The posts from NDH, NextLevel and JJ Ng are excellent information. Feel free to read them many times.
It is worth noting that you are not really playing TT all that long. There are some simple keys to reading spin. It is not as complicated as we make it, while receiving serves. Our brains, especially us older guys, make this more complicated than it needs to be.
If you are really watching the ball, topspin has a rounder ball trajectory because of the arc from the topspin pulling the ball down. Topspin also kicks after the bounce. If you are watching the ball well, you can see this. The trouble is, when we think we see the contact, we tend not to watch the ball trajectory as closely and then are brains get confused.
Backspin has a flatter trajectory and the ball does the opposite of kick on the bounce, it slows up a bit.
Regular sidespin curves to one side or the other. You can tell which sidespin it is based on the direction to which it curves.
A ball, whether serve or not, can have straight topspin, top/side (either direction) straight bacspin, back/side either direction.
Also, if a ball is coming at you and kicks to one side or the other, the way a topspin ball kicks in the direction of the path of the ball, except, it kicks to one side or the other instead of straight forward, there is an element of corkscrew spin (like the spiral of a football when it is thrown). This is more complicated, and it is quite hard to create corkscrew spin on serves without really being decently high level. Der_Echte has an awesome corkscrew serve....I have seen him drive people crazy with it.
But, we won't worry about it for now. Next time.
So, something you can do to work on the skill of reading spin is to watch as much as you can when you are not playing. Watch the serves and try to read the spin.
@NextLevel is the Table Tennis Edge App still available? I know I still have it on my phone. But I have not looked at it in quite a while. Does Table Tennis Edge still have a website with the videos of real people serving for practice watching and reading spin on serves?
Gozo, the TTEdge App has a part that is serve receive. You try to determine if the serve was top, side, back, dead or some combination. It seems counterintuitive that an app showing computer generated serves could help you read serves. But it did. And the site where you could watch real players serving and try and read the spin helped even more.
But just, whenever you are sitting and watching other people playing, you can try and read the serves and see if you can figure out what they are. While doing that, seeing how other players try to return those serves will help as well.
You do have to work on it. You have to work on watching. It sounds funny. But it isn't easy. We are used to taking a summary look and thinking we know what is going on and then let our brains create the rest of the image. And that is when we realize we are not seeing things as they are.
Not only does it take a long time. But there will be a while where you realize you know what spin is on the ball, and out of habit you are doing something you normally do but should not do for that particular spin. Like you will start, thinking, "it is backspin," and move towards pushing as though it was backspin, and then you will realize, "no, it is actually side top," but you then, don't adjust to the spin you have realized it actually is.
It takes work. It takes practice. And you can't learn if you don't really try to watch and see what you think the spin is WHILE YOU ARE NOT PLAYING AND JUST WATCHING. You have to do a lot of practice reading the spin.
At a certain point, you then also start being able to return certain spins in a variety of ways. There are always many ways to return any given spin. When you start watching the ball well and seeing the spin on the ball, you will start coming up with multiple ways to return the spin. It will happen if you practice the watching of the ball and the trying to read the spin.
