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You want to stay relaxed and avoid rushing against opponents who play faster than you (usually, the main advantage of better players is not just their quality but their ability to read the game much faster on serve and return and rally)- in other words, you want to remain unstressed by stressful effort in a stressful situation. I get the sentiment, but it is unrealistic without fundamental improvement. At best, you might be able to play better if you can take a half step back and still maintain the same quality as it will give you more time. But if the opponent is truly better, more time will not affect the result, it will just prolong some rallies and make them win the point in other ways or use wider angles.It happens when I play against someone better than me at the club but not when I play against the kids who train there and those of similar level.
My goal is to stay relaxed and avoid rushing even when playing against stronger opponents, even if I lose.
If you can read the game faster and evolve into a better player, sure but that just means the other guy is no longer better than you. But in life it is natural to experience stress when facing situations that challenge you to grow. It is keeping the stress manageable and using it to condition growth that is important but I am not sure the path to that starts by denying the stress is reasonable to experience or that the body's desire to work harder in response to it is not rational. At best, you might have more time than you think you do, but again realizing and adjusting to that would just make you a better player.