Suppose you push to your opponent, and he has trouble attacking it. Licking your lips, you push to him over and over and he keeps missing. It seems a winning tactic, right?

Often it is. But sometimes all you are doing is warming up the opponent's seeming weakness and turning it into a strength. It depends on the opponent, but if he's able to loop or otherwise attack some of your pushes, if you give him enough, he'll probably get better, and then that big tactical strength you had is gone. Basically, you are warming up the opponent until that weakness vanishes, and now you have to find a different way to win. The same is true if you have a serve that gives him trouble and you overuse it until he can return it - and thereby losing that advantage. The same is true of most other successful tactics.

Instead, when you find such a weakness in an opponent, space it out so he can't adjust, thereby taking away the tactical advantage you had. Come back to it regularly and at critical points, unless you think he's expecting and waiting on it. But that's usually not the case - usually it's best to come back to what works, even if the opponent might expect it. With experience, you'll gain the judgement of when and how often you should pound your opponent's weaknesses!

If you want to reach a high level of play, then you need a lot of high-level techniques. You don't have to invent these on your own - there are a huge number of top players who have already developed these techniques.

Suppose you want to develop or improve your forehand loop. Then find a top player whose technique roughly resembles the way you want to play . . . and copy it!!! (Ma Long wouldn't be a bad choice, but just about any top player would do. Youtube is your friend, as are table tennis pages that post such videos.) Similarly, for every technique you have, you should have a specific top player that you emulate. That not only helps you improve your shots as you watch and learn how they do it, but also allows you to regroup when your shots are off - just watch the top player do it and you'll be surprised how quickly you'll get your own shot back.

This doesn't mean you can't invent a few things yourself. While you should emulate the technique of top players, you can also have a few personalized techniques. You might add something of your own to a serve or some other technique, just to be "different" - which means an opponent has to adjust to something different. (Serves especially are the "trick" part of table tennis, where you can be extra creative.) You might also be creative in how you apply those techniques tactically. But for the large majority of your technique, copy the top players. Those techniques work. That's why they are top players.

You've just lost a point. Perhaps a big one. Does it matter? Of course it does! But does worrying or thinking about it help? Not at all, other than registering the tactics that worked or did not work as new data points. As far as you are concerned, the only thing in the world that now matters is the next point. That means thinking tactically and preparing yourself mentally for that next point. And then, as soon as that point is over, guess what? Repeat. The next point is the only thing in the world that matters. Prepare yourself tactically and mentally for it.

How best to do this? You can't think about two things at once, so if you think tactically between points, that's what you'll be thinking about. Don't overthink - just go over the most important things, such as what serve to use, and what receives, shots, placements, etc. to favor. Then, before the point is played, clear your mind and prepare for the next point. (Thinking tactically between points allows your subconscious to reflexively do those tactical things during points.)

Note that Jan-Ove Waldner, often considered the greatest player in history (well, before Ma Long) considered this his strongest attribute, the ability to completely focus on the next point, to the exclusion of anything else.

It's an advantage to have a good coach in your corner. They can talk to you between games and during breaks and help you win, both tactically and with sports psychology. They can even do so during the games, often calling out (or whispering) winning advice. But they are often both over- and under-valued. How is this?

A coach can only guide you in a match, he cannot do your shots for you. In the heat of a point, he cannot stop play and tell you what your next shot should be. These are things you have to do on your own. A coach can suggest tactics that put you on a winning arc - but you have to execute those tactics or they won't help. A coach can use sports psychology to put you in a winning frame of mind - but that won't help if you can't execute the shots at a high enough level to beat a given opponent. The large majority of tournament matches aren't particularly competitive - just look at the RR results in a typical event and count the percentage of upsets. But in those matches that are competitive, a coach can sometimes make a difference.

But there's a missing part to this equation that many miss - the most important part. A coach may help in a given match. But to a player with a learning attitude, a good match coach does much more - he teaches you what types of things you should be doing and thinking about in a match. It may take time to absorb it, but if you are willing to learn, the long-term impact of a good match coach can be far greater than anything he might do in a single match. (Unless, of course, that match is for a big championship!)

For example, the players I coach can probably recite many of the things I'm regularly telling them between games: Attack the middle. Use the whole table. Focus on service placement and depth. What type of serves and receives to focus on. What are your go-to serves. How aggressive to play. And so on. But after a time, I no longer need to emphasize these things - because it becomes second-nature to these players!

A player I regularly coach in tournaments had a great tournament recently where he had no coach. When I asked him about it, he told me the tactics he had used. And he had a revelation - those were precisely the tactics I'd been harping on when I'd coached him before! Now, when I coach him, we simply need to focus on identifying things we are already looking to identify. He's learned to think tactically - which means he's learned how to win.

How many times have you lost a match and complained about how "weird" your opponent played? It could be a different surface that you weren't used to; a strange serve you weren't familiar with; or a weird stroke that gave you fits. If it's a "weird" surface, then adjust to it and learn to play it - with different colors, you always know what side he's using, so there's no excuse to get fooled.

In each case, instead of complaining about what the opponent did, you should think about how and why he did those things, and why you weren't able to adjust. And then, give the opponent credit for finding a way to win.

The whole point of playing to win is to find ways to win within the rules. If an opponent has found a way to mess you up, then he's done exactly that. He's earned his win, and by not adjusting to whatever he did, you've earned the loss.

Think about it. If whatever the opponent is doing is rare, then it's likely an inherently weaker style, or others would be doing it. And so, if you were unable to find the inherent weaknesses in that style and win against it, then you have literally lost to a player who handicapped himself by playing an inherently weaker style!!! Take advantage of his weaker style. If you can't, then you need to look at your own game and figure out why, with such an advantage, you were unable to win. It might be a problem with your technique; with your tactics; or your mental attitude. (Saying you weren't used to it only works for one game; after that, if you haven't adjusted, then it's on you.)

So, let's take this pledge: "I will never again complain about an opponent's style." Wasn't that easy? From now on, instead of complaining about losing to a weird style, focus on how to beat that inherently weaker style.