Do you have a game plan when you play? Or do you just wing it and hope?

Many players mostly wing it, to their detriment. Most have patterns they use, but often they haven't really thought them through. Every serve and receive should have purpose; otherwise, you are playing without purpose. Often the plans they do have don't take into consideration the opponent's strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you are a looper, you probably have patterns to set up your loop, but how much do you focus on adjusting these techniques and your loop itself (placement, speed, spin, etc.) to your opponent?

What is the strongest part of your game? What is your opponent's weakest? How can you connect these two? Failing that, how can you get your strength against your opponent's average, or perhaps your average against your opponent's weakness? You need to be looking for ways to force these match-ups. (See "A Levels Approach to Tactics.")

If you have a good serve and loop, it's not enough to serve and loop; you have to know where to serve and loop. For example, I'm forever reminding players with good loops that they normally shouldn't just loop to the backhand, and then look for a chance to attack the middle or wide forehand, where most players are weaker defensively. Why not plan to attack the middle first? (At the higher levels, against a very good counterlooper who is waiting, you might not want to do this - but often they are hanging around their backhand side, leaving the wide forehand somewhat open. And yet, even at that level, the middle is usually the weakest spot.)

Think about someone you regularly play against. What is he uncomfortable against? You might want to consider how others play against him, since it's possible you are missing his problem areas. Then figure out how you can best match up against him.

But don't think of it as just one tactical solution to one player. The key is to make it a habit to develop game plans - something you automatically think about and implement every time you play. When game plans becomes a habit you'll get your better shots into play while picking apart the weaknesses of your opponents, leading to more upsets, beating your peers, and dominating against weaker players who might have given you problems before. 

Many players serve without any type of routine. They just go to the table, decide what serve to do, and then serve. If all you want to do is get the ball in play, that's fine. But if you want to serve effectively, there's more to it. (Before we go on, here's a Tip on Practicing Serves the Productive Way, one on Ten Steps to a Great Service Game, and one on Purpose of the Serve.)

First, you need to mentally prepare yourself for each serve. That means going through a pre-serve routine. It can be short and simple, such as just coming to a complete stop (as required by the serving rules), where you finalize what serve you will do, and then clear your mind to prepare for the upcoming rally. Or it could be a bit more. Some bounce the ball on the table or even the floor. Others wipe their hand on the table. I like to push up the sleeve of my serving shoulder, drop my serving arm so it hangs loosely, and then swing it back and forth one time like a pendulum (which also helps loosen the arm muscles). Then I come to a complete stop, visualize the serve, and then serve it. (I decide what the serve will be before I start this routine, though I often change my mind afterwards while visualizing the serve.)

Second, you need to visualize the serve. That means all aspects of it:

1. Height of toss (here's a Tip on Height of Service Toss)
2. Height of contact (low!)
3. Location of contact (here's a Tip on Service Contact Point)
4. Speed of contact
5. Contact itself (grazing for spin, flatter for speed; here's a Tip on Five Steps to a Great Spin Serve)
6. Direction of the serve (here's a Tip on Where to Serve Short, and here's one on Turn Opponents Into Puppets with Long Serves)
7. Flight of the ball (curving if there is sidespin, sinking if topspin, floating if backspin)
8. Location of first bounce (where on your side of table)
9. Break on first bounce (if a spin serve)
10. Where it crosses the net (always low)
11. Location of second bounce (where on table, both direction and depth; here's a Tip on Depth Control of Serves)
12. Height of bounce on far side (here's a Tip on Serving Low)
13. Break on second bounce (if a spin serve)

Does this mean going through a checklist of all of the above? NO!!! It means visualizing all aspects of the serve, taken as a whole. You can recognize a person's face without consciously noticing what makes it different from another's. Similarly, you can visualize an entire serve without consciously noting each aspect. (Here's a Tip that covers much of this - A Journey of Nine Feet Begins at Contact.)

Third, you have to be ready for the follow-up. This means getting into a proper ready stance immediately after the serve. It also means mentally being ready to follow up the serve. This has to be a flexible approach - never force something that isn't there. For example, you might decide you are looking to follow your serve with a forehand loop. If the opponent pushes and you are able to get to it, you get the shot. But if your opponent attacks the serve, drops it short, or catches you off guard with an aggressive push that you can't get your forehand on, you need to flexibly react to that shot. Similarly, a player may decide he's going to follow with a loop from either side, depending on where the ball goes - but if the opponent drops the ball short, you have to flexibly change your shot.

