How to receive short topspin serves to FH?

Haha yeah I hate the reverse sidespin version the most too... 

Few things I noticed were very important is to take 3 rapid steps (right, left then right) instead of 1 big lunge which leaves you unbalanced. Once you're in position, no matter what technique you use, it must be controlled by body rotation - not the arm, and you have to rotate your body into the ball so to speak. The ball can't be too far away from your body too. 

The use of body rotation was extremely key to improving quality of the receive imo, with that extra power from the body it becomes much easier to overcome the incoming spin. 

For FH receive against reverse sidetopspin serves I usually start with the bat facing up (like a stop sign) and contact the upper half, back portion of the ball. From this point there's a few options:

1) Use a tomahawk style chop (going around the side of the ball from the back) - it is similar to a tomahawk sidespin serve if you know how to serve that. This creates extremely heavy sidebackspin which is close to impossible to attack for most players. You will have to overcome the spin using your body rotation. For placement you can place it deep to their BH/middle or wide to the FH (exiting the sides). This can also be used to create a short push if you're good enough. 

2) Soft flick - there's a WRM video talking about this, the idea is just to roll the ball forward but making sure the trajectory is short and low so that it's very hard to attack hard - you can then counterattack your opponent's weak attack. This is super useful to know since it's very safe and transforms the game into a topspin-topspin rally situation. I don't recommend the hard flick coz it can be countered and also it's a bit risky if the serve quality is high. 

3) fade/sideswipe. Waldner used this a lot but it's also very useful in amateur circuits. So the idea is you contact the back of the ball and imagine dragging it to the left with your body rotation. This will create an almost pure sidespin ball which can be incredibly difficult to attack. There's also versions that create sidetopspin (if you drag it to the left and gradually covering the ball on the top like a flick), and sideunderspin (if you drag it to the left and downwards). 

Videotape yourself, you usually know more than enough technique to see what the problem is if you can see it.

Usually, you have to practice taking your wrist back slightly for the forehand flick and it isn't comfortable for people who grip the bat a certain way or stand a certain way that works for every other shot except the flick.  Players with practice time usually change grip for those shots subconsciously after lots of practice and then switch back to whatever they want to use for the next shot.

Imo one of the most versatile, easy to learn and practical way to return FH short serves. 

The hardest part is that this forces an open rally situation which you should be very good at if you want to use this kind of receive. If you're not favoured in the topspin-topspin rally situation best to avoid this receive.

Yeah tbh those are kinda trash as no offence but they didn't reach that high of a level themselves so there's many important intricacies and details they don't cover. Imo best tutorials on YouTube so far are by Ti Long and WRM in my opinion. If you understand Chinese, 米粒 and Fang Bo (全世爆) also have extremely detailed tutorials on high level techniques. Fang Bo's tutorial on short push is bar none the best ever produced. He shows how it is possible to short push absolutely everything (including topspin balls, high balls, etc...) - my short push level increased tremendously after watching these. 

You can practice the footwork and wrist movements by yourself, but need a practice partner to feed you serves to get the timing right. It requires a lot of trial and error, a lot of adjustments.