I would focus on just looping serves especially the half long ones
=> you are consistent in what you preach, i've heard this comment from you b4
=> what about the double bouncing serves, should i practice looping those too (instead of safely putting them back on the other side, maybe aim for a particular spot)?
=> With practice, i think i can, jst a little scary of hitting knuckles on the table and ball is further in front of me & closer to the net so that might be a different stroke
=> one of my training partner suggested at my level USATT 1200 90% of serves are loop-able, do you agree with that assessment?
prevent those players with big strokes contained by not giving them everything they want
=> to me this is the contra-positive of looping half-long from a service stand point
=> so if that is my playing style, how would one slow me down from looping (both wings) half-long serves?
=> how bout fast dead right at my elbow middle?
=> how about higher, deep chops right at my stomach? (push returner further back)
Anything that improves serve and serve return is a big deal, it is too easy to overlook the amount of points
=> I've never spent any consistent amount of time studying return of serves, most times I am guessing, nervous, sometimes confused, I can return high % (say 7 out of 10) of the same serve, to the same spot, then repeat with a different type of serve, THE PROBLEM IS when serves are random ... most times I am guessing, nervous, sometimes confused, there's just too many variable to worry about
LDM7
You ask a lot of questions, I am tempted to provide answers, but I also realize that my answers may not be that helpful to you because they are without context. So I will focus on serve return and leave the rest for some other time. There is no amount of talking that will fix serve return issues, it is the biggest thing that gets better with experience and practice. But you need to structure your experience so that certain things become apparent faster. The biggest thing you can do to structure your experience is to learn to play to play standard strokes against all kinds of serves.
I said at U2200 (not 1200, U2200), that almost no one serves short, so I think your training partner was being kind, I hope it was not DerEchte as it means we have to argue, I think 100% of serves at the U1200 level are loopable, the issue of course is that the person who loops all of them isn't going to be U1200 for long if they ever were. So the statement is a bit deceptive, as is my statement that most of the u2200 serves are not short, it is not that that no one serves short at u2200, the issue is that the quality and consistency would not pass the pro-level test for a short serve as many of the serves would be too high or would drift long more than would be apparent from the judgment of the players because they often give their opponents credit. So if you learn to just judge the length of serves, you may not attack the serve all the time, but you will give your opponents far less credit, the amount of training it takes to consistently serve the perfect length double-bounce half long serve is not something many players below 2200 can invest in. If you doubt me, challenge your coach who is a strong server to get the length right 6 out of 10 times for $50 (as in out of 10, serves, he must be able to call 3 of those that will double bounce and hit the back end line and 3 of those that will just come off the table), and if you lose, you can send me the bill. But whether I pay or not, you will learn something important.
The main thing though is to get comfortable using standard strokes to return serves so you get into the topspin mentality when the ball comes long (footwork is a part of this in matches, but in practice, start by assuming they come where you like them - footwork will them be about preparing to move into position to like them). You can and should practice placement when you are comfortable adjusting to the basic sidespin being served. But the safe returns are usually fine unless you want to take risk, as there is always risk when your stroke is not going into the face of the ball's path, which is usually what happens when you redirect a topspin shot.
The thing about looping is that you are making the ball take a certain path. if you practice by yourself or with your coach under structured conditions, you should be able to vary the arc of your stroke with the spin speed and shape of your stroke. The next factor to take into account is the incoming ball. Now the thing about serve return looping is that there isn't some far away target as serve return looping is close to the table. So you rarely play a big stroke on serve return unless the ball is high or you have a perfect practiced read, you are taking the ball close to the table and not off a long short but off a ball that has bounced once on the opponent's side, which usually makes it a ball unlike any other you will face in the point. So with that in mind, you practice serve return looping with a step by step mindset. You try to find a ball that puts the stroke on the table after you have guaranteed you know what is on the ball.