This last aspect takes experience to get right. For example, if an opponent pushes your serve back over and over, an experienced player may decide to use the following tactic: when he serves backspin, he'll likely get a heavier, lower return, and so follow with forehand or backhand loop, depending on where the ball goes. But if he serves no-spin, he'll likely get a lighter, higher return, and so look to follow with a forehand. (I do this tactic all the time.) In theory, this makes it look like you should serve more no-spin, but there's also a higher probability that it'll be attacked, plus you need to vary the serve so the opponent can't get used to one serve, so you have to vary between backspin and no-spin. (Here's a Tip on Serving No-spin.)

So consider taking a 1-2-3 approach to serving: mentally prepare yourself, visualize the serve, and prepare for the follow-up. 

The two most common mistakes players make in failing to create great spin are 1) a lack of smooth acceleration, and 2) grazing contact, which are the two pillars of creating spin, whether it be serving, pushing, chopping, or slow looping. (For faster looping, you sink the ball more into the sponge, but the smooth acceleration part holds for all looping.) I'm mostly writing for players using inverted sponge, but the same principles apply to most pips-out surfaces as well, as long as they have some grippiness.

When looping, players below the advanced level often try to get extra spin by "muscling" the ball, meaning they try to use nearly 100% of their muscle power as they go for maximum racket velocity. The actual result is they only use a few of their upper-body muscles (often mostly arm), and a loss of control. When they learn to slow down and use all their muscles (at perhaps 70%) and smoothly accelerate into the ball, that's when they get the acceleration needed for powerful loops with both spin and speed. That's why the most powerful loopers often make it look effortless.

When serving and pushing, beginning and intermediate players often use a short stroke and sort of jab at the ball. They are thinking that the velocity they get with this jabbing will create great spin. Actually, it just leads to a loss of control as you can't control the racket this way. Plus, for physics reasons I won't get into (partially because I'm not a physicist), you get more spin if you smoothly accelerate into the ball, with the rubber literally slinging the ball out as it accelerates through contact. (When looping with both speed and spin, where you sink the ball more into the sponge, it should feel like you're almost holding the ball on your racket as it carries it through the shot, with an even greater slingshot effect.)

But on slow spin shots (serving, pushing, chopping, slow loops), you only get this tremendous spin if you graze the ball - the second problem many players have. Too often players sink the ball too much into the sponge instead of the fine grazing motion needed. To learn to graze the ball, just toss one up and graze it with your racket, making it spin. Generally do this with a pendulum serve motion, but contact the ball on the left side of the ball (for a righty), with the racket going mostly up and slightly left, so that the ball goes straight up. Catch it and repeat. It's important to spin the ball so it goes straight up, both so you can catch it and repeat, and so you can develop ball control. (If you can't control the direction the ball goes when you graze it with this exercise, how can you do it when actually serving?)

I recommend beginning players get a multi-colored ball or put markings on one so they can practice grazing and see the spin they are creating. This gives feedback on whether you are really spinning the ball or not and how much.

For more advanced players, I recommend they also do the ball spinning drill I wrote about above. It's a great way to really develop those grazing skills so you can both spin the heck out of the ball and control it. Advanced players should also experiment with smooth acceleration and grazing on their spin shots, and see how much they can make the ball spin.

When you can put great spin on the ball with your serve, apply the same principles to pushing and slow looping. (Also chopping if that is in your arsenal.) Don't be afraid to throw in some slow, spinny loops, even if you normally loop pretty hard. Slow, spinny loops are extremely effective at the beginning/intermediate level, but many forget or never realize how effective they are even at the advanced level if not overused. They not only are effective on their own as the opponent struggles to adjust to the slower speed and higher spin, but the contrast makes your other loops more effective.

One of the most important things that distinguish top players from others is the depth of their shots. There are times when you want to keep the ball short on the table - short serves and pushes (to stop opponents from looping), short blocks (as a change of pace), and wide-angle shots (allowing you to go outside the corners for extreme angles). Counterloops often don't go deep on the table - it's hard to control depth from way off the table. However, these are the exceptions. In most cases you want most of your shots to go deep on the table - pushes, blocks, counter-hits, drives, loops, chops, fishes, and lobs. You also want your deep serves to go truly deep.

By going deep you give yourself time to react to the opponent's shot. You take away the extreme angles, and so have less table to cover. Finally, balls that land in the middle of the table (depth-wise) are easier to attack. Most intermediate players can loop kill or smash them, and advanced players rip these balls with ease. By going deep you make it difficult for your opponent to hit winners or even to play aggressive.

