Many players confuse anticipation with reaction. Reaction is when you see what the opponent is going to do and then respond to it. (You can usually do so before he actually hits the ball, often early in their forward swing. Reaction is almost always more important than anticipation, but both have their place.) Anticipation is when you realize what your opponent is going to do before he gives a direct indication of what he’s going to do, and so can position yourself early for the shot. (A key thing is to know when he’s committed to a shot so you don’t move too soon and get burned if he changes direction.) How can you anticipate an opponent’s shot? Here are a few examples.

• Patterns. Some players, in fast rallies or when pressed, hit almost everything crosscourt, so you can anticipate that. There are endless possible patterns as everyone’s different, so you should learn to pick up these patterns from different opponents. For example, when players go to my wide forehand, I like to set up like I’m going crosscourt, and at the last second go down the line. If I play it aggressively, most opponents can only react to my shot if they anticipate which direction I’m going—and smart ones learn to expect the down-the-line shot. (Very few do.)
• Serve Returns. When receiving, many players are cautious, and so return most serves crosscourt. You can anticipate this. For example, if you serve deep to the backhand (especially with a sidespin serve that breaks away from them, such as a forehand pendulum serve), most players automatically return crosscourt. If your serve is good, then it’s tricky to attack it down the line, and so if your forehand is better than your backhand, you can edge over and look to attack with it from the backhand side. 
• Your Positioning. If you go out of position, you can often anticipate your opponent will go to the “open” court. But since you know this early on, you can move before he actually hits there, and thereby get there in time. This especially happens when you attack with the forehand from the backhand corner, thereby leaving your wide forehand open. Smart players learn to return the ball to both angles, but many do not, and so you don’t have to wait to know where they are going—to the wide forehand.
• Opponent’s Swing. You can often guess where an opponent is going from his backswing and the start of his forward swing. (This can also go down as reaction.) For example, if you go to an opponent’s wide forehand, and he takes a long backswing, he’s probably going down the line since he won’t have time to get outside the ball and take it crosscourt.
• Against a Smash. Most players can’t react to a smash unless they can anticipate where it’s going. If so, then at the last second, as the opponent is starting his forward swing and is committed to a direction, you should anticipate the direction. With experience, you’ll learn the patterns for most opponents, and from that and from watching their swing well before contact, you’ll be able to begin anticipating their probable direction.

“I have slow reflexes!” I’ve heard that so many times in my coaching career and in every case, the player was wrong. Why? Because they don’t understand what gives a person fast reflexes, and how to develop them.

Nerve impulses from the brain to the muscles travel at about the same speed for everyone. It’s more complicated than that, and there are differences, but these differences are minimal compared to the aspects of those reflexes that you can develop. And there are two major things you can do to develop fast reflexes in table tennis. The first is obvious, the second not so obvious. 

First, the more you play, the more you develop these reflexes as just that–a reflex. When a beginner plays, he has to almost consciously react to each shot, and so he’s slow in reacting. Advanced players do so subconsciously, as they have developed fast reflexes to any given situation. This just comes from training. (It’s also somewhat sport-specific. There are studies that show that athletes with fast reflexes in their sport have only average reflexes when tested in other sports that they have not trained in extensively.)

Second, and here’s the one that’s less obvious and often less developed, you can improve your reflexes by learning to react sooner—and the key word is learning. How? By making a habit of studying opponents, both in practice and games, so that you are aware at what point in their stroke you can see where their shot is going. By doing so, it becomes a reflexive and subconscious habit. And so while many don’t even begin to react until they see the ball coming off the opponent’s racket, others are reacting well before contact since you don’t need to wait until the ball hits the racket to see where the ball is going. Every player is different, so you have to make adjustments—some advanced players, for example, can misdirect an opponent by faking one way and changing direction at the last second. But even with those players you can see when they are actually committed to a direction, and soon you’ll be reacting to their shot before they actually hit it. The reality is most players telegraph the direction of their shot by the time they start their forward swing, well before contact. (One key thing to watch is their shoulders, which often give direction away early.)

There are other things that also help you “speed up” your reflexes. If you put the ball deep on the table, you have more time to react. If, immediately after hitting your shot, you look up and watch your opponent, you can see what he’s doing and so react more quickly. If you stay balanced and in a good ready position, you can move more quickly.

The result of the above, and in particular the second method? Suddenly you are reacting much earlier to opponent’s shots, and suddenly those hard drives and even smashes are not so hard to react to. And that’s when you realize that those players with great reflexes only have them because they have trained reflexes. So can you. 

Like it or not, mind games are a part of all sports. They range from "stare downs" in boxing to starting arguments in any sport to force an opponent to lose his focus. The best way to deal with most of them is two-fold: 1) ignore them and keep your focus, and 2) call for the referee if it goes too far. Here are the most common mind games you might face in table tennis.

