Becoming more consistent in actual matches

Try relaxing during the game. Also, have you tried going around clubs and challenging people you do not know? It is the best practice pre-competition stage.

yogi_bear said:

Try relaxing during the game. Also, have you tried going around clubs and challenging people you do not know? It is the best practice pre-competition stage.

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This is one of the best solution / advice. In my place, the best way to conserve our bad side is go around to play many different player and knowing the "natural stroke", sometimes the player with natural stroke (they dont even coach regularly or go to table tennis club or school) can gave us difficult situation, un predictable stroke and many different shoots also serve.

I am not nervous at all but everytime when I play a real game, even not tournament, I can not do my services well, I have a very fast and spiny serivice, I do very well when I practise by myself, but when my opponent on the other side of the table, I can not do the service. Why ?????? pls help.
I have asked a lot of coaches, but not one can give me a good help

jamesmith said:

I am not nervous at all but everytime when I play a real game, even not tournament, I can not do my services well, I have a very fast and spiny serivice, I do very well when I practise by myself, but when my opponent on the other side of the table, I can not do the service. Why ?????? pls help.
I have asked a lot of coaches, but not one can give me a good help

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It is self imposed pressure. Try "not caring" in your mind during the match and see if that helps. What I do also is when my service is off, I try to just get the ball in play and out rally my opponent. When the rallies calm me down a bit, go back to the serve.

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Thank you for your help

kmcockes said:

It is self imposed pressure. Try "not caring" in your mind during the match and see if that helps. What I do also is when my service is off, I try to just get the ball in play and out rally my opponent. When the rallies calm me down a bit, go back to the serve.

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Lot of good answers.

Below is my two cent:

1. Resist the urge to finish.
When we train , we all get that urge to finish by a shot (whatever it is) . We forget to keep putting more balls across the table. This is especially seen in serve-attack drills. Stop doing this. Train with the intention of getting more balls and developing more rallies. Your consistency , footwork, anticipation automatically increases.

2. Play with as many different players as possible . As others have mentioned, experience is the key. The more matches you play , the better you become

jamesmith said:

I am not nervous at all but everytime when I play a real game, even not tournament, I can not do my services well, I have a very fast and spiny serivice, I do very well when I practise by myself, but when my opponent on the other side of the table, I can not do the service. Why ?????? pls help.
I have asked a lot of coaches, but not one can give me a good help

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A good response above to this. I have felt something like this. For me it helped me to focus on small things and forget the player across from me for that moment. Small Things like my stance, contact point, and lastly a spot on my side of the table I wanted to hit to for that serve. So with a long spiny serve I will focus on a point on the table very close to me. picking that spot along with what the arm path and contact point will be for the serve I’m doing, helped to relaxing me and with preforming the serves I had practiced in the actual matches.

It’s a good practice to have. after this its second nature or the obvious thing to add to the pre serve thoughts would be what type of return to anticipate.


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A re-post

Also try to play matches that you do not worry about losing or winning but just to initiate your attacks.

JS... in a game where you serve longer than expected... it is because you are gripping bat tighter. Loosen grip to the thumb and finger being light. Do a couple quick short light pinches on bat and stay loose.

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video your matches. Then you can see the dumb patterns that give away free points and stop doing them. Also, you can make a chart of mistakes you constantly make that you may not be aware of so you can work on them. Quantitative analysis of your in match weaknesses. Really basic analytics you can do yourself. Pros do it, and it can help you too.. The CNT does it to their opponents too, which is why they always figure them out even if they lose a few matches to them early on.

GMiller, what caused you to wake this old thread up?

Some good points here. I suffered from watching videos of top players who attack the serve so I thought I should attack from the start. This can work in practice and a nearly good aggressive shot I took to be a decent attempt and therefore good. However in a match a nearly good shot is actually a lost point. Nerves also play a big part and I would then revert to a very negative playing style and there are much more consistent players out there who easily beat me.

I have realised that it is important to only attack a weak return but, rather than being negative, a block or push can be aggressive. At my (low) level keeping it on the table is the main option but I like attacking - I now just pressurise my opponent into giving me a weak shot to hit.

It's almost always an issue of relaxation. Moving too much and ending up out of position.
The best players make only necessary movements in a match.
It's the same as the mastery of any other field, like for example music etc. Masters move a lot less (and think a lot less. Thoughts are more compact. I dunno how to put it) than amateurs.


Also with training partners you always end up with the same situations. Same serves, same strengths and weaknesses.

We all suffer from stress even if it is only playing in a local league, meeting your partners family for the first time or an appointment with your boss. There is a good book on handling stress by Dr David Aldred called "The Pressure Principle" (Penguin isbn 978-0-241-97508-4). He helped the rugby player Jonny Wilkinson to become a feared kicker at the World Cup as well as many golfers and footballers. He explains what happens under stress- the narrowing of vision, the inability to hear, poor decision making etc- and how to reduce these effects.

Your practice is too easy.

Common occurance IMO.

I'd like to ask the OP how many tournaments he has played in? How many tournaments per year does he play?

If you don't play in enough tournaments per year or simply don't have a lot of tournaments under your belt, then it's easy for the nerves factor to kick in. And when the nerves are slightly going, you tense up and your shots simply are not as consistent.

That coupled with the fact that you're playing people who don't hit the same speed & spin that you're use to. Or don't serve in the way you're use to can get you as it's a style you're not use to.

Try to embrace it that this is suppose to be fun. Embrace the challenge or nerves/excited feeling you have. As you get more experience, the nerves will fade to an extent. I think they'll always be there at least a pinch.

Something that has helped me is to not put as much emphasis or weight into my performance at tournaments. You know outside of yourself who really cares how good you do at a tournament? Nobody. That's the truth. Your club mates are too concerned about their own performance to think much about yours. If you have family sure they might care a little. But they just want to hear you had fun. Seriously. I could tell my wife when i get home "honey I won my division!" or "Honey I played okay but didn't metal" and I'd get a "cool. Good job" or "Oh shoot" type of response. It's forgotten about a moment later.

I find that a lot of pressure in the tournaments I played in the US comes from the format. Most tournaments are single-elimination after a RR, so you want to advance and then stay alive just to keep competing and having fun. Once you are out, welcome back to the boring five hour trip home.

Ilia Minkin said:

I find that a lot of pressure in the tournaments I played in the US comes from the format. Most tournaments are single-elimination after a RR, so you want to advance and then stay alive just to keep competing and having fun. Once you are out, welcome back to the boring five hour trip home.

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hahaha triple haha. (not at your misfortune)

What Ilia talks about here is very typical of the USA TT situation. You need a car and you must ride 2-6 hours to do a tourney if you are not in one of the few TT dense areas... You show up early, sometimes play long, then a long drive. It is tough to do that and stay safe.

I say the haha, because I have frequently been in Ilia's situation every time I return to USA. No real TT in my area and a minimum 3 hour drive to a tourney. I often returned at 2AM or even 5 AM after the tourneys. Fortunately, most events had two players advancing (norm is one player if the field is large) so if I entered three events, I often played 6-12 matches. That is usually enough TT, but yeah I get it, some events it is exactly like mentioned, either players are lower, or much higher in level.

That stuff will improve as our TT situation in USA improves. But yeah, it isn't gunna get right by next week.

When I was in Russia this summer I had no pressure while competing. I just took a 20 minute bus ride, paid my 5$ fee and played matches until I couldn't stand on the floor anymore. Now compare this with an out of a state trip to play an event where only one player advances out of the group. And a gang of underrated kids is out there hungry for the blood.