(By Larry Hodges) 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 […]

(By Larry Hodges) They know that most of the game takes place in the head. They know how to focus. They can’t wait to get to practice. They are students of the game. They love to talk about table tennis. They have spinny serves, but their go-to serve is often a no-spin serve that looks […]

(By Larry Hodges) 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 […]

(By Larry Hodges) 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 […]

(by Larry Hodges) 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 […]

(by Larry Hodges) The problem with being down 0-2 in a match isn’t that you are down 0-2; it’s that you are being outplayed. If you outplay your opponent the rest of the way, then you’ll likely win the next three games. So, don’t worry about the game score. Focus on your performance and tactics […]

(by Larry Hodges) The single most important thing you have to adjust to with any given opponent is usually their serve. Many players take a game or so to do so. But there’s a shortcut, and a secret of mine and many top coaches and players. If you have a match coming up, it’s great […]

(by Larry Hodges) Here is a great way to understand how the mind should operate during a table tennis rally. If you play a musical instrument, you don’t consciously play a song; your subconscious does. Each note triggers the next note. In table tennis, whatever your opponent does triggers your next move. It’s the same thing, with […]

(by Larry Hodges) There is no such thing as a weird style, just styles you are not used to. And yet, players are often petrified, or at least mentally too tight, to play effectively against weird styles. (When I say “weird style” I’m referring to any aspect of the opponent’s play that’s “different,” whether it’s […]

(by Larry Hodges) You have three options – as the ball rises, at the top of the bounce, and on the drop. Which should you choose? Ideally, take it on the rise, right after it bounces on your side of the table. This allows you to rush your opponent, go for maximum angle, and because […]