• Intentionally showing up late for a match. This can irritate an opponent, leading to him not playing as well. If an opponent does this, smile to yourself and do your best to stay focused and ready. Do not be afraid to ask for a default if the opponent takes too long - check with the referee on how long you have to wait. (Some players are notorious for this. I'm tempted to name names!)
• Stalling. This can also irritate an opponent. There's no problem with slowing down to a degree to keep your focus or to rest, but there are limits. If an opponent does this too much, get the referee.
• Playing overly fast. This can trick the opponent into playing points before he is mentally or even physically ready. This you can easily control, especially on your serve. When the opponent is serving, not only should you not go to the table until you are ready (though you shouldn't stall), but you might consider holding your non-playing hand up as you get into your ready position, signaling you are not yet ready, so the opponent can't quick-serve you.
• Praising an opponent. This gets an opponent to think about the very shots that he is doing well - and that's the quickest way for the shots to fall apart. The best play is almost mindless (other than tactical thinking between points), as you let the subconscious do what it's been trained to do. In general, other than keeping score and other game-related issues, you shouldn't talk to an opponent during a serious match nor should he talk to you. If he does in a distracting way, either give short, quick answers or just ignore him. If it gets out of hand, call for a referee. (In the final of Men's Singles at the Nationals one year, one player was winning relatively easily. The opponent began chanting the player's name between points, punching his fist into the air in unison, and motioned for the crowd to do so as well, which it did, over and over. The player who was winning fell apart and lost.)
• Staring. Some players are infamous for just staring at their opponent, especially as they are about to serve. If they take too long doing this, call a referee.
• Intentional minor infractions. They are done to cause irritate an opponent, thereby hurting his focus. These include toweling off at improper times, talking to people on sidelines (that might be coaching), arguing over the score or who serves, kicking the ball away, or walking around opponent's side of the table. When an opponent is losing, he may decide his best chance of winning is to distract the opponent so that he won't play as well - and it often works if an unwary opponent isn't ready for it. Ignore it, knowing opponent is desperate. If it gets too bad, call for the referee. (The classic case of this was the Men's Final at the 1987 World Championships, when, after coming back to reach deuce in the fourth (up 2-1 in games in a best of five to 21), China's Jiang Jialiang walked around the table, walking between his opponent and the table on the far side, pumping his fist the whole time. This seemed to distract his opponent, Jan-Ove Waldner, who lost the game and match.)
• Screaming. Sometimes this is done innocently, especially by junior players, as a way to release tension - and most coaches, including me, encourage this, to a degree. Other times it is done to intimidate. Sometimes it is both. Since this is generally allowed, get used to it. In fact, you might consider doing it yourself so that it's not all one-sided and to release your own tension - some of it from the opponent's screaming! (For classic example, go to Youtube and pull any video of Japan's Harimoto Tomokazu.)
• Outright cheating. Call the referee immediately.

Some players would say that you aren’t really playing table tennis until you learn to loop. A loop in table tennis is an offensive stroke with the primary purpose of producing lots of topspin. Table tennis is a game of spin, and the loop is the primary example of using spin during a rally.

Many players (and some coaches) feel a player should be able to hit lots and lots of forehands & backhands, and reach a relatively high level of play, before learning to loop. Nothing could be more outdated. By the time a player has reached a relatively high level of play, the player’s strokes and major habits are set. If looping isn’t among those habits, it’ll be more difficult to learn later on. The moral is: it’s rarely too early to learn to loop. (For this article, I will be mostly discussing the forehand loop. But you can and should loop from both sides.)

This doesn’t mean that a beginner should be looping on his first day. However, once a player can hit a moderately good forehand with moderately good technique, he’s ready to begin the process of learning to loop, even as he continues to develop his other basic strokes. A player shouldn’t think of a loop as an advanced shot; it’s simply another shot, one that should be taught shortly after learning the basic forehand and backhand drive (also known as counter or counter-drive) strokes. The shot also adds excitement and variety to a player’s game, turning a basement player into a dedicated table tennis addict.

A beginner should start out looping against backspin, for three reasons. First, it’s more natural, as you are simply adding to the spin, rather than trying to change it. Two, the ball is traveling more slowly than a topspin (usually), and so is easier to learn against. Three, any player with sponge should learn to loop at least against backspin (even pips-out players), so this shot will be part of any player’s arsenal eventually. A player should learn to loop both forehand and backhand against backspin.

Once a player can loop against backspin, he’s ready to loop in a rally, against blocks and topspin. You no longer lift; instead, you go mostly forward, spinning almost the top of the ball.

Many players learn to loop well against one type of spin (topspin or backspin), but not the other. This usually has to do with the shoulders. Against backspin, drop the back shoulder (right shoulder for right-handers, left shoulder for left-handers) when forehand looping. Against topspin, shoulder should only drop slightly, if at all.

Against topspin, footwork is more important. The ball is coming at you faster, so you have to move more quickly. This is a primary reason why older players and those out of shape may not loop against topspin as much.

But if you want to really terrorize an opponent, learn to loop against all spins!

To play table tennis effectively, you need to have a calm, clear mind, which allows your training to pay off effectively. How often have you actually played a tournament where you entered every match with a calm, clear mind?

Shortly before your match starts, simply go off somewhere where it's quiet. Close your eyes. Blank out your mind. Relax. Do this for perhaps 10-30 seconds and you're ready to play. (There are more advanced techniques for doing this - Google "sports psychology table tennis" - but for many of us, this is sufficient. Some do it longer or listen to music.) Corollary: when you're at the table and the warm-up is over, and the match is about to begin, take 5-10 seconds to do the above again, and perhaps every now and then during a towel break or other timeout.

This doesn't mean you should be lethargic. Some players (including me) need to get "psyched up" to play well. But you can do that while keeping a calm mind. Before the match, perhaps do some exercise to get the feet going, perhaps jumping up and down lightly or shuffling side to side - but only a for a short time as you don't want to go into the match tired. During the match, do the same sometimes between points, as you'll often see world-class players do. (Older or out-of-shape players might do this less to save energy.) Keep encouraging yourself each point to move and take your shots. If you celebrate after winning a point, that often helps relieve tension, but make sure to clear your mind before starting the next point. A cluttered mind leads to klutzy play. A clear mind allows your training to take over.