A great way to improve the sharpness and steadiness of your shots is to shadow practice them. This means practicing your shots without the ball. One of the best things that ever happened to me when I was a beginner was when I was told to shadow practice my forehand and backhand drives and loops, and side-to-side footwork, one hundred times a day. This was a primary reason why I went from beginner at age 16 to 1900+ in about two years.

For Beginning Players: focus on the basics. You want to develop smooth, repeatable shots and footwork. You might want to have a coach work with you first, so you aren't practicing bad habits. Once you know what to do, do perhaps fifty to a hundred forehand and backhand drives, and fifty to a hundred forehand and backhand loops. Then go side to side fifty to a hundred times, stroking each time (either all forehand, or alternate forehand and backhand).

One key thing: remember that strokes have three parts: backswing, forward swing, and back to ready position. Many players tend to just go back and forth (going directly from forward swing to backswing), which you never do in a game. The stroke should go through a triangular motion (dropping down to ready position), not just a back and forth motion.

For Intermediate Players: Focus on improving the speed, crispness and power of the shots and footwork. Think about the type of specific movements you do in a game, and mimic them. For example, if you want to develop a powerful forehand loop that you can use from all parts of the table, then shadow practice powerful forehand loops, from both the wide forehand and wide backhand, as well as from the middle, and practice moving from one spot to another. (Note--intermediate players should also use some of the techniques explained for advanced players.)

For Advanced Players: At this point, your shots are consistent and powerful. You should continue to do the shadow practice as explained for intermediate players. However, now you should add randomness. As you shadow practice, imagine you are playing a real match. Imagine a specific opponent, and play out the rallies--except now you are playing at whatever level you hope to attain. Want to be a world-class player? Then shadow practice rallies as if you are world-class! Instead of alternating forehand loops from side to side, add randomness - imagine your opponent spraying the ball all over the court. For example, after looping a forehand from the backhand court, your "opponent" might put one to the wide forehand, which you then cover; or he might block one right back to your backhand again, which you've vacated after the previous shot to get back into position, and so you either step around again for the forehand, or play a backhand attack shot.

You can also practice receive techniques - imagine an opponent's serve, read it, and return it. You might step in, drop a ball short or flip it, then step back and attack the next ball. Or you might shadow practice looping the deep serves. Think of what happens in a real match, and play out those points.

For All Players: You can practice everything this way, except for the actual timing of hitting the ball - and you can do that later at the table, with much faster, stronger and crisper shots because of the shadow practicing. And the nice thing is you can shadow practice anywhere - at work, at home, on the subway. (Okay, that last one might get you strange looks--but I've done it before!)

One of the biggest problems beginning/intermediate players have is standing up too straight. Watch the top players and you'll see how they stay low - feet relatively wide and pointing slightly outward, weight toward the front inside balls of their feet, knees bent, and leaning slightly forward from the waist. This allows much stronger play than standing up straight - you'll move quicker, have better balance, recovery more quickly after shots, and your shots will be more natural and more powerful. And you'll even feel more like an athlete because you'll be playing like one!

Here's a good example - here are highlights of the Men's Singles Final at the 2013 World Championships between Zhang Jike and Wang Hao, both of China. Or pull up just about any video between two top players. It may not be easy to play with a lower stance at first. Older players and those with knee problems might have particular problems, and might need to adjust - but even they should focus on staying at least somewhat low.

Why is staying low important?

