Service receive is difficult. You need to understand the fundamentals of spin, to read through all sorts of deception, to execute a proper return action and to adjust to what the opponent likes and doesn't like. You also need a positive attitude.
The key point is: you have to practice. But first, you should make sure you understand how spin works, how the ball rotates and have a naive understanding of how the elastic rubber reacts and propels the ball back. Why? Because it will be clearer for you what is really essential to obtain some type of spin and what isn't. This gives you the theory to figure out disguises, either when you serve or receive.
Then comes practice. My advice to you is to practice serves a lot. Not just serve consistency. Things you don't know. Try to copy serves that gave you trouble. Not exactly, but approximately. Understand the key deceptive trick and make it your own. Try out stuff. Fail a lot. Try to copy serve styles of world class players. At first if you are completely at a loss of what to do and what serve actions to try, make your goal to find ways to load the ball with as much spin as possible. Any progress in serving will probably improve your ability to read serves.
Then there is receive practice. When training, don't be afraid of failure. Reverse your attitude to feel gratification each time you do something right, be it reading the spin or returning the serve. To read the spin, focus on 1) the ball contact, bat and wrist action, 2) the body action, as some people use body rotation, weight transfer and timing to change the resulting spin, and 3) ball trajectory and better, the rotation of the mark on the ball if the serve is not fast and long. This latter point will save you when you've got no clue what the server is doing and make you feel rad. It's a matter of habit, anyone can do it. Step in, stare at the ball, just delay your return a little bit. It's also very helpful if you are unsure about the amount of spin. Just use the first serves in the game to associate a visual rotation of the mark with a feeling of spin on your blade.
To return the serve, keep it simple. Use your fundamental understanding of spin to figure out what works and doesn't when returning, until it becomes intuition. Let your experiences reshape your fundamental understanding.
To return in a game situation, especially if tense, keep it simple and make it progressive. Be positive. If you are very confident in your serves, you should see every point you make on receive as a bonus and congratulate yourself for it. At first, be happy to figure out the spin and to keep the ball on the table, or to achieve the return you are most comfortable with properly, even if the opponent trashes the 3rd ball past you. For instance, I will often initially push or guide the ball back to the deep backhand of the opponent. I feel I generally can do that roughly right even if I'm tense, making a quality short return is tougher; I also have a strong counter-initiative game. Worst case, the opponent will kill the ball past me. What to get out of it? Confidence and tactics. If I landed the return, congratulations! I use that to relieve the tension. What shot did the opponent make in return? Did they miss? Step around? Were they surprised? Did they trash the ball. If so, it's fine. I know I can 1) improve the quality of my return, or 2) adjust my position, maybe I was standing a bit too close to react to the speed and power? Or 3) return the ball differently. Return is always a compromise between what you can do best and what the opponent does best. The more stuff you try out in practice and practice games, the more options you will have, and the more confident you will grow. Progressively over the course of the game, you can build confidence and improve shot quality (height, placement, spin, pace, deception, etc.). If you suddenly feel tense, go back to what you do best.
Remember, don't be too harsh on yourself! Play the point, be positive even if you think your return was crap. After all, defense and fishing is fun
In short, understand, practice, be positive and have fun.
Random tips:
- what the opponent doesn't like is not what you don't like. Take credit for the opponent's mistakes. Probably it wasn't just a silly unforced error.
- do not just push. Larry Hodges has a great tip on that, make it a memorable push. For instance, push deep and spinny to the backhand corner or to the cross-over point, or fake it and float it. It's incredible how many points you can score from a push if you put your heart into it, even at a good amateur level. Why? Because people don't focus on your push action as much as on your serve action: it's just a push. So set them up over the course of the game with heavy spin - no spin pushes. If you're lucky, they'll discard the first mistakes as flukes. You can really shake their confidence by making them miss their strong shots. At the very best level, look at Ma Long vs. FZD for a great example of how to give trouble to an attack monster.
- Keep them guessing. Variation is key, but at the same time don't forget to hammer what they don't like.
- depending on where and how you take the ball, a side-spin or side-topspin serve for instance can be no spin to you, and you can drop those short in the same manner.