First of all, let me clarify that I am not innocent in this matter. I have spoken openly, and I have no problem admitting that some of my serves are illegal. However, as I stated in the video, the problem is getting worse because all the top players - the players young people look up to and the players you need every advantage to have a chance of beating - are doing it. Unfortunately, it’s a path almost all players will have to take to reach the top. Make sure to comment your own ideas, I would love to hear them and try together with all of you to find a good solution. Update i am aware of my insanely bad math skills on the angle calculation. Its not 30cm its 58cm on a 1m toss however the serves i showcased in this video and a lot of pro serves are still beyond the limit😁 sorry for the incorrect number
If an opponent uses an illegal serve and an empire doesn't react, then the only thing you could do to make it even is to do the same illegal serve. So it's good to learn different illegal serves just in case.
Question Lin You have fast serves may i know why don't you do them more often ? Specially on the last point lets say 10-9 thanks so much for your videos
You know, here's another MAJOR ISSUE with the whole "ball needs to be visible to the opponent throughout the entire serve" rule: Let's say you're serving it to me. You're a lefty. I'm a righty. What if I stand WAYYYY to my left to where most of my body is wide of the sideline? Are you supposed to adjust to that as the server? And if you don't, then does that mean that you're serving illegally to me?
I agree there is an issue. As lefty..i stand on the extreme right of the table to have maximum coverage area for my forehand. However most right-handed players would be stand to their extreme left of the table to service. From where i stand, i would not be able to see what other players are actually serving as their back would be facing me. However if that is an issue, how does lefty player like xu xin able to play well on world stage?
Very good to the point. Another aspect that makes this even more important is that when everyone serves correctly, probably people can receive better, and this means we can enjoy the table tennis more since there are more shots after each serve.
It's great that you explain the problem from a professional perspective. I have seen the comments that you stated. The fundamental problem lies in the visibility rule. Therefore, I believe that we either go back to old school rules and just hide the service always or become more strict. For the sake of the sports appeal I prefer the second option. The way to enforce it is to have cameras like you put in this video and digital referees. They already do this in football/soccer. Referees watching the screens for violations of the rules and communicate it to the main umpire at the table. As an added bonus, we would have better camera angles to watch the games. Thanks again for another great video! Until the next one!
@@mugiwaranoskyyn3272 Maybe also skip the ball toss and have some colors of the rubber on both sides? I mean come on, there is a reason why ITTF has made these changes, they want to see rallies being played out.
Yes, like in football...they wanted to make the game more interesting for the viewers .and changed some rules or became sometimes more strict in other parts less...so, who wants to see an illegal serve followed by a mistake of the opponent. Serve...net...boring! So more legal serves more interesting rallies 😀
I'm glad I saw this video. I used to play a lot 15+ years ago, including some competitive play. Nowadays I don't really play myself, but I often watch clips, highlights or matches of tabletennis on TH-cam. It has often been the case that I think to myself "Hmm, I guess the rules for the serve have changed, because back when I played, you had to throw the ball directly up". I guess I never took the time to do much research to find out if something had changed, but this video now clears that up for me. Thank you for taking the time to explain this in a brief and clear manner and standing for the integrity of the game.
Another great vid Anders 👊 Interestingly back when ITTF changed the rules in 2002 to enforce no hiding of serves, part of their guidance was this: ‘If the server could imagine a triangular space created by the ball and both net posts, then extends this space upwards to head level, the server must then ensure that no part of his body or clothing enters this space (or remains in this space) after he projects the ball upwards in service.‘ The intention was that the receiver could stand anywhere along the back line of the table and still see the ball. Now it feels like we’ve gone back to the Wild West, where you rightly point out if you want to get anywhere near the top 100 you have to intentionally hide the contact. If you don’t, you’re at a major disadvantage. I struggle to see how an umpire, from their usual side on position, can call a foul serve for the ball being hidden behind the body. From their view it’s easy to see if the free arm is blocking, but almost impossible to see if the head/body is blocking. I think the only way to solve it is to have an automated system, similar to Hawkeye or VAR in the future. If a camera on both net posts pointing at the server, if the ball disappears at any point on either camera then the umpire is notified. Fair enough logistically these can’t be used at all the events, but for Smashes, world championships and Olympics it would and should be possible.
Technically speaking using the 'nothing between the net and the ball' guideline the pendulum and reverse pendulum serves are illegal at some point during nearly every serve because the ball is so close to your body even though the contact point of the serve might be completely visible to the opponent.
100% agree! The triangle seems even better than my solution of receiver's midpoint to address the LH vs RH issue. The biggest issue with this is that most players will need to change their serves and fundamentally rethink something that they have developed and ingrained for many years. In an ideal world all TT events down to the club level should reinforce this because even all the players that play in the biggest events always start from playing and getting coached at a local club and they gradually level up, if the system is only implemented in the highest level they might need to change serve only at that level and it distracts their whole game. Logistically though I think that all WTT matches with at least $1000 at stake should have VAR cameras. VAR systems can be lot cheaper to implement than most people think! It's just a matter of leadership and decision making from ITTF and WTT.
@@samy_alxndr I don't think it's going to be that difficult for an anyway decent player to stop holding his free arm up. Agree though it's a matter of the body's prioritising
Would love to see more Hawkeye like they had in some ITTF tournaments back in like 2022. It would be a start and maybe encourage local umpires to call it out more. Problem with tabletennis being a niche sport with not a lot of monetary investment that national (Even Grand Prix and SBL below prem) will have player umpires, I just don't see how it could be enforced.
Great video. At 6:30 especially i totally agree with you there's a lot of umpires that are so scared to fault the players because they don't want to upset anyone
But they are allowed to do this. I'd bet that they are even encouraged to do this by match referees and tournament organizers/officials. If umpires were routinely chastised for failing to make obvious calls, the calls would be made. This is not an umpire problem. I'd bet most high level umpires could deal with this easily. But they need the support of the ITTF. I strongly suspect that's where this all begins and where it must be solved.
I appreciate that speak openly about this problem. I agree that it all trickles down from a pro level to the amateur level. The reguluations should be clear and enforced.