1. It lowers your center of gravity. This increases your leverage in movement, giving you a quicker start.
2. The bent knees give you a quicker start. If your knees are straight, you'll have to bend them before you can move.
3. The wider stance gives you stability and balance during rallies. It's hard to play effectively if you are off balance. Players who stand up too straight tend to make up for this by reaching for the ball instead of moving to it, leading to awkward and inconsistent shots.
4. The wider and lower stance increases power. The extra power comes from a greater weight exchange as you rotate about from a wider stance (especially on forehand shots), and from the extra power from the legs from staying low, allowing you to push off into your shots.
5. Quicker recovery. This comes because the wider and lower stance allows better balance. Players who stand up too straight will go off balance after a fast movement or powerful shot, and will be slower in recovering, especially on the forehand.
6. It makes your shots more natural. If you stand up straight, your natural stroking movement will be up, but your target is ahead of you. Staying low gives you a more natural shot in the direction of the far side of the table, and allows you to more easily put your body weight into it. It might not be natural at first, but it will once you get used to it.
7. It makes it easier to loop heavy backspin with power. While standing up straight gives you a natural lifting stroke, it doesn't give much power for great topspin and speed. For that, you need to use your legs, and to use your legs you have to get down with the knees at least slightly bent.

Besides table tennis players, you can find examples of athletes staying low in many sports - for example, an infielder in baseball, a goalie in soccer, and basketball players when they are dribbling or covering someone.

You might have to build up your leg strength to stay low - but staying low in itself builds up those muscles, and the more you do it, the stronger your legs will be, and the easier it becomes. Truly serious players should hit the weight room and focus on lower body strength training.

You can make the change to a lower stance in stages, focusing on staying a bit lower for a week, and a bit more the following week, and so on until you find a comfortable low stance. If this doesn't work, try going for the other extreme, and practice staying too low. (Careful if you have knee problems!) It may feel silly, but after playing that way for a short time you may find it easier to compromise between the too-low stance and your previous too-high stance.

And when you develop the habit of staying lower, you'll begin to feel the benefits as your game improves. A lower stance will allow you to stand tall on the winner's podium. 

There are five steps, roughly in this order. Serving takes practice, often alone with a box of balls as you serve, over and over. Take your time; don't rapid-fire serve. Visualize what you want to do with each serve as you practice, and then try to match what you visualize. You might want to get a coach to help at the start, or watch what top players do, and perhaps get their help. Learn to follow your serve with an attack - often it's the threat of the follow-up shot that makes the serve effective as opponents try to be too perfect with their returns. (Have a question about spin? Here's my article Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Spin - But Were Afraid to Ask!)

1. Put great spin on the ball
   There is no substitute for this. Spin comes from racket speed and grazing motion. Racket speed comes mostly from the arm and (even more) the wrist, which need to work together to accelerate the racket into the ball. (Contact should be near the tip of the racket, which is the fastest moving part of the blade in a normal serving motion.) Even more important, however, is the grazing motion, which is what takes so much practice. When you can graze the ball so that nearly all of your racket speed becomes spin, you are well on your way toward developing a great spin serve. You can practice this away from the table - get a box of balls and serve on a rug, and watch how the ball spins on the rug. Make the backspins come back to you, the sidespins break sideways, and the topspins jump away.
2. Put different spins on the ball
   It's not enough to just make the ball spin; you need to develop different spins. Most players start out by learning simple backspin and topspin serves. Next you should develop sidespin serves, and then combinations - sidespin-backspin and sidespin-topspin (usually called side-back and side-top serves). Then you should add a no-spin serve that looks spinny (called "heavy no-spin"), where you use a big racket motion but hit the ball near the base of the racket and so put little spin on the ball. Finally, you might learn to serve with corkscrewspin, where you'll have to toss the ball up higher.
3. Put different spins on the ball and control it
   Having all these great spinny serves isn't so great if you are popping the balls up or can't control the depth. High serves are going to get attacked, and consistently long serves will also get attacked by stronger players. Learn to serve so the ball crosses the net very low. (Do this by contacting the ball low to the table.) Learn to control the depth of your serve so you can serve it very long (so first bounce is near the end-line) and short (so that given the chance, the ball would bounce twice on the receiver's side). Also learn to do "half-long" serves, where the second bounce, given the chance, would be right at the end-line, often the most difficult serves to return effectively. Learn to do these serves to all parts of the table - left, right, and middle.
4. Put different spins on the ball with the same motion
   Serving different spins won't always help if the opponent can easily see what type of spin you are serving. So learn to use the same motion for different spins. This means using a serve motion where the racket at different times is traveling down, sideways, and up, in one continuous motion. Then you can vary the spin by simply varying where in the service motion you contact the ball. For example, with a forehand pendulum serve (with the racket tip down), you would start with the racket moving down, then sideways, and then up. You can also rotate your racket as you serve, so you can vary the spin by varying the contact point on the racket.
5. Put different spins on the ball with the same fast, quick motion
   Once you've learned to do all of the above, it's time to ramp it up by doing it faster and faster. Instead of a leisurely down, sideways, and up motion, do the entire motion in a few inches in the wink of an eye, making it almost impossible for any but a highly experience receiver to pick up the type of spin from the contact point. Better still exaggerate the part of the motion where you aren't contacting the ball, so that if you are serving side-top, exaggerate the down motion; if you are serving side-back, exaggerate the up motion. 

