(By Larry Hodges) Between players of roughly equal levels, matches are almost always won or lost on one of two things: sports psychology and tactics. Why? How well you play is mostly set by your mentality. There’s no magic secret about this; if you played great in the past, then unless you are injured or […]

(By Larry Hodges) This is a simple tip. Do you think you have a better chance of winning if your opponent is confident or frustrated? You actually have some control over this. It’s simple, and it’s all about how you react when you miss shots or fall behind. Showing frustration is a good way to […]

(By Larry Hodges) “I’m too slow!” That’s the cry of many players who play a forehand from the backhand corner, and then can’t recover in time to cover their wide forehand. I’ve written about this before – focusing on the importance of balance and following through back into position so you can cover that wide […]

(By Larry Hodges) You should always be learning in table tennis, or in any serious activity. I’m always amazed at how often players miss opportunities to learn from others, or limit their learning by only learning from a few. Here are three types of players you can learn from, both as a player and a […]

(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 […]