Nice video! Really enjoy seeing a professional player like you make these detailed discussion videos about the sport! Here are some the thoughts of a quite average/bad table tennis player: I think the customs and culture around serving have developed into what it is today due to the difficulty and uncertainty that comes with deeming a serve illegal, and its relevance in the local scenes where people learn and develop. Its very difficult to see if a serve is illegal from the judge table. There are also small margins between what is and isn't illegal. Its difficult to precisely judge angles or see if the ball is hidden or not. Most people also don't want to make a wrong call or disrupt the play either. And when starting out and playing in the local scene, most judges will be other players, who aren't professionals at this. All of this makes it so that most people with an illegal serve in the local scene, where players start and grow, wont have it called out by the judge. Furthermore, illegal serves aren't really that impactful for non professional players. When I, a non professional player, play against someone who throws the ball at an illegal angle or hides the contact, it will often be unintentional and irrelevant. The serves are not good enough, spinny enough or have enough after-motion to actually hide the spin, direction and speed of the ball. But when you play against better players, with more spin and after-motion, actually seeing the contact becomes much more important. But because everyone faced illegal serves when they were starting out, many will often be apathetic and used to them. Many players will therefore not care if their opponents serve is illegal. All of this results in players developing illegal serves early on, not having them called out, and being apathetic to them when getting good. So many can often get upset or confused when their "normal" serve they've used for many years suddenly start getting called out in big tournaments, despite no one having a problem with them before. Though it is important to note that many also abuse this culture and system to gain an unfair advantage, even when they are able to serve legal. Ive seen players intentionally develop illegal serves, which is frustrating, but also sorta understandable. When so many others serve illegal yet still don't get penalized, why shouldn't you also join in. Otherwise you'd be at a disadvantage. Ive even seen players develop illegal serves which they specifically only use against other people with illegal serves, but not against those with legal ones. It is very hard to present a solution to this problem. I think the serve angle is something that you don't really have much of an excuse for breaking. Yeah it is somewhat hard to be 100% consistent, but it wont really hurt or be particularly difficult to learn to throw the ball straight "most" of the time. Accidents happen, and accidentally throwing the ball to vertically doesn't differ much from accidentally hitting the ball with your face. How to fix serve hiding is a much more difficult problem, as you discussed in your video. When the same serve can be legal or illegal based on the player, consistency can become almost impossible. I don't think having 2 different serves based on the opponents playing hand should be a standard, especially with the uneven distribution of right and left handers. I know left handed players who can feel very helpless when it comes to serving, due to often playing right handers who's serves they struggle to see, while also having their serves more often get critiqued due to being in the minority. You could maybe introduce more standardized rules for hiding, something like requiring the ball to be visible from the middle of the other side of the table, though this could result further complicating everything and making things even more uncertain. You could also loosen the rules on hiding, make it more acceptable, but this could result in service being even more important and frustrating than it already. How you would somewhat loosen the rules on hiding at all is also a question. Hiding is a pretty black and white matter, either you hide or you don't hide. Can you even choose anything other than allowing or disallowing hiding? Thank you if anyone read through this long ass comment of me rambling and found it interesting or insightful . Keep in mind I am by no means a pro, or even all that good at all, so my views might be biased, ignorant or show my inexperience, please tell me if so
Thank you for addressing this problem from a pro player's perspective. I think this has become a chronic problem where the younger generation is seeing everyone in the pro scene doing it and feel that they are going to be at a disadvantage if they don't do the same illegal serve. And the only one to blame is the umpire for not enforcing the rule because what,: "I don't want to disturb the play"? Might as well allow low blow in MMA then because the refs would "disturb the play". According the ambiguity of visibility for right/left handed receiver. I think they should make it clear in rule 2.6.5 that not only the free arm and hand that should be removed from the space between the ball and the net, but also shoulder, body, and head. Also the ball has to have a clear line to both net posts.
Anyone who has ever watched the Setka Cup live streams here on TH-cam will see that most serves there are illegal. Their umpires are useless. They never call them out.
7:15 Very fair that you're showing yourself too in those example clips, and also explaining the reason/difficulty behind that. And like @THESUPERRONALD argued towards to some degree, something like a fixed camera angle (maybe in the middle) for a second empire to look at would probably fix these two main issues. By the way, is boosting still a problem these days in the professional scene, or are they better able to detect it nowadays? I can only remember it being talked about circa 8 years ago.
have to say rubber boosting is an absolute problem with the rules being unfair. At the world team championships this year, Jishan Liang of USA was caught using a "boosted" racket. Here's the thing, it's cause he was late so he had to use a separate testing system which detected the rubber boosting which would have rather not been detected under the normal system. Yes I agree he was at fault with using a boosted rubber, but it's kind of like this situation. Almost all the top players are using boosted rackets and ITTF the normal system they use of checking for boosting seems to let those players play. And it just encourages players to continue boosting which is clearly illegal.
well I'm just saying they need consistent ruling on boosting some players seem to get away with it. Take a look at the situation I talked about with Jishan Liang. If he wasn't late to his tournament and had to do a different test to test his racket for "boosting," he would have got away with it. Which I think is absolutely wrong. At the end of the day I think both tests should give the same results. (Yes there can be a tiny margin of error, but it should be very small)
Exactly….your points are spot on. Even club players are imitating world level players and saying that….’if they can do it, so it shouldn’t be illegal, right?’
2:42 From my understanding of rule 2.6.6, no matter where you're at on the table, you should be able to see the serve, per ITTF rule. But in reality, you'll generally find receivers shuffling at least to the middle when playing against the opposite hand. That's just the way it usually works?
THANK you Anders for raising this issue. For me as an amateur player and district Umpire it is very difficult to understand. The rules are clearly not followed by top players. One drastic solution would be to only allow serves in front of the body. We need to think what is best for the Table tennis sport, is it to watch the best players in the world misread serves so that the serve return either goes in the net, goes out or is an easy finisher? Or is it to have serves that are easier to read for the opponents? When I watch high lights from ITTF they seldom show 10 failed serve receives but more often they contain rallies. I have never seen a table tennis audience stand up and cheer like crazy after a missed serve receive but I've seen it after spectacular rallies. ITTF has clearly written the rules so that these hidden, wrongly tosssed rules from a non-open hand shall be illegal but the rules are not followed, not at all and not at any level. And it is partly killing the sport.
@@EngLhag my serves are all very legal too since I am only backhand serving and my body is also more or less facing the net, although at varying angles (and never directly)
A very clear video with some well put arguments. I've recently started as a local umpire and was already lucky enough to have been selected as umpire for some national matches. I agree that the last rule is the hardest to enforce. The higher ranked players really test how much they can get away with during the serve. As a starting umpire I'm really trying to enforce the rules as strict as possible (some more veteran umpires have said I'm too strict on the serve sometimes). But even if everything else is correct it's nearly impossible as an umpire to know how much the ball is hidden from the receiving player by the body of the serving player. The only obvious case is when the serving player doesn't remove his/her arm from between the ball and the net. So as long as the opponent doesn't complain about the serve being hidden, we have to assume it's a correct serve. The most obvious problems will be solved by umpires being more strict about the rules though. The position of the ball, hand, the toss etc. can easily be called out by the umpire, they just have to enforce it.
Good on you for showcasing this, Anders. Watching high level competitions recently, I wonder why no one calls or complains about illegal serves (especially the coaches who are in a somewhat better position to do so).
Thank you for your statement. This is really a frustrating topic and often i just accept that issue. When it is an really unfair benefit for someone i am going to discuss that or just mention it, but especially older players claim to have the right to serve like that because they are doing it for decades and never got any complains so far.... Also i recognized even young players are adapting irregular serves and hiding the ball with their arm... But the fact that a pro player is tryin to influence positively gives me hope for more sportsmanship in our sport we love so much^^
I'm both a player and an umpire and I totally agree with you. My most inportant rule for me as a ref, is that the reciver is able to see the ball at all time when the serve is played. So I think a little like a player even when I rule. If I can see the ball and also feel that the receiving player can see it without problem, I generally let the game go on.
Great that you're addressing this openly as a very influential pro player. I am an amateur player from Belgium and have learned from you several things that makes my sport more fun and more interesting. Great and original playstyle you, ve got.
I cant tell you what an admirable video this is for you to make, i've truly gained a monumental amount of respect for you. thank you for addressing this issue, that many of us fans and players have had with the sport. this is such a chronic problem at every level, and its such a stain on the sport. in my opinion, its one of the main problems that face growing the sport globally. again, thank you very much. i'll be rooting for you in your efforts to come!
I remember the time when they went after illegal services in the late 1990s at many amateur tournaments. Long story short: You were only allowed to throw the ball vertically up. Easy as pie. Samsonov, Schlager (at least his high throw serve) and others showed that you can be successful without hiding the ball. in addition, make it compulsory to STAND with your entire body behind the extended white line of the table. It would then be impossible to hide the ball.
