the shot. Both cases result in either wimpy shots that any well-trained kid would laugh at, or sometimes powerful shots with no control.

Watch a baseball pitcher with a good fastball. (You can find many at Youtube.com) Many of them can break 100mph, and nearly all are in the 90s. Watch these flamethrowers; are they swinging hard, or are they swinging smart? I think you can see the answer; the most powerful throwers don't seem to put full effort into their pitch; in fact, their throws seem effortless. And they're able to hit a rather small target from over 60 feet away.

Now watch the top table tennis players, and you'll see the same. The shots of the most powerful players often seem effortless. Meanwhile, watch some intermediate players as they swing as hard as they can, usually with less power and always with less consistency. Many spastically use one or two muscles at full power while losing the power of everything else, including their body weight rotating into the shot. Their shots spray all over the court as you cannot control a muscle spastically contracting at full power.

A key here is that these baseball pitchers and table tennis players not only have power, but they have control. How do they do it? The secret is they use their full bodies in a fluid motion that rotates everything smoothly into the shot, leading to power and control. It starts from the legs, then the hips, then the waist, then the shoulders, then the arm, and finally the wrist, which effortlessly snaps into the ball like the tip of a whip. All these muscles are engaged as the player accelerates into the shot, creating the seemingly effortless power of a pitcher or top table tennis player.

It is the addition of all these smooth muscle contractions and rotations, in the proper sequence (from bottom to top, and roughly from big muscles to small) that gives great power and control. So here's a good rule: never swing at 100%. Swing smoothly, using the full body, at perhaps 70-80% full power, and watch the power and control shot way up.