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. 

The time when a player is most likely to miss easy shots is at the very start of the match. That’s when a player may not yet be fully warmed up or used to his opponent’s shots yet. So it’s often best to let the other guy serve first, let him mess up on his serve & attack at the start, and then get your chance to serve, when you are more into the match.

There’s another, more mathematical way of looking at this. Suppose in a given match, the server will score 60% of the points. (In reality, it not that high in competition matches—more like 55% or so.) So you figure every time you serve a point, you should score an average of 0.6 points. That means if you mess up on your serve and lose two in a row because you aren’t yet warmed up, you’ve mathematically lost 2 x 0.6 points, or 1.2 points. If you do so when receiving, you’ve only lost 2 x 0.4 points, or 0.8 points. In other words, you can more easily afford to lose a point on the other guy’s serve than on your own—so let him serve when he’s not warmed up, and put off your own serving until you are slightly more warmed up.

The exception, of course, is the player who needs to get a quick lead to build up confidence. If you lose confidence when you fall behind and don’t play as well, then by all means serve first. But in this case, you need to work on your mental game.

Addendum (not in the book): What about choice of sides? At the start of a match, whoever wins the coin flip (or the hiding of the ball under the table) gets choice of serving, receiving, or side to start on. (You change sides after each game, and as soon as someone scores five points in the last, deciding game if it goes that far.) What if on one side it's harder to see the ball (because of the background), or the floor is slippery on that side, or something like that? There are two ways of looking at this.

A close match will go into the final game. In that final game you'll switch sides as soon as someone reaches five points. But that means that you'll likely play more points after switching sides. If you switch sides at 5-4 and the game goes to 10-10, at that point you'd have played nine points on the bad side, eleven on the good side - plus you'll be on the good side for the points at deuce. (If you switch sides at 5-3 then it's twelve on the good side, eight on the bad side.) So if you choose the bad side at the start, you'll start the fifth game on the bad side, and end up playing more points on the good side.

However, some find it harder to get into a match if they start on the bad side. So that player may want to start on the good side, so that when he does move to the bad side he'll be more into the match, and less likely to be bothered by the bad side. 

There is nothing more infuriating than losing to a patient chopper who lets you beat yourself with your own errors. Losing to a chopper is like four-putting in golf; you may have made some good drives to get to the green, but all you remember are the misses at the end. Rather than four-putting forever, let’s learn how to beat the chopper.

A chopper is weakest in the middle, and that is where you should focus most of your attacks. However, you have more table (and so more margin for error) by going diagonally to a corner. Going for a winner down the line often catches the chopper by surprise. A chopper who is not particularly fast is vulnerable at the corners, especially if you aim one way and then go the other; a chopper with inverted on both sides is more vulnerable in the middle. Keep these “basics” in mind when playing any of the following styles.

There are four general ways of playing a chopper. Informally they are called European style, Asian style, Pick-hitting, and Chiseling. While you should favor one of these styles, feel free to combine them in developing your own style against choppers.

In all four cases, focus on attacking the middle, the weakest spot for nearly all choppers. This is imperative when playing choppers.

European Style. The goal here is to bring the chopper in close to the table, and then attack hard, especially at the chopper’s middle. The chopper is too close to the table to make the return, and so misses. When using this technique, you should mostly serve short to bring the chopper in, and try to follow with a strong attack. Sometimes, however, fake the attack, and push short instead – the chopper, in his haste to back up for the expected attack, will have trouble with this ball, and will often have to make a last-second lunge to return it. Even if he makes the return (often a weak one), he will be left jammed over the table and vulnerable to the next ball, which you can promptly loop for a winner. If the chopper stays closer to the table to guard against this drop shot, then you attack. The chopper has absolutely no way of answering this ... in theory.

During a rally, if the chopper makes a good return from away from the table, push short again, and start over. The object in a rally is to catch the chopper too far away from the table or moving backward so that you can drop the ball short, force him to rush in, and attack when he's jammed up against the table. Alternatively, you can push a few balls, keeping the chopper close to the table, and then attack when you think he’s not expecting it.

Asian Style. The goal here is to control the spin and pace of the rally. This method is especially good against a long-pipped chopper, but takes regular practice against a chopper to learn to do effectively. Pips-out players are especially good at this style, but many good inverted players also play this way. This style doesn’t work well against an all-inverted chopper who chops very heavy. Let’s assume you are playing a long-pipped chopper.

Here the aim is to get the chopper off the table, and then attack relatively softly over and over, into the long pips side, but not with full spin. The chopper can only return whatever spin you give him because of the long pips, and so their returns are not particularly heavy, making your continuous soft attack easy. After topspinning a few balls, you find one you like and loop or smash a winner.

Depending on what you are more comfortable with, you can topspin many balls in a row before going for a winner, or only a few - be unpredictable. Mix in pushes. Some players just topspin over and over, not pushing or going for a winner unless they get a very easy one. You should try to vary your spin, sometimes looping very dead, sometimes spinny. However, beware of varying spin returns when you vary your own spin. For example, when you give heavy topspin, expect heavy chop, and so either lift the ball more on your next shot, or push and start over. Don’t fall into the trap of spinning heavily over and over – a chopper loves it, and all you’ll get are heavy chop returns, which can be very difficult to loop consistently.

You can mix in pushing, but too much pushing will throw your own timing off. By topspinning over and over to the long pips side (but not with full spin), you can build up a rhythm that a chopper will have difficulty breaking.

Try to get down to almost eye level with the ball by bending your knees. This will help your consistency by making the lifting easier and will get your eyes closer to the ball so you see it better.

Pick-hitting Style. The goal here is to pick your shots against the chopper's push, and if you can't easily put away the return, push and patiently look for another ball to attack. Unless you have a put-away shot, you rarely attack two balls in a row. Instead it's push a few balls, attack, push a few balls, attack, push a few balls, attack, etc., until you get a putaway shot or the chopper misses. Most of the attacks should go to the chopper's weakest spot, usually the middle, sometimes the forehand. (The backhand chop, often with long pips, is usually a chopper's most consistent shot, but not always.) Most players attack by forehand looping, but you can also drive or smash, forehand or backhand.

You need to vary your pushes to find a ball to attack. For example, a quick, off-the-bounce push to a chopper's long pips often forces a weak return, and any push with long pips has little spin, which you may be able to attack. A sudden push to the forehand can set up your own forehand attack. After a series of heavier pushes, a sudden no-spin or light backspin push can set up a higher return to attack.

The advantage of this style is you don't have to deal with varying chop returns, which are where attackers make most of their mistakes. The disadvantage - besides the obvious patience needed and long rallies that you'll sometimes play - is that the chopper may start attacking. You have to find a balance. The more the chopper attacks effectively, the more you'll need to attack to stop that. 

Chiseling Style. I am not fond of this style. This basically means pushing with the chopper until the chopper either misses, pops up an easy one, or gets impatient and attacks too much. At the higher levels, chiseling is rare, but at the lower and medium levels, it is more common. Since I’m a strong believer that the game has to be FUN (it is a game!), I don’t like this way of winning. Unless you’re a chopper yourself (in which case SOMEONE’s got to push, and it might as well be you), I’d rather see a player lose by attacking in some way. You may lose now, but you’ll learn how to play a chopper better in future matches.