Hej Anders, Thank you for this video. I have long argued that the service rule, just like the boosting rules, are de facto unenforceable. The service rules need to be changed. 1) We could go back to hidden/obstructed serves being permitted. That would be the easiest and bring the aspect of spinny serves back to the game as it was in the 1990s. 2) We could change the rule that the ball CONTACT must be visible from the opponents side of the table. This is a far less extreme change. 3) I honestly don't think the 30 vs 60 degree toss angle (i.e., near vertical throw) matters much as long as the ball travels upward (and then down again) for minimum of 16 cm. Either way, the toss angle is impossible to enforce at anything but Pro events. Greetings from a fellow left-handed Danish TT player.
2.6.6 It is the responsibility of the player to serve so that the umpire or the assistant umpire can be satisfied that he or she complies with the requirements of the Laws, and either may decide that a service is incorrect. Given this rule, vertical toss and so forth would be fairly easy to enforce. Also, amateur club players routinely copy the pros. If it became bad form to toss sideways at the pro level, the amateurs would rush to follow. This happens with amateurs in pretty much all sports worldwide.
BTW, the ITTF Handbook for Match Officials makes it clear that a player serving near the margins of what is legal runs the risk of being penalized. 10.5.3 From their positions in line with the net, especially in case of one umpire per table in the qualification stage, it may be impractical for the umpire and/or the assistant umpire to judge whether the ball is struck illegally if it is struck close to the end line or beside a player’s body. It is, however, the responsibility of the player to serve so that the correctness of his or her service action can be seen and if he or she serves near the margins of illegality, he or she runs the risk of being penalised.
@@ThePongProfessor By that reasoning, none of the rules are "enforceable" in amateur matches. As I said, fix the problem at the higher levels and the lower levels will tend to copy. That's the fix.
I was goinf to point out, that it also looks like you got illegal serves, and I must say respect for showing a clip of it yourself! And I totally agree with your view on the left-right handed dilemma, weird to have serve being illegal or legal depending on your opponent
I don't see AL's point. The rules on serve visibility are written with the receiver's convenience in mind, not the server's. If it inconveniences me to _adjust my serve dynamic_ to suit the receiver's POV and position, right or left handed, that's just too bad for _me._ Neither I, nor Anders, nor anyone else is entitled to a fixed position, foot-angle, or any other element of my service production in my play or training or background to leave the righty or lefty to their own devices in getting visibility of the ball. All that to say, _there is no dilemma._ When I (being right-handed) serve a pendulum serve to another right-hander, I will adjust my right foot further back to make sure my head and/or shoulder won't hide the ball on its descent. Conversely, for a lefty I will bring my right foot more forward, or (more simply said) have both feet rotated in respect to each other more counterclockwise. If I don't have that level of natural talent to adjust, I will simply abandon pendulum (and shovel) serves, and serve Apollonia style: a basic, spin-variated forehand chop-serve. It works for Tiago.
@@-danRexactly. He talks about consistency, but it looks like it's extremely consistent: Play so the opponent sees the ball. He even made clear examples that there are more angles hence he can decide precisely where to serve and how to serve to adjust to the consistency. Literally no problem here
I 100% agree to what you said. I don't even play close to a semi professional level. I play vs. a lot of 40+ people and there is a lot of out of the hand serving , not tossing the ball correctly and so on. I think table tennis should have refs like in football or any other spor´t on the amateur levels. I think it should start with the kids and everyone who begins to learn table tennis. If we manage it to teach them the serve rules correctly and we all pull on the same rope, we can make a change. I also think, that the serving rules should change, so it is equal for everyone, like you said in the video.
It's understandable for people over 40, the rules changed over the years, back in the day you could even block the toss with your body lol... unless it's a proper tournament I don't see the issue.
@@fycfyc1 A championshiüp or a league game is no different then a tournament game in my opinion. You have to adapt to the rules. I can see why a 70 year old would struggle to adapt. I don't see the problem with adapting the serve. You have to practice a few hours to get it right, that's not that hard.
Totally agree with this video, great to see one of the best players in the world stating this. At club level it is a chronic problem, with at least 80% plus players doing illegal serves. Very few on purpose, but most simply not knowing the rules. I think writing up these basic rules in easy to understand language and posting it up on the club walls may be a start.
Illegal serves is the main reason I don't like playing low-level umpire-less tournaments. Most players seem to think they can do whatever they want when serving. The older players clearly don't want to re-learn illegal serves they have been doing for decades and have "perfected". Also it takes a lot of bravery to call out illegal servers, because many of them get angry and disagree with you, creating an unpleasant playing environment.
I believe the problem also stems from the fact that many current coaches (and even some current pros) came up in a time when hiding the ball was not illegal, but was even considered a major component of a good serve, and those habits have been passed down in training, so it may take one more generation for this to die out. A possible rule clarification could be that the ball must be visible during the toss from every angle from within the extensions of the table's sides and top surface on the recieving player's side. This way, any reasonable starting position of the receiving player is covered.
I truly appreciate, that you spoke out on this topic, and gave us amateurs a honest overview of the issue. I wish you the best in succeeding with your efforts getting ITTF/WTT to review the rules.
I know that in the past, there were almost no rules for serving, and you could spin toss the ball and hide it completly. But there were not any soft rubber which was as spiny as nowadays an avarage rubber. So my solution would be the following: You can only decept the boll when tossing up, arroun 10° degres. And with that, you could not toss it behing your soulder, cause it wont leave its position, and you are not moving a lot during service. Anders! What do you think?
Great video, good to get some exposure on this. This is one of tabletennis' biggest failures. Right now it's definitely a case of "If you can't beat them, join them". No-one enforces these rules even at a local/national level, whether it's a player umpire or a real umpire. The rules (not the toss one) either need to be scrapped entirely and just let things basically continue as is - with it no longer being against the rules - or otherwise umpires are going to need to up their game (this just isn't going to happen). VAR From a certain angle is a good idea but again, it's barely used at TTE/ITTF level, so it definitely won't be introduced further down, so it will still happen. Edit: I also didn't know about holding the free arm up rule. I knew they couldn't keep it up and obscure the ball, but even holding it up being against the rules is new to me. I think it's good that it is illegal because again, otherwise we blur the line with "did they drop their free arm in time so ball contact wasn't obscured in any way". Edit2: Perhaps focusing at grass roots club level - Having coaches teach their players how to umpire matches (Players will umpire up to a semi high level) and calling out fouls. This would have club players not want to be called out also. This would be a slow initiative to see this change come through next generation, but I guess we have to start somewhere also.
Hello, wanna say great video. I'm an amater hobby player, but always try to play according to the book. If we limit top height of the ball, maybe then could say ball is ok. So now we have 16 cm rule, which limits from the bottom up, addinf rule that ball must no reach more than meter... It would mean ball with that degree will not be hidden behind shoulder. Because it would be too low. Second option would be near vertically without 30 % which would mean ball must fall 5 cm left or right from mid line. Cannot hide it then.
Interesting point you bring up in 2:57. However, as a right handed player, I can tell you the amount of times a left handed player has gone out of their way to adjust for serve legality (0), even though it's in the rulebook. Unsure of the pro circuit, but in the amateur ranks, there's almost an unwritten rule that left handed players get exempted from serve hiding due to left handed playing mechanics. More often than not, right handed players like myself has had to adjust our receive stance (ie. stand closer to the middle) in order to have a chance at seeing the contact of the ball during a serve. Obviously, this now opens up my backhand for fast long serves, for which due to my stance, is compromised. I believe that the current rule is absolutely fair, even in my scenario above (and the one you mention in your video), as both players, right and left handed, would need to adjust their service to be visible to their opponent.
