Every part of your game has a history. If you are a longtime player, you should be able to look at any serve or stroke in your game and remember its history – how it started, how it developed, and where it stands today. If you are a more recent player, it’s even easier as it’s all fresh in your mind since you’ve just started.

The key thing to remember is that your history changes constantly; you are in control of it. Why not take an inventory of your game – all of it – and think about how it got to be where it is, and then, more importantly, think about where it should be. Then begin the history that’ll lead to it being where it should be. Develop your yore.

Suppose your pushes are consistent, but not very heavy. Why aren’t they heavy? Because you have a history of not pushing heavy, and every time you don’t push heavy, you re-enforce the nonheaviness habit of your pushes. So work on pushing heavy, begin to do it, and eventually you’ll have a history of pushing heavy – and it’ll be where it should be. And then you’ll be able to look back at the history of your push, and note that moment in time when you began to create a history of pushing heavy, and so developed that as part of your game.

Every aspect of your game has a history, and you have control over developing the history that leads to each aspect. Take control of this history and develop your game to where it should be. You’re your yore. 

Many players learn to put decent spin on their serves. However, when faced with disguising this spin, they have great difficulty. Why not develop a tricky no-spin serve, with a fast, quick serve contact? Change directions in the split second that the racket contacts the ball, where it is nearly motionless, or contact the ball near the handle of the blade (where the racket is moving slowest) so there will be little spin … but your opponent will be left making a snap decision on what's on the ball. Perhaps exaggerate one direction, often down, then snap the racket up at contact, leaving the receiver to figure where the contact was – and you have three options: on the down swing (backspin), as the racket is changing directions (no-spin), or on the sideways or upswing (light sidespin or topspin). A no-spin serve is just as effective as a spin serve if the opponent thinks there is spin on the serve!

In singles, you can serve to all parts of the table. This means you can usually force your opponent to receive from his weaker side, whether it's forehand or backhand. Not so in doubles! Now your opponent can choose his stronger side to receive. If you serve long, he'll probably attack it, usually by looping. If you serve short sidespin or topspin, he'll probably attack it as well with a flip. If you serve backspin, he can drop it short, push heavy, or flip it to a corner. What is a server to do?

Surprisingly, the answer is often a very shot, very low no-spin serve. At the world-class level, it's the most common serve in doubles, and often in singles. Why is this? A short no-spin serve is tricky to push - it's easy to pop up, and you can't put as much backspin on it, since you don't have a ball's spin to rebound off your racket - you have to create all your own spin. It's also not as easy to flip aggressively as a ball with spin since you can't use the spin of an incoming ball to help your flip. A topspin or sidespin ball rebounds out with topspin when struck properly. A backspin ball can be aggressively flipped, and the backspin continues, except now as topspin. (Often the receiver can put great topspin on this ball, especially with a backhand banana flip.) But a no-spin ball doesn't rebound out, and you can't use its non-existent spin. Plus, it's easy to keep a no-spin ball low. (A slightly high no-spin ball is easy to attack, so beware.) This doesn't mean you should serve all no-spin. But it can be the primary serve, with other serves used as variations, especially short, heavy backspin. 

Should one search for the perfect equipment that matches his game, or adjust his game to match his equipment? This is never an easy question, but here is the main factor to consider. Once you are beyond the beginning stage it’s time to think long-term, and think about what your ultimate style of play will be. Once you decide that, look at some of the top players who play that style. What equipment are they using? If you want to play like them and hit shots like them, it’s helpful to have similar equipment. So once you are past the beginning stage, it’s time to adjust your equipment to the way you want to play.

The comparison isn’t exact; they play at a much higher level and train full-time (including physical training), so depending on your level, you might want something slower, though not too much so. For example, if their sponge is too fast, you might want a slower version.

One other thing to take into consideration is that if your game is centered around looping – as nearly all players at the higher levels are – then you do want something extra bouncy, that allows you to loop nearly anything, in particular one of the tensored sponges. 

When you face a new and unknown opponent, you aren't sure yet how the rallies are going to go. But you can control how the rallies start. Learn to use serve & receive to start rallies the way you want them to go, and so rather than you adjusting to your opponent, he has to adjust to you. It doesn't matter if the opponent plays very orthodox or has an unusual or weird style, you should be able to at least start the type of rally that favors you. A few examples:

• If you are good at attacking backspin, then a short, heavy, and very low backspin serve often forces a backspin return that you can attack.
• A short and low no-spin serve, as a variation to spin serves (especially backspin serves), is hard to either attack or push heavy, often giving you an easy ball to attack.
• If you serve a lot of short backspin serves and your opponent keeps pushing them back heavy, throw in short side-top serves and you'll likely get pop-ups.
• If you are good in fast topspin rallies, then a topspin or sidespin-topspin serve often forces a topspin return that you can attack. Mix them up with big breaking side-top serves as well as short ones.
• Fast & deep serves, strategically placed, often get you into a fast exchange, and can back players slightly off the table, giving you time to set up your attack. Forehand loopers are often forced out of position by these serves. Focus especially on side-top serves that break away from the receiver, fast no-spin at the elbow, and sudden quick ones down the line.
• Slow but deep sidespin serves, against an opponent who doesn't loop, sets you up for all sorts of attacks.
• If your opponent keeps attacking your short serve with his backhand, serve from the middle or forehand side so you have an angle to serve into his forehand, and force him to receive forehand.