This really could mean two things. Some players try to unsettle their opponents by staring at them between points or when about to serve. I’ve never been able to decide whether this is proper gamesmanship or poor sportsmanship. You decide.

But there’s a more important stare, and that’s the one that allows you to regain or keep focus. There are a lot of distractions in a match, both external and internal. External is all the things going on around you – spectators, the opponent, the umpire, noises, lights, the background, and so on. Internal is more important – that’s your internal emotions and thoughts. Nervousness or a lack of focus are two of your biggest enemies.

So, how does a stare help this? Some players, including me, make a habit of sometimes during a match just stopping and staring at something for 5-10 seconds. Pick out something in the distance or nearby, it doesn’t matter. Stare at it while clearing your mind of all thoughts. Breathe deeply. Then, after those 5-10 seconds, focus on the match.

You’ll be amazed at how this helps controlling nerves and focus. And at least one top player I know of combined all of this, sometimes staring at his opponent for those 5-10 seconds, especially when about to serve – and using it to clear his mind and focus while sometimes so disconcerting his opponent that the opponent lost his!

Have a problem with a stroke? Need to change the technique? Well, by golly, if you’re like most players, you’ll head out to the table and practice doing the stroke correctly.

No!!!

If you’re like most players, you’ll be struggling to both change the stroke and adjust to the new timing of the stroke, meaning you are trying to do two things at the same time. You’ll find it difficult to repeatedly stroke properly and time the ball, and you’ll likely make subconscious changes to your stroke to adjust to the ball, thereby developing a less-than-perfect stroke.

Instead, repeatedly shadow-practice the correct stroke first. Then, when you (and perhaps your coach) think you are ready and the new stroking technique is mostly ingrained, that’s when you head out to the table and practice with the new stroke. With the new stroke now ingrained from shadow-practice, instead of changing the stroke to adjust to the incoming ball, you’ll adjust your timing to the ball without changing the now-correct stroke.

Imagine trying to learn to hunt from horseback. Would you learn to shoot while on a horse, or would you first learn to shoot and to ride a horse, and then combine the two?

Giddy up!

You can ask three coaches this question and get three different answers. Some say guard against the deep serve and react to the short one. Some say the opposite. Some say guard against both equally.

Make that four different answers, because my answer is, “It depends.”

I once coached a top player who was having trouble moving in quickly to drop short serves back short. I told him to jam the table a bit more, and let his reflexes take over against deep serves. This worked, primarily because the opponent didn’t have great deep serves, and so my player was able to dominate against his short serves.

Recently I coached a player who kept missing against his opponent’s deep, breaking serves. I told him to assume he’d get that serve every time, and just rely on his reflexes against other serves. Even though he only faced that serve about one out of four serves, he went from struggling to dominating against that serve, the opponent’s best serve, and discovered he still had little trouble against the others.

And so, my answer to the question of which to guard against is, “It depends.”

I know of at least one coach and former top player who vehemently says you should always guard against the short serve so you can win the short game battle, and rely on your reflexes against the deep serve. And I know others who say the reverse – and I know that for me, I always had to guard against the long serve, since I always handled short ones better, and needed more time to react to long serves since I usually wanted to loop them with my forehand, since my backhand loop wasn’t so good.

So . . . It depends. It depends on your receiving strengths and weaknesses, and your playing style. It depends on the strength of the opponent’s short and long serves, and how well he follows them up.

You should go into any match prepared for all serves, but perhaps, just maybe, start to guard more against certain serves than others.

So yes, it depends.

Let’s get right to the point – you must lose to improve. Why? Because developing your game means adding new techniques. When you add these techniques, they won’t be developed yet, so they won’t be consistent nor will you be comfortable yet in using them.

Most players have their “comfort zones.” If you stick with your comfort zone techniques, you won’t develop other ones, and so your overall game will stop advancing. Sure, you can improve the shots you already have, but you won’t be adding anything new, and so your development will be hindered and you will never reach your maximum potential.

For example, my comfort zone when I was coming up was to serve and forehand attack, and when the opponent served, to either attack the serve with my forehand (both looping and flipping) or get into a steady backhand rally, often started with a steady but relatively soft backhand flip. Notice what’s missing here? No backhand attack. So, if I could go back to my younger, developing self, I would tell myself to get out of that comfort zone and develop my backhand attack.

Since I didn’t, as I reached higher levels, players got used to my serve and forehand attack game, and I had no real fallback, such as mixing things up with a serve and backhand loop. Or they’d drop my serve short and then quick-push to my wide backhand, and I’d be stuck with either a weak backhand loop, a rushed forehand loop, or just pushing it back. Or they’d just push or flip my serve wide to my forehand and quick block my first attack to my backhand. In rallies, they’d tee off against my steady but not aggressive backhand. All because I never left my comfort zone of forehand attack/steady backhand. (In my defense, I had numerous arm problems that also hindered my backhand attack development, but that’s another story.)

The first thing to do is to think strategically about what new techniques you need to develop. Perhaps discuss it with a coach, top player, or practice partner. Once you have a good idea of what you need to develop, you know what’s coming next – practice, Practice, PRACTICE. And then comes the final part – using it in games. This means losing against players you might have beaten if you stayed in your normal comfort zone. You should look to play weaker players as you develop the new technique, and when you can win there, then use it against your peers. Ideally, do this in practice matches or perhaps in less important tournaments. But the goal is to welcome this new technique into your comfort zone.

When you miss a shot, how do you react? If your first reaction is anger or disgust, you are going about it all wrong. Yes, some top players do show anger or disgust when they miss a shot, but that’s usually a secondary reaction, one that hits them only after their first and primary reaction.

And what is that first and primary reaction? Surprise.

If you want to improve, you need to have the mindset that you expect to make every shot you attempt. If you have that mindset, then you can get the conscious mind out of the equation and let your training – i.e. your subconscious – take over, so that the shots come fluidly and naturally. And if you do have this mindset, then when you do miss a shot, you will be surprised, because missing was unexpected.

The first step toward this mindset is understanding that you don’t have to develop your shots to a high level before you should expect them to hit. The expectation needs to come first, to better allow you to reach the level where they really do almost all hit.

The second step is to stop worrying about winning so as to take the pressure off individual shots. Then you can just let go and let your training take over in the knowledge that that is the best way to maximize your performance, and thereby maximize your winning. Then, when you miss, instead of anger or disgust at losing a point, you are merely surprised you missed a shot you know you can make every time. (No, that is not literally true, but if you believe it when you play, you’ll maximize how often you make that shot.)

The third and final step? Practice, practice, practice, so that this expectation that you can make every shot becomes closer and closer to reality, to the point that, unless the opponent does something to make your shot difficult, you will make nearly every shot where you aren’t pressed to the limit – and when you do miss one, you will be surprised since, with practice, you know you can make that shot every time.

If, deep down, you fully expect to make your shots, and thereby fully expect to win, then you will not be nervous. To use a metaphor, deep down, you expect to be able to walk, and so are not nervous about falling down and breaking your leg. Same mentality. But it all comes down to learning to expect to make every shot.

The grand test for whether this is working comes the very next time you miss a shot. Were you surprised?