Professional training relevance to game play

I am a senior in my 60s and have been taking table tennis lessons for almost 4 years now. I am finally getting the hang of the loop and most of my strokes are good. But when it comes to real games, playing against untrained players, I just cannot get my shots out e.g. odd position so unable to stroke or cannot read spin on their strange service. So how can I direct my training to help me get more points ? So embarrassing to be beaten by untrained people. But again I am a senior lady against senior men. Sometimes I can get strokes in, but at times, I play too light before I can position myself for a smash and too often the smashes failed when they are most needed. Quite discouraging to me. Of course my eyes are not as good as they used to be so it is harder to follow the ball with a large floater in the eye. Is it time to quit training?

Hi Mary,

It isn't time to quit training but time to get the training more relevant for your matches.

Practice more match type drills.  Make sure you are starting drills with a proper serve.  Practice the early part of the rally much more.  The serve, return of serve, pushing and reading spin in general.

Make sure there is a random element to the drills rather than having set drills when you know where the ball is going all the time.  This ability to track the ball and adjust is important to being able to play the game well.