Thanks for this video! Last saturday I played 4th league player in low level amateur tournament. He seemed to hid the ball with his body. When I raised this issue he didn't know what I was talking about. Definately at the highest level there should be cameras, that check fro the angle of receiver if ball was visible all the time. If not, after one warning this should be always a point to receiver (although one warning is probably still to much leniency on the matter). I do not understand why people don't take this rule seriously, or sometimes even don't lnow it...
it is very clear, don't put any part of your body between the ball and your opponent while serving. if you are left handed and your opponent is right handed , you will both have to alter your serves so that they are clear , orelse make a tomahowk like serve where you put your body behind the ball.
Why would I alter all my training just because you are left handed? Especially in comp where now I have to change serve mechanics just so YOU can see because YOU choose to sit in that corner? Like I could win ever receive with the logic if I just move to be unable to see the full flights of the ball. We should just use the corner and if we can see it from one corner or both. Then it is objective the opponent can not alter it and doesn’t depend on styles. Simple
@@winningwinny51 First i am right handed :) ... but the point is that i should be able to stand wherever i want behind the table to expect your serve no matter if i am right or left handed. Your serve should be visible across the table no matter the corner
correct, it's a rule so no room for opinions. every referee or opponent should call out illegal serves, or the rule has to be changed, but currently it's a mess. I would be even stricter with the rule. Every camera left AND right in a 45 degree angle to the table shall see the ball, so that there are no discussions whether the ball was visible for the opponent or not. Then it doesn't matter where the opponent is standing. And with cam+computers you can track the ball and detect illegal serves.
Most important: Calling fault on serves shouldn't immediately take away the point. The server should get a second chance to serve and only have the point taken away after serving illegaly 2 times in a row. This will make umpires feel less invasive and encourage them more to call out faulty serves.
This really seems like constructive advice and one of the solutions to the problem. It wouldn't have that big direct impact on game but it would make a players more aware of their mistake and it would make umpires more brave to call it.
why does it have to be 2 in a row? that would mean you can do illegal serves 50% of the time. perhaps a better system would be to start deducing points after the second illegal serve in a set for example. this way you can only do one per set.
Appreciate your honesty in acknowledging your own illegal serves. The ‘near vertical’ stipulation is very much open to interpretation and that certainly doesn’t help. When many players do the hook serve it’s particularly bad, practically flinging the ball back towards themselves, that’s such an obvious one that should be addressed by umpires…
Great analysis and totally agree anders! Could you make a video about the horrible new angle in the wtt events and where the camera should be placed to efficiently watch a match?
Thanks Anders! Big fan of your expressiveness, communication and style, whether posting on TH-cam or in the heat of competition. Personally I think my serves are legal for the most part as I only use a variety of backhand serves and always toss the ball quite vertically. Even then, my opponents still seem to have enough problems receiving it. By the way, I've noticed that you have a very effective serve yourself. Keep up the good work and all the best in Chongqing!🔥🔥🔥
If I understand correctly, the serving was significantly less regulated and defined just a couple of decades ago. I distinctly remember watching table tennis being played in the Olympics in the 90's, and the players would literally hide the ball and the racket during almost the entire serve, making it impossible to see which way they were spinning it.
Respect your honesty and bravery. Since the old school of covered serves are banned for so long, why and when did it start to be popular again? And as you mentioned it depends on from which visual angle you could judge whether the serve is hidden or not, how should the umpire judge?
Great support from Belgium, this is a case! I have to admit I was a wrong-server, just not aware of, until I met an umpire-player opponent. He opened my eyes. Cheers Max!
I'm glad you mentioned that you are not innocent in this matter. As I've seen before, and even during your demonstrations, at a minimum, the ball (and indeed the racket preparing to hit the ball) becomes temporarily hidden from view by your right hand. I also agree that this kind of error in judging has become rampant from what I've seen. Many, many of the top players keep their hand in front of the ball as it is about to hit the racket. It is blatantly available in all the TH-cam videos available today.
Great points Anders, perhaps a challenge system using video cameras. Each player has 2 challenges and if proven the server loses a point, if repeated then the server loses a game?! I've always thought Dima's tosses were way too much off vertical.
This issue can only be resolved if the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and consequently World Table Tennis (WTT) acknowledge its occurrence and issue a public statement. It is imperative that they clearly communicate their intention to enforce the rules. At this juncture, it is too late to implement corrective measures solely through the umpires. As you mentioned, 80% of players are engaged in this practice, and it has likely become a habitual and subconscious action for many of them.
I too have always believed too many players get away with this, especially hiding the ball via parts of their body. I have also believed for a long time that there’s an obvious and easily implemented solution and that is to only allow backhand services and the whole body must be behind the ball at all times. I’d be interested in everyone’s thoughts on this…
1:34 Not to be that guy but that's not how trigonometry works 😂 if ball is thrown 1 metre upwards at a 30 degree angle the horizontal displacement should be 2/sqrt(3) metres, which is around 116cm
nah u aint that guy its all g. my math aint what it could be hahah focusing on sport is not making me a math professor haha :). yeah youre right. but all the serves that i showed in this video is still way beyond the legal limit..
@@AnderslindTT Considering that the ball is falling down as well, you need to add even more displacement. At maximum you get 2*58 cm (in the extreme case where you hit at the table level). The displacement can then be 75% of the table width for a serve thrown up by only one meter. To get a more precise result, one needs to calculate the displacement from a parabolic toss. Still, I agree that many players' toss is way too horizontal because most do not throw the ball up by one meter. In general, great video as always!
Thank you for this open video. It's clearly one of the best I've seen for years now. I'm just an amateur player, but players, who consciously and consistently serve illegal, to gain an advantage for themselves, annoy me most in our game. I agree with most here, either the rules need to be less strict, like in the 90s and early 2000s, e.g. see old Waldner Videos, OR the existing rules need to be strictly enforced. Yes, this will disturb the game in the beginning, but then after a short transition time, players will adapt and serve better (in terms of rules). Hopefully, when people see it is enforced in top events, even amateurs feel more free to enforce it in lower leagues as well. Or simply discard the rule, because a rule which no one follows is useless. And then there is no need to argue about 😆
Glad you made this video. I completely agree with you on every points. I do see 2 more ways to resolve it : 1/ the only available serve should be the backhand one 2/ remove all serves rules :') Jokes aside, if any referee is reading this, we will always support you on being brave BUT don't forget : the most important thing is that the player can see the ball in everytime. Other rules are less important. Focus on that please !
thank you anders for the video, my opinion on this matter is to serve like tennis, 🎾, the rallis would be amazing every time and players with good lobbing skills and far from the table skill would shine, short game would be dead and defence players would be back... table tennis would become a major sport and players would make a great payday... fans will be excited to see great rallies. you put a line 2 meters from table you tauce the ball over your head and serve to one side of the table on your first serve and to the second side on your second serve. it would be easy for spectators to understand and beautiful to watch
My idea is a VAR system should be used to judge ball throwing angles, height, and hidden serves in table tennis. Defining 'hidden' as 'unseen by the receiver from their position' is ambiguous. Instead, we should use a fixed point at the table's middle: if the ball can't be seen from this midpoint on the receiver's side, it's a hidden serve. While this doesn't perfectly address RH vs LH (it still can be hidden relative to the receiver but legal to VAR’s midpoint) players technically can choose where they are standing regardless of their dominant hand, making the midpoint the fairest solution. To support this system, VAR cameras should be positioned accordingly. To avoid interrupting every point, players could be given 2 challenges per game to dispute a serve. If a challenge reveals a fault, the receiver gets a point or the point is replayed. Implementing this isn’t difficult-we have eagle-eye technology and advanced VAR systems in other sports. We live in the era of self-driving cars and autonomous robots with advanced cameras perceiving the world and doing calculations, we can certainly create a system to judge proper ball throws. Lastly I want to say that It's also unfair to blame umpires or players. Umpires simply can’t accurately judge hidden serves from their seat and will face backlash and hate from the player's fans. Players might not realize they're serving illegally, often thinking 'if it’s not called out, it’s legal.' and 'if 1 out of 10 umpires calls out, then that one umpire is wrong'. An objective system like VAR would solve these issues.
