I made some progress on reading serve. I played a guy who I lost to 0-3 some weeks ago. If you recall, I felt I was just a completely better player than him, especially because he has funny/glitchy strokes, but last time I played I just lost about 70% of points on his serve. I couldnt return well last time. This time I came in mentally prepared for his serves that I said dont have "proper" spin. Instead of being fancy, I just returned his serves with neutral push or light flick. Once we got into the rally, he almost never scored a point against me, and I won 3-0 this time.
Another guy who I lost to in previous weeks I beat 3-1 as well. One major adjustment I made was to not play too fast, not attack to early, not go for power so soon. I think last time we played, I lost my points trying to attack quickly and making errors. Of course, this is not the ideal way to play, because ideally you want to be first to attack. But I find that at least for now, I open myself to errors and lose to lower level players when I try to attack too much. When I play slower, they make errors, or a better chance to attack inevitably appears.
And finally, the one guy who I had the MOST difficulty returning his serves, I think I was 0-10 total up till now. This time I lost 2-3, but was ahead 7-3 in the last game and almost won. With just a few more adjustments, I feel I should be beating him.