This could be a very short Tip, since the mentality in a match and in practice should be the same. So here's the short version: think of a time when you played GREAT. It could be in a tournament or a practice match, or even a practice session. The key is that you played great, and want to play like that all the time. Now think about your mentality when you were playing great, i.e. were "in the zone." You were probably playing almost mindlessly, other than tactical thinking. In fact, you probably were more like a spectator just watching yourself react mindlessly and almost flawlessly. THAT is the mentality you want both when you practice and when you play a match.

So how do you do it? Many think that they only need to reach this state of being in the zone when they are playing serious matches. But that's like saying you only need to have a good forehand in serious matches, and so can goof off when practicing and in less serious matches. Just as you need to develop your forehand in practice and in practice matches, you need to develop this ability to get into the zone by practicing it - and that means doing so whenever you play until it becomes second nature. It is only then that you'll be able to turn it on at will in big matches, because it will then, in fact, be second nature, and just like your other best techniques. Think of getting in the zone as no different than hitting a good forehand. Both are techniques that take practice, and if you want them to be ready in serious matches, you need to practice them . . . in practice.

How do you get into the zone? Basically you have to just let go and let your subconscious take control. When someone loops to you and you block, you don't consciously set the racket angle; your subconscious does this, as well as just about everything else you do when rallying. When you practice, you are basically training the subconscious to play, i.e. setting muscle memory so that it'll react properly in a match. It's not a static thing; if your opponent does something different that you haven't practiced against, your subconscious will learn and adjust. The key in all cases is to let it do so, since the subconscious is quicker and more accurate than anything you can do consciously. If your conscious interferes by trying to guide your shots, your game will deteriorate. Other than thinking tactics - which the subconscious will pick up on and follow - think of yourself as a spectator and just admire your play. Heck, I sometimes feel guilty when I'm playing well since I feel like I'm not really doing anything other than watching as that subconscious part of me takes control. (But remember - the conscious mind has its role as the tactical leader that the subconscious will follow if you allow it. And yet, even there the subconscious will end up doing most of your tactical work since it will learn to automatically do the right tactical thing. It's smarter than you think!)

Putting aside physical limitations, there's no reason why a player can't be at his best essentially all the time - it's all in the head. When players realize this, as most do after they've played many years, their game goes up dramatically. Do you want to wait many years or learn this now?

At the elite levels, deep sidespin and topspin serves mostly get looped, and are mostly used as occasional variations. But at lower levels they are often the bane of players who hit or loop them off the end over and over. Why do they do this? There are three main reasons.

First, they do not adjust to the amount of spin on the ball. A ball with topspin or sidespin is going to jump off your paddle faster than a ball that is not spinning, and you have to take that into account. If you don't, the ball will take off faster (and higher against a topspin) than expected, and so go off the end. So you must aim lower. (Note that while sidespin pulls the ball sideways, players who hit or loop the serve don't usually miss against these serves by going off the side since the spin takes less on their paddle when they attack the ball, and so it'll only go a few inches more to the side than expected.)

Second, they do not take into account that their contact point is usually closer to the table than in a rally. This is especially true for loopers. For example, against a block, a player may loop from several feet behind the table. But against a topspin or sidespin serve, the contact point is generally 1-3 feet closer to the table. This means that the far end of the table is 1-3 feet closer to you, and so you must aim lower or you will go off the end.

Third, they lift breaking sidespin serves off the end. This is especially true against ones that break away from the player. The reason is that they may hold his racket at the perfect height to return the serve - but then see the ball breaking away, and reach for it. When reaching, players generally lower their racket - and so they lift more, and go off the end. So make sure to keep your racket at the height you want to start the stroke - but even more important, learn to read the break of the serve so you don't have to make last-second lunges.

A solution to all three of these problems is to contact the ball more on top of the ball, especially when looping. There should be little lift.

How can you overcome these and other bad habits in returning these and other serves? PRACTICE!!! Instead of just practicing rally shots all the time, you and your partner should take turns serving to each other. You could play out the point, but it's even better to just get a bucket of balls and one player serves over and over while the other just receives. The server doesn't play the point out; as soon as he serves, he reaches for the next ball to serve. This gives you a lot more receive practice per time then playing out the point. Have the server give you the same serve over and over until you are comfortable with it, and then move on to another. When you are fairly comfortable against most of the serves you may face, then have the server vary them so you learn to adjust to each one. And remember - you don't have to kill or loop kill the serve. When returning serves, consistency, control, depth, and placement are king. 