Great video explaining the rules and their abuse. I just want to give my two cents on the visibility rule; in the left to right server and receiver case (and vice versa) the serve is legal as long as you turn your body with the ball or beforehand. The turning of the body should sufficiently accomplish the visibility problem. So, you should be able to make any service against any player. IMHO if your service is not visible at any one particular position where a receiver stands then it's your burden to make sure the ball remains visible. Anyways excellent job covering this controversial topic.
Thank you for talk about it, is incredible how wrong are the serves right now and a lot of people argue with "but im playing world championship, wtt or whatever, and they dont say nothing to me, why are you angry about the serve here in national tournament or nationals trials?" And im tired of discussing this because they thing because umpire are not brave to call the fault, their servers are in rule or ok.
Nice video. For the angle it might be possible to change the rule so that the ball has to be visible from the perspective of the middle line of the table. So a right handed receiver can not stand on the left side of the table and claim that a lefty serve is hidden in his viewing angle. Its also sad that the var project stopped. Timo Boll also mentioned in an interview that he would like to have this system again. Maybe it is too expensive for wtt. Another improvement might be to change the rule so the ball only has to be visible at the contact point. Ma longs serve at the var check was illegal because the ball was hidden behind his head for a short time. But the contact point was visible. If we dont change this then almost every forehand pendulum serve is illegal. For example Dang qiu, dimitrij ovtcharov, lin yun ju sometimes.
"the ball has to be visible from the perspective of the middle line of the table" This is an interesting idea. eg. Nothing shall be between the ball and the middle line of the table on contact. It has the advantage of not requiring umpires to have telepathy powers to adjudicate the rules (seeing through the receiver's eyes is a skill I'm pretty sure most umpires don't have).
Hi Anders- I have not read all the comments, but it seems to me that the only real practical and most easily enforcible solution would be a rule change stating that the ball must be tossed vertically,and/or making the variation much less (say 5 to 10 degrees off vertical). Perhaps one of the difficulties for the ittf Is the fact that many players have spent years developing their serves (which may be illegal), and because these illegal serves have been largely overlooked by the umpires, these off vertical and partially hidden serves have become ingrained as a normal part of the modern game and used (intentionally or unintentionally) by most players. Even a lot of service coaching videos are featuring off vertical ball tosses. My solution would be; -change the service toss rules (vertical would be most unambiguous) - educate the players,coaches and umpires -indicate a rule change far in advance (even years) so that players can adapt . -focus particularly on change with the young players ,so that the vertical serve is normal and automatic for them Thank you for your great vids-keep up the good work! Mike-Waiheke Island,New Zealand
I totally agree that at this point something needs to change. If for no other reason than it doesnt look good for the sport to constantly see people arguing over serves in the comment section of every video. If there is so much disparity then clearly something needs to happen. Really cool to hear someone at Anders level actually addressing it, hopefully other pros will do the same. 🏓
The thing is that theres a balance between following the rules and excitement for the audience watching the sport. - First you want to make the match more fluid, not to many stop and go situations. So you have to ignore certain rules from time to time - Second, a lot of rules makes the game boring by being to pragmatic in order to cover all bases. Again going back to the bottom line which is the audience, they need to be entertained because they pay for all this. This is especially true at the top level, where they break the rules the most without consequences This stuff is not only in Table tennis, its everywhere, its extremely prevalent in the NBA
Thanks for the video. As a new and "older" player in tabletennis, I have experienced this issue multiple times, where the unfair advantage from older more experienced players won a match simply by hiding the ball in the hand or serving out of the hand. (this is on a much lower level), or so I thought. Climping the ladder it is a general issue that service and illegal service cant completely change the game. However without judges or generally counting people not being "allowed" to call out illegal service, it is problematic that when you adress the matter of an illegal service, the amount of self righteous anger, that suddenly completely switches the atmosphere of a game is really problematic. Young players do not want to adress older players due to hostility, if it is pointed out that the service is illegal. We need to change the way we talk about the service, rather than just the rules because currently most people really dont care at all, they just do the same illegal service they always have done.
Hello anders really nice demonstration about the service rules. 2 left handers that do legal services at all time are dina meshref and Sofia polcanova. With regards to rule change all forehand service to be done on the forehand side of the table. In that way there is no hiding of the ball . Just a thought.
Thank you for addressing this. Officiating for serves has been pretty inconsistent. The players have just been used to hiding the ball and seeing it as normal
very interesting video. I think it´s great that you open up on this issue. I think the problem for umpires is that they can´t really estimate or tell whether the ball was hidden from the opponent or not. Its a guessing game for them, so in high level a camera system should be involved. If as a player i want to serve legally, i choose to do backhand/tomahawk serves. Those are almost always legal, unless of course the ball toss isnt vertical/high enough. I hope that ITTF creates a rule that is easier to follow through.
Easy solution (maybe), at the starting, finishing and during the entire service motion both hips and shoulders need to be also parallel to the net. In this case it would be harder to shield the serve.
To me is funny and frustrating when on an amateur match a referee calls an illegal serve when the fault is not so clear. Many times I've seen coaches arguing "that's the same service as... (name your favorite pro player)"
im a casual who played in tournaments and a club for a few years, so i might not grasp the topic from a pro perspective, but from how most people play table tennis regularly. i think the most important part that must be able to see is the tossing up of the ball. u need to see if someone is putting spin on the ball, how fast it is, so u can calculate how long its in the air and so on. what happens in the middle doesnt matter that much. but as soon as your opponent starts moving their arm or hand to approach the ball it has to be visible so u can have an idea when its coming. if u just hide it because ur head naturally leans forward but as soon as it reaches neck height its visible, in most cases the opponent has a fair chance of seeing the ball. the way i would change it, is reducing the allowed angle to whatever is easy to do even for amateurs and possibly having a rule that tournament organisers or leagues can allow or disallow, to have multiple chances to throw the ball. at a pro level they should all be able to throw it less than 10 degrees, but not every casual in a beginner league/tournament can. also i would change that the only part that is allowed to block the ball from being seen is the your head.
For me the best solution is to remove the rule about hiding the ball and get back like old times because like you said it´s very difficult to avaliate. And keep the other rules like they are because you can judge it easier
I think, You are right. Rules, which are not judgeable destroy the game. A good player advice me to learn a hidden serve and do it, when it comes down to the last point. If you have not been warned beforehand, the wrong serve has no consequences.
@@hermannulrichvogelsang6041 The umpire doesn't have to let the first dubious serve from a player off with just a warning, they can fault the serve, awarding the point to the opponent, and probably would do if it happened at the end of a close game.
