Players learn to react to an opponent’s motion as soon as they are committed. But some players commit early, other late. You can often see where an intermediate player is hitting his shot before he even starts his forward swing, while you normally can’t tell against an advanced player until after he’s started his forward swing.

Try adding last-second changes of direction to your game, especially when receiving. While it’s valuable at all times, it is when receiving that you’ll get the most bang for your buck by changing the direction at the last second. For example, if you are pushing aim to the backhand, and then, at the last second, as the server is reacting to it already, change and quick push to the forehand. Or do the reverse, aim to the forehand, and as he reacts to that, go quick to the backhand. You’ll be surprised at how often you can mess up the server in this way. At first he’ll likely get caught going the wrong way. Even when he adjusts, he’ll be rushed as he’ll have to wait longer to see where you are going. 

You can do the same against sidespin-topspin serves, aiming one way, then going the other. It’s one of the best ways to force an opponent to use his weaker side. Just aim to his strong side, then go to the weak side!

Whether you are stronger on the forehand or backhand, you should maximize coverage with your stronger side. Ideally, you’ll be equally strong on both sides, but that is rare. At the very least, most players are stronger on one side in some situations - for example, better on the backhand in fast rallies, better on the forehand when attacking against slower shots.

And yet many players do not maximize the coverage of their stronger side. Analyze your game, and decide which side is your stronger side in any given situation. For example, many top players receive short serves better with their backhand, usually with a banana flip. So when they see a short serve coming, they often step over and receive with their backhands, even from the forehand corner. Others may have very strong rallying backhands, and so might cover over half the table with their backhands. Or (more commonly at the higher levels) they might be stronger on the forehand, and so cover more of the table with that.

So start training to use your stronger side to cover more of the table in given situations - because using a stronger shot to cover more of the table makes you a stronger player! 

At clubs all across the nation and the world, the same routine goes on all the time - players are constantly asking and talking about equipment. Only ratings are more discussed. (Typical greeting at a club: “What’s your rating? What equipment do you use?”) And it’s true that you can learn a lot by asking others about equipment - and better still, trying out their equipment.

But think about it - a distributor might have dozens of sponges and dozens of rackets that might suit your game. The possible combinations can run into the thousands. While you may gain valuable information asking questions, remember that they mostly know what works for them, and no two players play alike. You need to find what works for you. You may find this by experimenting, but the probability that someone else at the club just happens to have the perfect racket and sponge combination for you isn’t likely.

But there’s an expert out there ready to help - and that’s the equipment expert at the distributor. All of the major ones have someone like this, who has literally tried out every combination of their equipment, and knows just about all there is to know about all of them. Their job is to find a perfect combination for you - because if they don’t, you’ll be going to a rival. Not only that, but each of these distributor “equipment junkies” lives and breathes table tennis equipment, and so it will be his lifelong dream to discuss your equipment needs and find you the perfect combination. He’ll know what questions to ask of your game with the goal of finding you just what you need.

So if you aren’t sure yet about what equipment to use, why not contact one of the major distributors and ASK? (You can also do this at most major tournaments.) 

Many players understand the importance of using a semi-circular rotation of the racket to create deceptively different spins. For example, with a forehand pendulum serve, the racket goes through a rotation that starts by going down, and then down and sideways, sideways, sideways up, and then up. Depending where the contact is made you get different spins - backspin, sidespin-backspin, sidespin, sidespin-topspin, and topspin.

But you can get even more subtle than this. With the above motion, the axis of rotation at the start of the serve is the elbow, with the axis changing to the wrist just before contact. This means you get spin from both elbow and the wrist.

Now imagine snapping the wrist so that the tip is going down, but pulling up slightly with the elbow so that the bottom of the racket (near the handle) is moving up, with the axis of rotation in the middle of the blade, i.e. the blade spins about its center. If contact is made near the tip, you get backspin. But if you contact it nearer the handle, you get sidespin or topspin! It won’t be as much spin as with the standard forehand pendulum serve, but the mount of spin isn’t nearly as important as fooling the opponent. In this example, the opponent will see the big downward swing of the racket tip, and will likely instinctively read the serve as backspin - and so you contact it near the bottom, with some combination of sidespin and topspin, and watch the opponent pop the ball up or put it off the end!

You can use this same principle with any semi-circular serving motion, though you should first master the standard version. Note that quickness of the motion is more important than the amount of spin - the goal is to trick them into thinking it’s backspin, so exaggerate that motion. And then let loose with this new variation, and watch the looks of disbelief by opponents who were absolutely certain the racket was moving down at contact!

Many players are aware that one of the best places to attack is an opponent's middle, i.e. his playing elbow, roughly the mid-point between forehand and backhand. There are multiple reasons for this, as noted in the previous Tip of the Week, Attacking the Middle. Many make the mistake of looking for a chance to attack the middle instead of just attacking it, period. Why wait?

However, often a player is told to attack the opponent's middle to set up shots to the corners. This is a highly effective tactic, but unless you do it regularly, it's actually difficult to do correctly. The problem is that after attacking the middle, one of the corners usually opens up – but then you have to almost instantly judge which one that is. If you get it wrong, the opponent often gets an easy shot. Top players are so used to attacking the middle and then going to the corner that opens up that it's instinct – they find it so easily they don't even realize how difficult this is for others.

How do you judge which sides opens up? In covering the middle, the opponent has to move sideways to play a forehand or backhand from the middle. That leaves one side open. After the shot, they are usually either slow in returning into position, thereby leaving that side open, or almost as often move too quickly, often still moving as you hit your next shot, and so leave the other side open. You just have to see and react to which side is open.

But there's a simpler tactic which anyone can do which is just about as effective and is easier to do – and that's to simply keep going after the middle, i.e. "Follow the Elbow." This is an especially good tactic in fast exchanges, especially backhand ones. All you do is keep punching or looping the ball right at the opponent's elbow, no matter where they are. If they start edging over to cover it, you follow the target and keep going after it. The tactic isn't too effective against super-fast forehand players, but most players are two-winged in fast rallies. Even if they know you are going to go to their middle again, they can't really position themselves for it – all that does is move their elbow, and you simply go for it again.

Against such an onslaught to their elbow, many players will just wilt, unable to rally effectively. Have no mercy – keep going at their elbow until they either miss or give you an easy put-away – and then you can go anywhere.