When you see advanced players returning shot after shot, usually it's not that they have incredible reflexes; it's that they are keeping the ball deep, and so can react to the opponent's shots. Weaker players usually put their shots shorter and are unable to react to their opponent's shots, and mistakenly blame it on slower reflexes. (They also place the ball well, usually to wide corners, forcing the opponent to move.)

How does one go about learning depth control?

First, be aware of the depth of your shots. If I catch a ball in the middle of a rally and ask my opponent where his last shot was, he'll usually know the direction but will often have no clue about the depth. Depth awareness often doesn't really come about for many players until they approach the advanced levels - and this lack of awareness often stops players from reaching those levels.

Second, strive to keep the ball deep on most shots, both in games and practice. Stop playing safe, middle-of-the-table shots that are effective against weaker players but are meatballs for stronger ones. Aim for the last 18 inches or so of the table, and you'll develop the habit of keeping the ball deep - and the average level of your opponents' shots will go down dramatically. (Keep in mind that the goal isn't to hit the ball 18 inches from the end-line; it's to hit the ball within 18 inches of the end-line. So your average shot might actually be within a foot of the end-line.)

Third, practice your depth shots. Once they are past the beginning levels most players stop thinking about simple drills like forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand - but it is simple drills like these where you can learn depth control. Put a string or some other marker across the table, about 18 inches from the end-line, and see if you consistently keep the ball past it. Don't try to consciously guide the shot; learn the feel for keeping the ball deep, and let your subconscious take over, just as it should for all learned shots. Perhaps have one player block while the other attacks, and both try to keep the ball deep.

You can practice this on your own with a box of balls. Bounce them on your side of the table and hit to the far side with various shots, and learn the feel for keeping the ball deep. You can practice depth on pushes, drives, and loops in this way. Perhaps put a box against the end-line on the far side and see if you can fill the box up with balls. It's not exactly the same as normally you are hitting against an incoming ball, but it's close enough to practice getting the feel for depth.

You should similarly practice the depth on your long serves. If your serve isn't supposed to go short (so given the chance the second bounce would be on the table or at most barely long - a "half-long" serve), then you want the first bounce to be very deep, within 6-12 inches of the end-line. You have complete control of your serves, so you should have even greater depth control with them than with rallying shots.

Keep the ball deep and your level will leap! 

While this Tip is mostly about returning short serves, it also follows for those who aren't ready or able to loop against deep serves. At higher levels most players loop deep serves, and so only have to make a decision on what to do against shorter serves. At beginning and intermediate levels, however, players often do push against deep backspin serves. If they are going to do this, they should at least know how to approach this with their receive.

Many players look to push back most serves - and are caught off guard against topspin and sidespin serves, often popping them up or making a last-second change to a weak drive return. (You can chop down on these and sort of push them back, but it's often better to drive them back.) Others wait to see if the ball has backspin or not, and have to make a last-second choice between pushing (if the ball has backspin) or driving (if the ball doesn't have backspin). If the serve is no-spin, you can do either, but if you push you have to aim low.

If you want to reach the higher levels, it's often better to approach receive with the idea that you are going to attack all short serves - unless you make a last-second decision to push. In other words, rather than looking to push (and messing up against topspin/sidespin) or having to make a last-second decision between two choices (and so not being really ready for either), it's better to know what you are going to do and be decisive about it - and then change your mind at the last second if you see backspin. There are three primary reasons for this.

First, it's a lot easier to change your mind at the last second from attacking the serve to a simple push if you see backspin on the serve than it is to go from pushing to attacking the serve if you realize it isn't a backspin serve. It's easy to simply open your racket at the last second and push against a slow, incoming backspin ball, but it's tricky close your racket at the last second and drive against a faster incoming topspin or sidespin ball.

Second, you can attack any short serve - even if it has backspin - and so if you decide in advance you are going to attack, you know you can do this. If you instead decide in advance to push the serve, you may get crossed up with a non-backspin serve. And if the ball does have backspin and you decide an attack is risky, it's easy to change your mind and switch to a push. There's nothing wrong with mostly pushing against backspin, though at higher levels you'd need to sometimes push them short or attack them.

And third, it gives you decisiveness. If you aren't sure whether you are going to attack or push, that can lead to indecisiveness, which leads to mistakes.

So look to be aggressive in your receives, with the option of switching to a push against backspin if you aren't confident in attacking it. You may still end up switching to a push most of the time against most backspin serves, but that's easy to do, and you'll be better at reacting to topspin/sidespin serves while learning to at least sometimes be aggressive against backspin serves. It's easier to be aggressive and switch to a push than it is to be defensive and switch to being aggressive, and it's always better to be decisive than to go in indecisively and having to make a last-second decision.