@AnderslindTT I would like to know which players you consider having the most legal serves on the tour. One that comes to mind is Moregardh, whose ball can probably be seen by a right-hander as well as a left-hander. You probably won't be able to answer that second part, but which players have the least legal serves? I would say Wang Chuqin, first his palming is not flat, and the ball is constantly hidden by his head
Big thanks for your comprehensive analysis of the rules and what they mean and aim to achieve. If any referee/umpire ignores violations of rules to keep the game going, it is a clear sign that they are not doing their job. Keeping the game going is not unimportant but cannot take priority over keeping the game fair according to the rules of the game. Blatant and obvious violations of the serve rules have to be punished or the rules need to be changed. What the players in your example and you yourself are doing at 3:51 constantly is cupping the ball and throwing it towards themselves. It is basic physics, that you need to do that, because you never intend anything like a vertical throw at all. I would suggest to enforce that flat hand part first and foremost, I’m sure the rest will follow more or less on its own. From what I see, you and all those other top players are mostly trying to make their serves less returnable, by bending the variations accepted by the umpires to the point, where they are not even recognizable anymore. If everyone stopped using the uncertainty of the umpires enforcement of the rules, everyone would win: the rules, less experienced players and sportsmanship in table tennis.
About time that someone pointed this out. 80%+ of professionals have illegal serves - and local leagues aren't that much better either. Umpires shouldn't be afraid of calling out the BS straight away with a let and warning, then after that losing the point if it happens again. Maybe a rule where the BALL AND RACKET must be visible at all times during the serve as if the receiver was standing at the middle white line (which obviously in practice they are stood slightly either side depending on left/right handed) would help a lot to stop servers being so side-on to the table and concealing the service with their body.
Enforcement of rules needs to start at local levels - club, state before players get to ITTF standards. Club level matches are umpired by players themselves but organised events by state and national bodies probably needs a lot of work to weed this problem out. Well done, @anderslindtt , for speaking out about this topic
Extremely nicely crafted and helpful video, great insights! At minute ~1:35: Just to say that your calculation is way off. 30° does not mean 30 cm horizontal distance per 100 cm vertical distance, but ~58 cm! The calculation is: 1 / sqrt (verticalDistance) Another example: 45° would mean 1 m horizontal and 1 m vertical distance.
Thank you for sharing your opinion! I am with you. I have been umpair and I can tell it is quite difficult to know if a service is correct or not, and even more if ot is a right handed vs a lefty. On the other hand, related to illegal things... I have also seen players asking to repeat a serve because they "saw a net". This may be true the majority of times, but also may be just a lie when it is an important point and the service did not result as the player expected, or if he did not read the spin properly when resting. The umpire is the only one who should call the net, but it is very difficult and regularly they rely on the players opinions. I wish ITTF could implement an automatic detector to avoid these situations.
Thank you for this great video. But there's a dilemma. The rule about open serve is released at around 2002, the new 40+ ball is used since about 2014. After the 40+ ball was introduced, the spin of the ball is much decreased; blade, rubber and technique (such as backhand flip) have been much developed. If the serving rule is enforced strictly, the receiver have a good chance that he/she can read the ball right and score with just one stroke. That's not what we want to see, as little as illegal serve. I love table tennis. I'm not defending the illegal serve, but there's a balance to keep. If someone really want to change the rule, please keep that in mind and make the game better, not worse.
5:00 one good point you overlooked here. Is that what if the receiver of the serve would face the other way, would that make every serve hidden and therefore illegal???
Thank you Anders! I believe this video with your comments and explanations is just right and at a good time! My feeling is Table tennis Scene here germany is taking itself more seriously and valuating what a fine Sport we do! No place for cheating! Only place for great Games and fair play!
Is the 30 degree rule official? That's actually much laxer than you may think. The trajectory of the ball is a parabola. If the ball is tossed at 30 degree, the parabola equation is y=sqrt(3)x-kx^2 where k is a parameter depending on the initial speed. Regardless of k, the ratio of the horizontal displacement to the peak height is about 2.3 to 1. The table is 1.525m wide, so it's perfectly legal to toss the ball 33cm high and go from the middle to one side. Do you have any idea why VAR was only used once?
Got the same question... At 1:37 it seems he explains it as 30%, but then he emphasizes the word angle again. I'm on your side that 30° would be waaay to much. 30% would make sense though. EDIT: 30% meaning the ball is allowed to travel horizontally a maximum of 30% of its vertical travel, resulting in an angle of about 5°.
I think that the rule is pretty clear and does not need any modifications. Every service should be visible from any angles, and the rules stated that the space between the net and the ball should be visible at all time (to my understanding, the triangle surface formed by the left and right end of the net and the ball (and its indefinite upward extension) should remain free of any obstacle). I think having mini cam on both ends of the net might be a solution to state if a service is illegal or not. We might need to change habits of serve undoubtedly but if it's for the benefit and sake of the sport it could be the solution.
4:42 the tossing arm remained outstretched to help hide visibility of the ball there; it could be dropped before striking it, unless the arm was needed to maintain balance. Left or right handed, no one would stand at the diagonal to receive service.
digital camera in each net post, with a program that works out where the ball is. Once thrown, if a camera loses sight of the ball, it gives a (red) light and serve is illegal. This would hopefully address shielding issue and could do throw angle too (table tennis hawk-eye?). This removes responsibility from the umpire to have to judge whether it's visible to the opponent or not (which is very hard) and it could enforce those two rules as I believe they are intended.
What's more, the receiving player can freely choose on which side of the table to receive the serve, and this will impact the visibility angles. So, it's not only right-handed vs left-handed etc
Hi Anders Lind, I love your videos! I even posted your videos on some table tennis forum and hopefully it gives you more views along with motivation to make more videos. A topic suggestion that only pro like you could make: there are many table tennis tutorials out there, but none is about the path from amateur to pro player. Like what they have to learn, technically and mentally. At which stage they need to achieve what techniques. What makes the difference between pro level vs amateur level.
1:36 First of all, there's no single mentioning of any degree of toss in the official rules. Sesondly, if we say, that the ball can be tossed +- 30 degrees upwards, then a 1 meter toss, can land ~58 cm from the start point. 30 cm is mathematically incorrect, since it is a relation of two opposite sites (ctg, tg of 30 degrees).
Interesting point about technical errors! Proper grip and ball judgment are fundamental yet so many players struggle with them. Coaching needs to focus more on these basics.
The problem is that the empire will never have the viewing angle of the receiving player so he will always have to “guess” if the service was hidden or not. In my opinion the rule must state instead where the ball can be struck depending on the position of the body. For example: hit the ball always in front of the torso therefore the player cannot turn his upper body to serve behind himself and hide the ball.
Besides the hidden service, actually the rule of 'near vertically upwards' is also undefined. As what is said in the video, the angle should no larger than 30 degrees. But it is just a rough explain. No one knows which angle should below 30°. Maybe 'the initial velocity', or maybe the 'line from the resting point to the highest point'. That is a big difference. The tangent of the back one is actually twice the tangent of the front one. Like 7:26, the serve of MaLong, 'the initial velocity' is under 30 degrees, but using the other definition, it exceeds 30 degrees. Hope ITTF and WTT would perfect these rules. That's a great and thoughtful video, love from China.👍 Sorry for my poor English.
So now I’ll just run away when my enemy is doing his serve. I’ll hide anywhere were I can’t see the ball and then it’s my point. In my opinion you are right, this rule really needs to be reworked
It's so convincing to hear the opinion of a pro player himself rather than some online haters to hate on a player with illegal services. At 5:07 Anders explained a very important point that somebody used to argue with me before. He said WCQ's service is illegal but then I ask him why Kristian Karlsson can return his serves so well. He just tell me cuz left handers can see better. But wait a min, if he can see means it is not illegal he basically contradicted himself with the argument. The point is rules are just too subjective and I demand a review of service rules.