One of the trickier things in table tennis starting at the intermediate level is how to return short backspin serves without giving the server an easy ball to loop. The easiest return is a long push, but then the server gets to loop. You can also flip the short serve, but that can be tricky, and many servers can loop that return as well unless you flip very aggressively - and if you do that, you lose consistency. So what to do?

The answer is often to push short and low. A short push is a push that, given the chance, would bounce twice on the other side of the table. This makes it almost impossible to loop. As long as you keep it low, and don't telegraph the shot in advance, the server will have to move in at the last second and make a hurried return. As long as the ball is low and short, it's unlikely he'll be able to attack it effectively. It's primarily used to return short serves, but if the opponent pushes short (perhaps against your serve), you can also push it back short to stop his attack. At higher levels players sometimes push short back and forth two or three times as they look for a ball to attack.

The keys to a good short push are a light touch and a skimming contact to create backspin. Many players try to push short by meeting the ball almost straight on, with little backspin, and rely on the light touch to keep it low and short - but that's very difficult to control. When you meet the ball straight on without any skimming motion the ball will tend to bounce out more. Instead, take the ball right off the bounce (when it's low and close to the net), chop down on it lightly as you graze the ball. The grazing motion will lighten the touch and make it easy to keep the ball low, as well as help keep the ball short. The backspin will also make it trickier to attack.

When stepping in to push short, make sure to get close to the table by stepping under the table with your right foot (for righties). Keep your free hand up for balance. (These last two items are important against all short balls, whether you are pushing or flipping.)

One of the problems with pushing short is that it's so easy to misread the serve and pop the ball up, giving the server an easy put-away. (Players usually have more control when pushing long.) This especially happens against balls that appear to have backspin but instead are no-spin, sidespin, or just light backspin. (To keep these returns low you have to chop down on the ball - i.e. aim lower.) The reality is that pushing short isn't really a high-percentage shot until you approach the more advanced levels where you read spins well and have good ball control - roughly a 2000 level in USATT ratings. But if you wait until you are 2000 before you start working on this, you'll be years behind your competition. (One solution is to use the short push mostly against players with easy-to-read and predictable short serves, but not against players with trickier serves, at least in serious matches and until you improve your pushing touch.)

At the advanced levels, you can add more finesse to your short push. The simplest short push is to aim it straight back at the net, where the net is closest, so your return is perpendicular to the net. But you can also angle it to the side. Better still, aim one way, and then at the last second go the other way to really mess up an opponent. Pushing short to a corner, especially the wide forehand, can be awkward for the opponent to get to, but does give them a wide angle to attack into. So sometimes it's best to push short to the middle to cut off the wide angles. It depends on the opponent. Make sure that your shot looks the same until the last second whether you are pushing long or short.

Now we're going to get into something that's seemingly a bit more complicated, but is really quite simple once you get used to it. It's something many top players do subconsciously without even realizing they are doing it. (Skip this paragraph if it starts to give you a headache.) Imagine a straight backspin serve. If you push it back, you meet the backspin straight on, and the incoming backspin rebounds off your racket with outgoing backspin, the easiest way to push. Now imagine the server serves a forehand pendulum serve with sidespin-backspin to your backhand. (Assume both players are righties.) If you push it back normally with your backhand, the ball will jump a bit to the right when you contact it. Suppose you instead drop the racket tip a bit, thereby compensating by aiming the racket a bit to the left. Now you'll have more control in placing the ball where you aim it. If you think about it, by dropping the racket tip you'll now be meeting the incoming spin head-on, exactly as if you were pushing against a backspin. This gives maximum control. You might find it easier to drop this type of serve short to the forehand (i.e. to the left). If the server serves a backhand sidespin-backspin serve, you might raise the racket tip to compensate. You might find it easier to drop this serve short to the backhand. (The same thing applies on serves short to the forehand - raise or drop the tip based on the incoming sidespin.)

Adding a short push to your receive repertoire is a valuable tool, and combined with a good long push and a consistent, well-placed flip, will allow you to dominate even when receiving. 

Playing in tournaments is quite different from playing practice matches. Here are three reasons for this. First, the playing conditions are generally different than you are used to - different tables, balls, floors, backgrounds, and lighting. Second, you are usually playing different players, while in practice you often play the same players over and over. And third, there's far more pressure in a tournament match than in a practice match. (There are other, lesser reasons - traveling, time zone changes, eating different foods, etc.)

To overcome these three hurdles a player needs to become "Tournament Tough." How do you do this? By playing in tournaments!

By playing lots of tournaments you get used to different playing conditions, different opponents, and the pressures of tournament play. In fact, players who are tournament tough often play better in tournaments - they rise to the occasion, and play their best play, while not-so-tournament-tough opponents do not, and the contrast is often pretty blatant. How many players have you seen beat everyone in practice, but turn around and lose in tournaments? It's not the exception; it's the norm.

