At tournaments, players warm their shots up - forehands, backhands, looping, blocking, and so on. Then they go out to play - and half the points start out with their serve, one of the few things in their game that they didn't warm up! This has always puzzled me.

I think most believe that serves don't really need to be warmed up, that they can pull them out at any time without practicing or warming them up first. This might be true if you have truly weak serves, whose only purpose is to get the ball in play. If so, then may I humbly suggest getting some coaching so you can learn to serve well, and then practice your serves until they are a real weapon, as they should be? Then, once your serves are at a threatening level . . . that's when you need to warm them up before matches so you can have them at 100%. Even simple serves are better when you warm them up - you serve them lower, with more spin, and with more depth control. If you warm them up first, you can also serve more deep, aggressive serves without worry about serving off the end. (What, you don't have a deep, aggressive serve that threatens your opponent? Develop them! And note that they should either be fast, breaking serves with spin, or fast and dead.)

When I go to tournaments, I often bring a bag of balls and a ball net for picking them up. When I get the chance, I go to a back table and practice them. Or find a practice partner and take turns serving, where the other player works on receive. Or just catch your partner’s serve and serve back. Then, when it's time to play a match, they are much more effective than they would be without practicing them first.

1. They know that most of the game takes place in the head.
2. They know how to focus.
3. They can’t wait to get to practice.
4. They are students of the game.
5. They love to talk about table tennis.
6. They have spinny serves, but their go-to serve is often a no-spin serve that looks spinny.
7. They attack deep serves, and can take a short serve and effectively push it long, short, or flip.
8. They love to attack the middle (opponent’s transition point).
9. They keep their equipment and bodies in top shape.
10. They play for titles, not rating points.
11. Pickle-what?

In my day, there were players who received short serves much better with their backhand than with their forehands. Every coach in the world would tell them to work on their forehand receive against short serves, especially flipping. But a few players would still stubbornly receive with their backhand, even against short serves to the forehand - and they did so effectively. The response from most coaches? Instead of learning from this, there was an overwhelming, "Work on your forehand receive!"

There was a rationale for this. If you receive with your backhand against a short serve to the forehand, it can leave you out of position for the next shot. However, while you might not be able to cover as much of the table with your forehand on the next shot, players have shown that they have no trouble getting back to cover the next shot. There's also the problem that if you favor the backhand flip too much, you may face a player who can serve both short to your forehand and long to your backhand with the same motion, and it might be impossible to cover both your backhand. So, yeah, develop the forehand flip.

However, much of the thinking on this has changed, because of the rise of the backhand flip, in particular the banana backhand flip, which is essentially a mini-loop over the table. (Google it on Youtube.) But even without the extra topspin from a banana flip, for many players, backhand flipping is just easier than on the forehand - and so such players shouldn't hesitate to sometimes receive backhand against short serves to the forehand. (Many or most of the best players in the world do this, including Ma Long.) It's very important to have a good forehand flip as well, but if you are better with the backhand against short serves to the forehand, then go ahead and use it when you can. It may look funny but it can be effective!!!

These three are perhaps the mental pillars of playing well. While I’ve known this for decades, I recently read a book that really reiterated this. I kept hearing about the book Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind For Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life by Jim Murphy, a former professional baseball player. I finally decided to buy and read it. It was pretty good, though of course some of it is similar to what various sports psychology books suggest, but it put a lot of good info together. Page 54 emphasizes BFF - Belief, Focus, Freedom (i.e., play free). What does this mean?

• Belief – You must believe in yourself. If there is any doubt, your subconscious picks up on this, leading to hesitant or erratic play. It’s not a matter of waiting until you play well and then believing in yourself; you must believe in yourself first, and go from there. Once you can do this, your play will improve, and you’ll have even more reason to believe in yourself – and it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy as you ride it to the top.
• Focus – You have to clear your mind. If you have other things on your mind while playing, or aren’t really concentrating, your play will suffer. 
• Freedom – You have to let yourself go and play freely. Don’t try to consciously control your play; let your training take over. Your conscious mind should only operate between points, and only on simple tactics. Otherwise, just focus on watching the ball and let your training do its job.

Let me start by being absolutely clear – you should take all serious matches seriously. That may sound like circular reasoning, taking serious matches seriously, but they have slightly different meanings. “Serious matches” means, in this context, matches where the top priority is to win, i.e. tournament and league matches. (You should also try to win practice matches, but they are also just that – practice, where you both practice your shots and techniques, and practice finding ways to win.) But much of this depends on your opponent. And for this, I’m dividing them into three types. (Some top players or coaches will disagree with this and would say to treat all opponents at all levels the same. There’s no problem with that. Whatever works best for you.)

“Serious” opponents are those where the match is competitive, or the opponent is much stronger. You should throw whatever you have at them, tactically. I could write a whole book on this.

“Practice” opponents are those who can play, but are not threats to you. There’s no point in throwing every tricky serve you have at them once you’ve established that you can dominate nearly every point. Against players like this, once you’ve verified that the match isn’t competitive, you can turn them into practice matches – always with the provision that you can go back to pure winning tactics at any time.

For example, I might serve short backspin over and over against such a player, he’ll push it back, and I’ll start every rally by looping. Not only should I dominate this way, but I get great practice from it – which prepares me for the next match. (I could also fake backspin and serve no-spin, and he’d likely pop it up, giving me an easy put-away – but I wouldn’t get as much practice with that, would I? Stronger players will mostly keep the ball low, and will rarely pop the ball up like that.) PLUS – in that rare time where you do run into trouble, you can always fall back on what worked before, such as your trickier serves – and by not using them as much earlier, the opponent isn’t used to them, and so they are doubly effective. To use the USATT rating system, if I were 2300 and my opponent was, say, 1500, then once I’ve established that he really is 1500, and perhaps won the first game easily, I might play the rest of the way for practice. You can judge for yourself at what level a match might be competitive for you.

A key thing – and read this three times – is that you don’t let up mentally. You still play each point to win, you just don’t bother with your best serves or best tactics as long as you are dominating without them. If you let up mentally, that could cost you in the next match, and perhaps even in this match. Always remember that it’s easier to keep your focus then to recover it once lost.

An alternate version for some players is play the rest of the match perhaps just pushing and blocking, so as not to tire yourself out for the next match. I know of some older or out-of-shape players who do this. Another option is to use the match to practice your best serves. I’ve done both. You can also differentiate based on the event you are playing. If you are playing for a national or state title, you might treat each match differently than if it’s at a small, monthly event.

“Beginner” opponents are just that – beginners, or beginning-intermediate players. Some like to play for the 11-0 win; others give a mercy point. That’s up to you. I tend to throw a few good serves at them now and then so they can see them, but mostly just rally with them, and use the match to loosen up. If I am up 10-0, I’ll usually put one up a bit to their forehand and challenge them to hit one past me. Matches like this are actually good mental preparation – if you can keep your focus throughout the match, even while not playing fully serious, you can probably do so in your next, more competitive match.