In some previous video I was very critical of you. Gotta say you kind of redeemed yourself in my eyes. Still I fail to find problem in the 'spirit' of the rule. If from your younger years you were punished for the leaning of your body forward and had points lost for free - you would learn to serve according to the spirit of the rule. In that china open there was a case of Ma Long receiving a penalty for service (it might have been a doubles game) - sadly it was cut out from the highlight video. This could have been a powerful message. Cheers, good luck and stay true to the spirit of the rule against all ods ;)
![How to Receive Serves Without Worrying About Spin.[Table Tennis]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2EJM2mOkn1o/mqdefault.jpg)
First of all, let me clarify that I am not innocent in this matter. I have spoken openly, and I have no problem admitting that some of my serves are illegal. However, as I stated in the video, the problem is getting worse because all the top players - the players young people look up to and the players you need every advantage to have a chance of beating - are doing it. Unfortunately, it’s a path almost all players will have to take to reach the top. Make sure to comment your own ideas, I would love to hear them and try together with all of you to find a good solution.
Update i am aware of my insanely bad math skills on the angle calculation. Its not 30cm its 58cm on a 1m toss however the serves i showcased in this video and a lot of pro serves are still beyond the limit😁 sorry for the incorrect number
If an opponent uses an illegal serve and an empire doesn't react, then the only thing you could do to make it even is to do the same illegal serve. So it's good to learn different illegal serves just in case.
Illegal serves are like avoiding tax... It's the government's job to fix the loopholes, until then everyone's gonna abuse it and it ain't immoral
Question Lin
You have fast serves may i know why don't you do them more often ? Specially on the last point lets say 10-9 thanks so much for your videos
You know, here's another MAJOR ISSUE with the whole "ball needs to be visible to the opponent throughout the entire serve" rule: Let's say you're serving it to me. You're a lefty. I'm a righty. What if I stand WAYYYY to my left to where most of my body is wide of the sideline? Are you supposed to adjust to that as the server? And if you don't, then does that mean that you're serving illegally to me?
I agree there is an issue. As lefty..i stand on the extreme right of the table to have maximum coverage area for my forehand. However most right-handed players would be stand to their extreme left of the table to service. From where i stand, i would not be able to see what other players are actually serving as their back would be facing me. However if that is an issue, how does lefty player like xu xin able to play well on world stage?
7:15
I appreciate the sincerity putting yourself in the video.
Indeed.
i had to😉 i also have a few serves that aint quite right
yeeea
@@AnderslindTTthe honesty, respect 🫡
Congratulations from a Chinese table tennis fan! Superb performance in WTT! Beating the MOST illegal server.
Respect for including yourself in hidden ball examples, hope they find a decisive way to solve this matter
The solving is to delete this rule becaise noone cares about it or respects it.
Very good to the point. Another aspect that makes this even more important is that when everyone serves correctly, probably people can receive better, and this means we can enjoy the table tennis more since there are more shots after each serve.
It's great that you explain the problem from a professional perspective. I have seen the comments that you stated. The fundamental problem lies in the visibility rule. Therefore, I believe that we either go back to old school rules and just hide the service always or become more strict. For the sake of the sports appeal I prefer the second option. The way to enforce it is to have cameras like you put in this video and digital referees. They already do this in football/soccer. Referees watching the screens for violations of the rules and communicate it to the main umpire at the table. As an added bonus, we would have better camera angles to watch the games.
Thanks again for another great video! Until the next one!
Haha 2x you watch almost instantly. and you had the comment prepared again my man
@@AnderslindTT of course! Got to do my part as a loyal subscriber! Lol! Have a good day! And good luck in the near future!
I think that hiding the service is an art and a training and that we should return to the old rules when everyone could hide
@@mugiwaranoskyyn3272 Maybe also skip the ball toss and have some colors of the rubber on both sides? I mean come on, there is a reason why ITTF has made these changes, they want to see rallies being played out.
Yes, like in football...they wanted to make the game more interesting for the viewers .and changed some rules or became sometimes more strict in other parts less...so, who wants to see an illegal serve followed by a mistake of the opponent. Serve...net...boring! So more legal serves more interesting rallies 😀
Only Samsonov serves legally at all time and I can see lots of opponents have problems with his services too.
I thought exactly the same. I cant come of any other players then Samsonov.
Yes but he has like the best touch oat, that helps ahah
@@thomasbendt9742 Timo Boll
Karalasevic also (although his earlier serves were tough)
Trying to toss straight like him is super hard
I'm glad I saw this video.
I used to play a lot 15+ years ago, including some competitive play. Nowadays I don't really play myself, but I often watch clips, highlights or matches of tabletennis on TH-cam. It has often been the case that I think to myself "Hmm, I guess the rules for the serve have changed, because back when I played, you had to throw the ball directly up". I guess I never took the time to do much research to find out if something had changed, but this video now clears that up for me. Thank you for taking the time to explain this in a brief and clear manner and standing for the integrity of the game.
Another great vid Anders 👊 Interestingly back when ITTF changed the rules in 2002 to enforce no hiding of serves, part of their guidance was this: ‘If the server could imagine a triangular space created by the ball and both net posts, then extends this space upwards to head level, the server must then ensure that no part of his body or clothing enters this space (or remains in this space) after he projects the ball upwards in service.‘
The intention was that the receiver could stand anywhere along the back line of the table and still see the ball.
Now it feels like we’ve gone back to the Wild West, where you rightly point out if you want to get anywhere near the top 100 you have to intentionally hide the contact. If you don’t, you’re at a major disadvantage.
I struggle to see how an umpire, from their usual side on position, can call a foul serve for the ball being hidden behind the body. From their view it’s easy to see if the free arm is blocking, but almost impossible to see if the head/body is blocking.
I think the only way to solve it is to have an automated system, similar to Hawkeye or VAR in the future. If a camera on both net posts pointing at the server, if the ball disappears at any point on either camera then the umpire is notified. Fair enough logistically these can’t be used at all the events, but for Smashes, world championships and Olympics it would and should be possible.
Technically speaking using the 'nothing between the net and the ball' guideline the pendulum and reverse pendulum serves are illegal at some point during nearly every serve because the ball is so close to your body even though the contact point of the serve might be completely visible to the opponent.
100% agree! The triangle seems even better than my solution of receiver's midpoint to address the LH vs RH issue. The biggest issue with this is that most players will need to change their serves and fundamentally rethink something that they have developed and ingrained for many years. In an ideal world all TT events down to the club level should reinforce this because even all the players that play in the biggest events always start from playing and getting coached at a local club and they gradually level up, if the system is only implemented in the highest level they might need to change serve only at that level and it distracts their whole game. Logistically though I think that all WTT matches with at least $1000 at stake should have VAR cameras. VAR systems can be lot cheaper to implement than most people think! It's just a matter of leadership and decision making from ITTF and WTT.
@@samy_alxndr I don't think it's going to be that difficult for an anyway decent player to stop holding his free arm up. Agree though it's a matter of the body's prioritising
Would love to see more Hawkeye like they had in some ITTF tournaments back in like 2022. It would be a start and maybe encourage local umpires to call it out more. Problem with tabletennis being a niche sport with not a lot of monetary investment that national (Even Grand Prix and SBL below prem) will have player umpires, I just don't see how it could be enforced.
Great video. At 6:30 especially i totally agree with you there's a lot of umpires that are so scared to fault the players because they don't want to upset anyone
But they are allowed to do this. I'd bet that they are even encouraged to do this by match referees and tournament organizers/officials. If umpires were routinely chastised for failing to make obvious calls, the calls would be made. This is not an umpire problem. I'd bet most high level umpires could deal with this easily. But they need the support of the ITTF. I strongly suspect that's where this all begins and where it must be solved.
I appreciate that speak openly about this problem. I agree that it all trickles down from a pro level to the amateur level. The reguluations should be clear and enforced.