There are ways you can help develop your tournament toughness outside of tournaments. First, you can choose tournaments with varied conditions so you can get used to playing in any conditions. If you play in a club with perfect conditions, and only play there, then you'll be fine in tournaments with perfect conditions. In the large majority of major tournaments you'll have a problem as perfect conditions aren't so common. So get used to playing on slippery floors, poor lighting, distracting backgrounds, and tables and balls that might not meet your approval.

Play lots of different players in practice so you'll be ready for lots of different players in tournaments. Often the best thing you can do is play practice matches with weaker players with weird styles - not so you can learn to play that specific weird style, but to learn to adjust to different styles.

Finally, we get to tournament pressure. There simply isn't anything in practice like it. You'll feel it early in the tournament, and it'll only get worse as you reach the final rounds of an event you badly want to win.

I once coached a kid in the final of an age event at the Junior Nationals. (I think it was Under 12.) The kid had been training for years and was one of the top two players of his age in the country. But before the final he was incredibly nervous. I asked why, and he said it was the first time in his life he'd been in a final. How had this happened? He and his parents had always kept him out of rating and age events where he was a top seed to protect his rating, and so he had never really played in events where he was competitive, and so never was in a final. They only wanted him to play stronger players. And so he was a nervous wreck, and got clobbered in the final against a player he might have beaten - in a practice match. But he didn't have the "tournament toughness" to win a big match.

What can you learn from this? You need to play competitive events and learn how to win events. This means playing in age and rating events where you are among the top seeds.

This brings up a question that's been raised a lot over the years. Should under-rated players play in rating events they are eligible for, even if they are better than the cut-off? Definitely. It is irrelevant if you think your level of play is over the rating cutoff. At the U.S. Open, U.S. Nationals, or other large tournaments, you have to play a lot better than the rating cutoff to win, so usually being a lot better than the rating cutoff merely makes you competitive. Plus, who are you to say your level is better than the cutoff until you have proved so in a tournament? And finally, you need the competition. How can you be at your best in a big match until you have this big match experience? How can you get this big match experience if you avoid events where you can reach the finals?

When a player trains very hard and improves a lot, he should have that one opportunity to win those events that he was struggling to win before. When he's finally reached the point where he's good enough to win the event, he should play the event, reap the reward for his hard work, and from battling through to win the event, gain the tournament toughness needed to win in ever higher events. 

Most players practice with drills that are very different from what they actually do in a match. There's a logic to this - you want to perfect each part of your game, and you do that by isolating the shot so you can do it repeatedly, something you can't do nearly as effectively in a game situation. For example, if you want to be able to loop over and over against a block in a match, you first should practice looping over and over against a block in practice against a ball blocked to the same spot, which doesn't happen often in a match. However, there's a time for isolating a shot to perfect it, and a time to match game situations.

After doing these simple rote drills, many players go either to random drills (such as the ball blocked randomly to all or certain parts of the table) or match-type drills (such as serve and attack). These are also good drills. But you also want to learn to connect how a rally really starts in a match (with a serve and receive) and how you'd follow it up, with an emphasis on doing so repeatedly so you can develop the techniques.

An example of a drill for this is one player serves backspin; the receiver pushes back long (usually to a pre-set spot); the server loops off the backspin to a pre-set spot, and then the rally continues with the server looping over and over off the block. The blocks can go to one spot, go side to side, or be randomly placed. A drill like this allows the server to combine looping off backspin with repeated loops against block, which is what often happens in a match.

A hitter (or a counter-driver or blocker, who still have to hit in rallies) could do a version of this where, after the opening loop against backspin (which even hitters, counter-drivers, and blockers should learn to do), he follows with hitting instead of looping. (In the modern game, nearly everyone at the higher levels learns to loop in rallies, but not everyone.)

A chopper/attacker could do the same drill, looping or hitting the forehand over and over, except the receiver's goal is to block him out of position and force him to chop with his backhand. After that it could be free play.

Drills like these are not just for the server; the receiver is also practicing his receives and his blocks, or whatever else he is doing in the drill. Some drills should center around the receiver, who perhaps receives and attacks the next ball in a pre-set pattern.

The drills don't have to all start with a serve and a long push return. You can do drills where the receiver pushes short over and over (and server flips, or perhaps pushes short again and loops the receiver's next long push) or flips the serve over and over (to one spot or varied spots). Or the server can serve long, the receiver attacks, and the server counter-attacks.

So come up with your own drills where you do a drill that allows you to develop a shot repeatedly but in a more match-like situation by starting the rally with a serve and receive.