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Best
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Table tennis decided by placement, not timing. Pull your rival wide, then hit behind them — but the closer to the line, the likelier you miss.
Tap anywhere on the far half to place your shot; the ball always goes over, so the only question is where. The circle around your rival shows how far they can reach — land the ball outside it and the point is yours. Aiming near a line risks sending your own shot wide, long, or into the net. Whoever just made a long run is stretched: their circle shrinks and their aim scatters on the next ball. Win a match to 11 and the next rival reaches further and gives you less time to choose. Lose a match and the run ends.
The single most useful habit is to stop looking at the table and start looking at the circle. Everything you need is in it: where the rival stands, and how far they can still cover. A shot that would be a clean winner against a centred opponent is a routine return against one who has just reset, and the circle tells you which situation you are in before you commit.
Almost no point is won by the shot that wins it. It is won by the shot before, the one that dragged the rival out to a corner and left them stretched. A safe ball placed a comfortable distance from them, well inside the lines, costs you nothing and shrinks their circle for the next exchange. Two of those in a row and the third ball has an open court to land in. Players who go for the line every time score fewer points than players who set up once and finish on the second or third ball, because the risk of a line shot compounds every time you take it.
Depth is as valuable as width and far cheaper. Everyone reaches for the side corners, so everyone also aims there, and the sideline is the edge you are most likely to overshoot. A ball placed short and close to the net is often further from a rival standing deep than a ball hit to the side, and the net line is a much safer boundary to work near than a side line. Alternating short and deep also keeps them from settling at one depth.
Watch your own state too. When you have just been run, your aim scatters, and that is exactly the moment to play a large safe target in the middle rather than an ambitious one. Take one ball to recover, accept that the rally continues, and go back to hunting on the next. And when the clock gets short at high match numbers, decide where you are hitting while the rival's ball is still travelling — the bar is not there to be used up, and a rushed guess in the last quarter of it is the commonest way a good run ends.