You know the problem: you're playing well, you're battling with stronger players, and every game is close - but you can't quite win. Far too often you lose those close ones and have nothing to show for your great play but another "what if..." - and hopefully, just maybe, a little more experience so you'll do better next time. So how does one close out a match?

First, let me introduce you to what I call "Larry's Six-Month Law," or simply Larry's Law for short. In short, it says that when a player improves or is playing well, he may battle with "stronger" players, but at first he'll lose most of the close ones. Why? Because the other guy has more experience playing at that higher level, both tactically and psychologically, and so has more experience at what to do to win at that level, especially in close games. It doesn't mean you can't beat them, it simply means you need to gain experience at that level so you'll know what to do in those close games.

So what should you do? That largely depends on your playing style. But the most important thing is that during the match you have learned what does and does not work in this match-up between you and your opponent - or more specifically, your style and your opponent's style, and your strengths and weaknesses against your opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

There are generally two ways to score points at the end of a close match. You can do something tricky, such as a deceptive serve or an unexpected spin (such as a suddenly heavy push or loop), and perhaps win an easy point. This works at all levels, but especially at lower and intermediate levels. By the higher levels such tricks are less successful, though they still work if used sparingly, and more often to set up a follow-up shot than as an outright point-winner. Many experienced players develop a few tricks to pull out in close games, most often with a tricky serve.

The other way is to force your game on the opponent with your serve and receive. On your serve you get to choose how to start the rally, and by the end of a close game you should know what serves will set you up for your game. Receive can be trickier since you don't know what the opponent will be serving - and presumably he's serving to set up his game. But a good receive can take control of a point just as well as a good serve. Focus both on what you do well and what your opponent does not.

Keep it simple. Ideally look toward tactics that narrow down your opponent's options so you have a good idea what's coming. For example, if you have a good loop against backspin, and your opponent pushes most of your backspin serves, then serve backspin and loop. If you like fast topspin rallies, then perhaps serve topspin to the opponent's weaker side (or perhaps to his stronger side, so you can follow with a quick shot to the weaker side), and go at it. Or do whatever serves set you up to do what you do best, and have confidence in.

Winning close games at any level is both a tactical and psychological battle. More close games are won and lost on the psychological aspect than on the tactical. You need both, but good tactics do not work if you are too nervous to execute. If you find yourself unable to do in a close game what you could do earlier, then you need to learn to clear your mind before playing each point, and perhaps study sports psychology.

A player who is consistently successful in close games always knows what to do in those key points, from long-term experience at that level, from what happened in that particular match to that point, and because he's psychologically confident in his ability to execute the needed shots. So should you. 

Table Tennis is an Olympic Sport, and at the highest levels, is played by some of the best athletes on the planet. Even at levels below world class it is dominated by great physical athletes who can race about the court ripping shot after shot. But we're not all great physical athletes, and we're not about to give up against an opponent just because he can race around the court ripping shot after shot, and we can't, are we? So how can one compete with an opponent who is faster, stronger, and more athletic? Or against a kid who might not be bigger and stronger, but who can seemingly rally at ten times your pace?