A stroke is defined by 1) where the racket starts 2) where the racket contacts the ball 3) where the racket finishes, or in other words, the path of your stroke/racket 4) the speed of the racket swing and 5) how thick or thin your contact on the ball was. Of course, the biggest variable not mentioned is the spin on the incoming ball. but that is what you need to practice against to see what happens. Let us say you get reverse sidespin, there are many ways to handle it, but swing one way and see what happens to the ball. then adjust your stroke ( start lower or higher, contact a different point on the ball, and have a different finishing position - change one of the five or even all of the five depending on what you are testing) and see what happens to the ball against the same serve. Continue this process. Then switch the serve to another serve. Continue this process. One of the issues with learning is that the brain adapts to what it always gets, which is why you need to add variation to training to simulate matches so that your brain is forced to adjust faster. If you swing one way all the time, you never practice adjusting to the ball. But if you get some variation in practice, you get into the habit of adjusting both in practice and matches. You need a mix of block and random training if you want to see better match results but also improve your technique over time.
You should also practice deliberating looping balls into the top half of the net. The main thing is to feel comfortable that your stroke path is controlling the ball. Don't feel that you must put the ball on the table perfectly. As you get better, players who generate higher levels of topspin will force you to close your racket more and so the stroke that kept the ball on the table against the 1200 player is going to put the ball into the sky vs a 2200 player unless you adjust.
There are some concepts related to learning to stop the spin and continue the spin. But they would require me write even more than the amount of gibberish I have written. But basically, a racket angle/contact point that compensates for the spin on the ball will stop the ball from rotating in that direction (it is closed relative to the ball) and send the ball back to where it came from - a racket angle that continues the spin will allow the spin to go through (it is open relative to the ball). If you watch videos on adjusting to sidespin from say Pingskills, you will see a lot of these.
The thing is then you approach a backspin serve with a stroke trajectory for a topspin ball, the ball tends die off the racket into the table. If you approach a no-spin with the path for backspin stroke, the ball tends to high and often long (no spin is usually the most confusing to people who are not good at generating spin because no spin on serves is often a sign of inadequate technique as much as it is a deliberate choice, but many people at the lower levels have inadequate technique so they can't tell the difference). Sidespin, you need to adjust what side of the ball you hit (often subconsciously). Sometimes, a no spin serve will just go off the racket into the net because it doesn't grip the racket at all. Or if you push a nospin serve or a topspin serve, beneath the ball, the ball pops up. It is reading these responses to standard strokes (and allowing your body to read them by trusting your body to learn over time rather than beating up yourself) that makes using standard responses valuable. Because you can use your training to adjust in real matches once you have an idea of what the server is doing and try to look out for it. At the U1200 level, this is rarely this complicated, players usually just have one serve they try to do (usually with strong spin or lacking any spin), they may move it around a little and hope it messes you up somehow, once you figure it out, it tends to be easy to attack over and over. And those with good serves are so used to the easy points that when you return the serve, you tend to win the point outright.
The main thing again:
A stroke is defined by where the racket starts 2) where the racket contacts the ball 3) where the racket finishes, or in other words, the path of your stroke/racket 4) the speed of the racket swing and 5) how thick or thin your contact on the ball was. Sometimes, I just speak about the stroke as a curve and whether your curve is big or the curve is small but different curves can have different results with different racket stroke speeds and contact thickness.
When returning serves, practice returning bunches of serves you know what is on the ball and try to use different strokes to see what happens to the ball. You could try a certain stroke on a backspin ball with thin contact and with practice with thicker contact and see your limit. With sidespin serves, contact the right top, the left top etc. For some, start with the racket lower, for some start with the racket higher, for others finish with the racket lower, for some finish with the racket higher. Then at some point, just trust your body to do what it has learned and adapt to the ball.
Most serves are that 1200 levels have spin that even if high can be easily compensated for with the right contact point choice, But this is something you learn with practice. Basically, see long serve return as a part of what should be your broad topspin stroke training as well as learning to adjust to spin with your topspin stroke - because you are usually playing the ball closer to the table on serve return, you shouldn't be swinging upwards (it should be more over the ball usually relative to the rally stroke). If you see it this broadly, improvement becomes easier and hopefully more structured - you still need to put in the hours.