How to Play Table Tennis

Table tennis is a physically and mentally demanding sport. The player should be fully fit all the time, have sharp and fast reflexes, and be imaginative in mental approach. The player should be able withstand pressure and perform under any condition. In playing table tennis, the most fundamental aspects are serving, return of serve and rallying.

Service

In modern table tennis, top quality players would drop short the return, if the service is short, giving you very little opportunity to open up the game. Under the circumstances, it would be most advisable to use long and fast services. This would help you to either force an outright error or to start a rally from where you can consolidate your position. However, in certain circumstances, serving low and short to the forehand could also be quite effective. Serves to the elbow is also another powerful tool, because the receiver would be put in a dilemma as to use a forehand or a backhand for the return. It is better to take ample time while serving and learn a comfortable routine for serving. This would help reduce errors while serving.

Further, you should practice all types of serves, like deep serve, short serve, long serve, medium serve, down-the-line serve, wide serves to the corners, serves with different spins like pure spin, combination spin, and no spin, etc., and serves that nearly double bounce.

During matches, try to use all the serves, mixing them up, so that you keep the opponent always guessing. You should mix up the serve with underspin, topspin, and no spin, and also vary the placement to different parts of the table. The serve is the most important stroke in table tennis and it requires constant and strenuous practice to become perfect. The height of the serve, the placement, the spin, and the speed should be varied as much as possible to provide the maximum variety.

Service Returns

You should mix up your returns also as much as possible. Keep your eyes mostly on the racket of the opponent, when receiving a serve. If you keep your eyes on the ball, the server could confuse you with deceptions. Mixing up loops, drives, pushes, chops, etc. would provide the required variation to baffle the opponent. If you get into a fixed pattern of service return, your opponent would be able to read your return easily and go on the offensive.

Rallying

The most important point in rallying is to watch the body position of the opponent. This would help you to hit the ball so that your placement makes the opponent get off balance. Use proper footwork so that you could maintain good balance and efficient execution of the strokes. Forward, backward, and side-to-side footwork should be practiced regularly. Footwork drills are the most important aspect of improving slow movement.

Both set patterns and random patterns should be regularly practiced. If you are facing a lob once too often, mixing up with a fast smash of off the bounce forehand and a drop shot would keep your opponent guessing. If your opponent is a looper, try to keep him moving around as much as possible, vary the spin on the ball, keep the serves and service returns short and attack more.

There are several more aspects to playing table tennis. You could watch the matches of top players to learn more. Regular practice is also needed to succeed in table tennis.