To do so you need to think both strategically and tactically. Strategically, you need to develop the tools needed to defeat these physical phenoms. Tactically, you need to learn how to use those tools. So what are these tools, and how can you use them?  There are a number of ways of defeating a more athletic opponent. Here are ten tools you can develop in your game to turn an Arnold Schwarzenegger into a 90-pound weakling and kick ping-pong sand in their face.

1. Serves, serves, and serves. This could be the first three items. You have complete control over the start of the rally when serving, and this is where great athletes can be turned into quivering masses of mishits. A book could be written on this topic alone. Suffice to say that you should use serves to set up your best shot, and to set up the other tools outlined below. Mix in short and long serves, with extreme and varying spins. Often the best tactics is to mix in short serves to the forehand and long, breaking spin serves to the backhand. Or just serve short backspin (and no-spin) and loop first.
2. Receive, receive, and receive. This could be the next three items. Above I said that the server has complete control over the start of the rally. The key word there is "start," and if you develop strong receive, you take control. You don't want to take on a faster opponent in a speed battle by attacking all his serves. Instead, focus on variation and control. Use your receive just as you used your serve, to set up your best shot, and to set up the other tools outlined below. The key difference is that you can use these tools as your receive, and set the tone for the rally.
3. Spin. Table tennis is a game of spin, and you should use the extremes to mess up your athletic opponent. Use both heavy topspin and heavy backspin so that he has to make major adjustments. Heavy, deep backspins slow the pace down; even if your athletic opponent attacks it, it'll likely be a slower shot that you can block or counter-attack aggressively. If you topspin, focus on slow, spinny loops that go deep on the table, and watch your opponent struggle to deal with these. He's probably used to something faster; don't give it to him. So look to push heavy or loop very spinny, both deep on the table. (I could have broken this down into Backspin and Topspin, but I really believe they go together in this context.)
4. Deep. If the ball is deep, your opponent can't rush you, and he's often jammed. A steady player can out-rally a faster, stronger one as long as he keeps the ball deep. So practice rallying deep on the table, both in topspin and backspin rallies.
5. Short. If you can push a ball short and low, it'll tie up your opponent over the table, leaving him vulnerable to a follow-up deep shot. It'll also take most of his attack away.
6. Vary Pace and Depth. While keeping the ball deep is important in most rallies, mix in softer and shorter shots to mess up an opponent's timing. Great athleticism doesn't mean great timing, and moving an opponent in and out can make an athlete look like he's been snake-bit.
7. Move the Ball Around. Focus on the three spots - wide backhand, wide forehand, and middle (roughly the opponent's playing elbow, his crossover shot between forehand and backhand). If your opponent is mostly a forehand player, play the corners. (Yes, go to his wide forehand so you can draw him out of position and come back to his backhand, plus he's often looking for forehands from the backhand side, and so shots to the forehand can be hard for him to handle well.) If he's more two-winged, then go after his middle to draw him out of position, and then go after the corners.
8. Deceptive Placement. Aim one way, then go the other. This is especially effective when pushing or blocking. The most common way is to aim a backhand push or block crosscourt, and at the last second go to the wide forehand.
9. Out-Rally Him. Don't take on a faster opponent in a speed battle. Instead, take the ball a little later to give yourself time to react, and play steady and deep rallies until the opponent either misses or gives you a ball to attack. Often it's effective to start the rally off with one quick shot, and then play steady - the contrast can throw off the faster opponent's timing. Against some players you can just pin down on their weaker side (usually the backhand) and play deep balls there over and over until they miss (though you should look for chances to move the ball around or change the pace or spin). Against others you need to keep moving the ball around so the opponent is forced to hit shots on the move.
10. Stay Focused and Play Smart. It's often said that table tennis is 90% mental. Let your opponent have the other 10%; just make sure you win the 90% mental battle.