Technically, a match begins with the umpire tossing a coin to see who serves first. In reality, most matches aren't umpired, and so they "hide the ball" under the table, and the other player chooses. Whoever wins gets the choice of either serving first, receiving first, or choice of side. (Once you make your choice, the other player gets next choice, and so on.) It should be 50-50 who gets first choice - but for an experienced player, it isn't really. Here are a few completely honest ways to increase your chances of winning the first choice.

If you are hiding the ball…

1. Watch the opponent's other matches and see which hand he typically chooses.
2. Put the ball in your left hand against a righty player, and vice versa. For some reason, most players are more likely to point diagonally with their playing hand. The exception is if they are holding their racket, in which case they will more likely point diagonally with their non-playing hand.
3. Slightly flex the muscles of the hand not holding the ball and hold that hand a little lower. Subliminally, opponents pick up on this and choose that hand. Make sure to do the hiding in a nice, smooth motion. If you do it slowly or with obvious care, he'll think you are being tricky and choose the other (correct) hand. Which means, of course, that sometimes you can hide the ball slowly with obvious care and do everything opposite of the above! (I do this sometimes successfully.)

If you are choosing the ball…

1. Watch the opponent's other matches and see which hand he typically hides it in.
2. Players tend to hide the ball more often in their serving hand, i.e. not their racket hand.
3. You can sometimes see a slight flexing in the arm holding the ball.
4. Players tend to hold the hand with the ball slightly lower.
5. Watch out for experienced players who cross you up, especially on #3 above!

When I hide the ball and let the opponent choose, using all the tricks in part one, I'm pretty sure I get first choice nearly 2/3 of the time. When the opponent hides the ball, I'm pretty sure I get first choice 3/5 of the time. Of course, this comes with practice - and I've been doing it for 47 years. And, of course, none of this works if the opponent knows you are doing it!

At the lower levels, most players serve long both because they haven't learned to serve short effectively yet, and because opponents aren't yet skilled enough to attack them consistently and effectively. As you reach higher levels, long serves become less effective if used too often. But if used at the right time, they are extremely effective, for two primary reasons.  

1. The surprise factor leads to "free" points where the receiver misses or pops up the serve. 
2. The receiver has to guard against deep serves, and so is less effective against shorter serves.  

Note that it does take practice to develop effective long serves. Some develop a fast topspin serve, but a pure topspin serve is rarely effective – most opponents reflexively make good returns off them, even if rushed. To be effective, a long serve needs to be fast and deep, and either break with sidespin, or fast and dead (so opponent, used to some topspin, either puts it in the net or overreacts and goes off the end).  

But when should you use these long serves? That comes with experience. The two reasons above are why I advise players to develop all three types of serves: short (given the chance, would bounce at least twice on receiver's side of table); half-long (given the chance, second bounce would be right about the receiver's endline); and long serves (first bounce on receiver's side of the table is near the endline). But there's a third reason to use deep serves - to develop an instinct for when to use them effectively. Here are some things to take into consideration.  

1. How long since last time you used the serve. 
2. How effective the serve was when you used it.  
3. How the receiver is standing. If he's jammed to the table or leaving a corner somewhat open, it's time to serve long.  
4. How he received the last few serves. If he's handling your other serves well, it's time for a change.  
5. How much confidence you have in the serve and follow-up shots, where you might be on the defensive if the serve is attacked. 

So, put variety in your serves with short, half-long, and long serves. Always remember that while Short Serve is an anagram for Hot Servers, Fast Serve is the one many experienced players are often afraid of - it's an anagram for Vets' Fears!

I've always wanted to implant a camera in the eyes of up-and-coming players to record what they see when they watch top players play. They should see all sorts of great technique and tactics, right? But I'm afraid what I'd actually see is this. Yes, all they're really watching is the ball going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You don't learn much from that, do you?

Instead, to learn from top players when you watch them, focus on the player and what he's doing. See how he prepares for each shot (positioning and ready stance), how he executes the shot (backswing, forward swing, contact, follow through), and how he repositions himself for the next shot. THIS is how you learn, not from watching a small sphere shoot back and forth!

And now we're going to do a little exercise. Go to this Selective Attention Test (81 sec), and follow instructions. Notice how easy it is to see what you are looking for, while completely missing other things? Make sure when you watch a top player to focus on each aspect of what he does, and try to get a complete picture. Otherwise you might miss the obvious dancing gorilla of his technique!

Often I see players do drills where they try smacking the ball back and forth as if they were pros. (If you are a pro, then this doesn't apply to you.) They rally at a pace they can't control, and so their balls fly all over the court or miss. If they do hit but not at the place they are supposed to be drilling to, then the opponent's shots go all over the court or miss. It's pandemonium! Drills should not be, "hit-hit-mishit-miss." They should be "hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit..."

Some think that by practicing at such speeds, they can learn to play at that speed. The part they are missing is that they are practicing missing as much as they are practicing hitting the table! By flailing away at the ball, they aren't improving their technique, control (putting the ball where you aim), or consistency. Instead, work on having great technique, control, and consistency. Have a coach or top players look at your strokes (or watch them on video yourself and compare to top players) so you have good technique. Do drills where you focus on hitting the ball within six inches or so of where you are aiming for control. Count how many shots you can do in a drill to work on consistency. When you have those three, hitting hard is easy.

And then, maybe, just maybe . . . you'll be a pro!

Players often hold back on their trickiest serve (often long ones) until it's close. And that's sometimes a good idea. But there are three problems with that.

First, you won't know until you use it if the serve will be effective against this player. Second, if you use it early in each game, then that game might never get close. As long as you space it out, a tricky serve stays effective, so you don't need to hold back on it too much. If it's effective the first time early in the game, then perhaps come back to it in the middle of the game, and perhaps at the end again. And third, once the opponent knows you have this tricky serve (usually long ones), he has to guard against it - making your other serves (often short ones) more effective!

If a student of mine has a tricky serve - often a long serve - I regularly tell them to use it the first point of the match. If it works, then it's a judgement call how often to use it. The more you use this serving tactic of using your trickiest serves early, the more experienced you'll get at judging when to use them.

One cautionary note - if you want to reach the advanced levels, over-relying on tricky serves - especially long ones - can really hurt your development. Focus on shorter serves that won't give you as many outright serve winners but will set up your attack. Then mix in tricky serves for free points and so the opponent has to watch for them.