Table Tennis / Ping-Pong

Avoiding the Choke - Reducing Your Nerves Before the Match

By Greg Letts, About.com

Be prepared - no last minute rush getting to the match. Give yourself plenty of time to get there, report in, and warm up thoroughly. You want to be calm and unhurried before your match, not stressed and rushing around in a panic.
Be thoroughly warmed up - a cold body is more prone to stiffness and freezing up. You want your body, and especially your wrist, hand and arm, to be warm and loose. The usual rule of thumb is to warm up until you get a light sweat going. If you are sweating but your hands are still cold, start wearing gloves and doing more upper body warming up (i.e. shadow boxing, shadow play etc).
If it is mainly before matches that you are getting tight and nervous, avoid anything that over-excites you, such as caffeine in coffee or energy drinks, nicotine from cigarettes, too much loud rock music etc. Listen to soothing music, use self hypnosis, or try deep, rhythmic breathing etc to calm down instead.
If you sit and worry about upcoming matches too much, go and chat with friends or listen to music to take your mind off the match. If you need time to calm down by yourself, make sure that no-one bothers you before a match. Copy the tennis players and put your towel over your head if you have to so that you can be left alone to calm yourself.

Greg Letts
Ping-Pong Guide