Nice video! Really enjoy seeing a professional player like you make these detailed discussion videos about the sport! Here are some the thoughts of a quite average/bad table tennis player:
I think the customs and culture around serving have developed into what it is today due to the difficulty and uncertainty that comes with deeming a serve illegal, and its relevance in the local scenes where people learn and develop.
Its very difficult to see if a serve is illegal from the judge table. There are also small margins between what is and isn't illegal. Its difficult to precisely judge angles or see if the ball is hidden or not. Most people also don't want to make a wrong call or disrupt the play either. And when starting out and playing in the local scene, most judges will be other players, who aren't professionals at this. All of this makes it so that most people with an illegal serve in the local scene, where players start and grow, wont have it called out by the judge.
Furthermore, illegal serves aren't really that impactful for non professional players. When I, a non professional player, play against someone who throws the ball at an illegal angle or hides the contact, it will often be unintentional and irrelevant. The serves are not good enough, spinny enough or have enough after-motion to actually hide the spin, direction and speed of the ball. But when you play against better players, with more spin and after-motion, actually seeing the contact becomes much more important. But because everyone faced illegal serves when they were starting out, many will often be apathetic and used to them. Many players will therefore not care if their opponents serve is illegal.
All of this results in players developing illegal serves early on, not having them called out, and being apathetic to them when getting good. So many can often get upset or confused when their "normal" serve they've used for many years suddenly start getting called out in big tournaments, despite no one having a problem with them before. Though it is important to note that many also abuse this culture and system to gain an unfair advantage, even when they are able to serve legal. Ive seen players intentionally develop illegal serves, which is frustrating, but also sorta understandable. When so many others serve illegal yet still don't get penalized, why shouldn't you also join in. Otherwise you'd be at a disadvantage. Ive even seen players develop illegal serves which they specifically only use against other people with illegal serves, but not against those with legal ones.
It is very hard to present a solution to this problem. I think the serve angle is something that you don't really have much of an excuse for breaking. Yeah it is somewhat hard to be 100% consistent, but it wont really hurt or be particularly difficult to learn to throw the ball straight "most" of the time. Accidents happen, and accidentally throwing the ball to vertically doesn't differ much from accidentally hitting the ball with your face.
How to fix serve hiding is a much more difficult problem, as you discussed in your video. When the same serve can be legal or illegal based on the player, consistency can become almost impossible. I don't think having 2 different serves based on the opponents playing hand should be a standard, especially with the uneven distribution of right and left handers. I know left handed players who can feel very helpless when it comes to serving, due to often playing right handers who's serves they struggle to see, while also having their serves more often get critiqued due to being in the minority.
You could maybe introduce more standardized rules for hiding, something like requiring the ball to be visible from the middle of the other side of the table, though this could result further complicating everything and making things even more uncertain. You could also loosen the rules on hiding, make it more acceptable, but this could result in service being even more important and frustrating than it already. How you would somewhat loosen the rules on hiding at all is also a question. Hiding is a pretty black and white matter, either you hide or you don't hide. Can you even choose anything other than allowing or disallowing hiding?
Thank you if anyone read through this long ass comment of me rambling and found it interesting or insightful . Keep in mind I am by no means a pro, or even all that good at all, so my views might be biased, ignorant or show my inexperience, please tell me if so
Thank you for addressing this problem from a pro player's perspective.
I think this has become a chronic problem where the younger generation is seeing everyone in the pro scene doing it and feel that they are going to be at a disadvantage if they don't do the same illegal serve.
And the only one to blame is the umpire for not enforcing the rule because what,: "I don't want to disturb the play"? Might as well allow low blow in MMA then because the refs would "disturb the play".
According the ambiguity of visibility for right/left handed receiver. I think they should make it clear in rule 2.6.5 that not only the free arm and hand that should be removed from the space between the ball and the net, but also shoulder, body, and head. Also the ball has to have a clear line to both net posts.
Changing the rule won't have an impact if free hand isn't even being called out as it stands. Any Calderano high toss serve would be out
Anyone who has ever watched the Setka Cup live streams here on TH-cam will see that most serves there are illegal. Their umpires are useless. They never call them out.
Thank you for being honest and brave to address this issue!
7:15 Very fair that you're showing yourself too in those example clips, and also explaining the reason/difficulty behind that.
And like @THESUPERRONALD argued towards to some degree, something like a fixed camera angle (maybe in the middle) for a second empire to look at would probably fix these two main issues.
By the way, is boosting still a problem these days in the professional scene, or are they better able to detect it nowadays? I can only remember it being talked about circa 8 years ago.
Rubbers are factory boosted now
have to say rubber boosting is an absolute problem with the rules being unfair. At the world team championships this year, Jishan Liang of USA was caught using a "boosted" racket. Here's the thing, it's cause he was late so he had to use a separate testing system which detected the rubber boosting which would have rather not been detected under the normal system. Yes I agree he was at fault with using a boosted rubber, but it's kind of like this situation. Almost all the top players are using boosted rackets and ITTF the normal system they use of checking for boosting seems to let those players play. And it just encourages players to continue boosting which is clearly illegal.
I don't think it's a problem with Chinese rubbers. They are otherwise unplayable.
Boosting is not an issue at all. And if your racket is ever failed for being too boosted you need to really have used a shitload😄
well I'm just saying they need consistent ruling on boosting
some players seem to get away with it.
Take a look at the situation I talked about with Jishan Liang. If he wasn't late to his tournament and had to do a different test to test his racket for "boosting," he would have got away with it. Which I think is absolutely wrong. At the end of the day I think both tests should give the same results. (Yes there can be a tiny margin of error, but it should be very small)
Exactly….your points are spot on. Even club players are imitating world level players and saying that….’if they can do it, so it shouldn’t be illegal, right?’
2:42 From my understanding of rule 2.6.6, no matter where you're at on the table, you should be able to see the serve, per ITTF rule. But in reality, you'll generally find receivers shuffling at least to the middle when playing against the opposite hand. That's just the way it usually works?
THANK you Anders for raising this issue. For me as an amateur player and district Umpire it is very difficult to understand. The rules are clearly not followed by top players.
One drastic solution would be to only allow serves in front of the body.
We need to think what is best for the Table tennis sport, is it to watch the best players in the world misread serves so that the serve return either goes in the net, goes out or is an easy finisher? Or is it to have serves that are easier to read for the opponents?
When I watch high lights from ITTF they seldom show 10 failed serve receives but more often they contain rallies. I have never seen a table tennis audience stand up and cheer like crazy after a missed serve receive but I've seen it after spectacular rallies.
ITTF has clearly written the rules so that these hidden, wrongly tosssed rules from a non-open hand shall be illegal but the rules are not followed, not at all and not at any level. And it is partly killing the sport.
I like the idea of serving ni front of the body, that means the body facing the net. And I like serving like that too hehe
@@EngLhag my serves are all very legal too since I am only backhand serving and my body is also more or less facing the net, although at varying angles (and never directly)
Thats the only solution to illegal serves
A very clear video with some well put arguments.
I've recently started as a local umpire and was already lucky enough to have been selected as umpire for some national matches. I agree that the last rule is the hardest to enforce.
The higher ranked players really test how much they can get away with during the serve. As a starting umpire I'm really trying to enforce the rules as strict as possible (some more veteran umpires have said I'm too strict on the serve sometimes). But even if everything else is correct it's nearly impossible as an umpire to know how much the ball is hidden from the receiving player by the body of the serving player. The only obvious case is when the serving player doesn't remove his/her arm from between the ball and the net. So as long as the opponent doesn't complain about the serve being hidden, we have to assume it's a correct serve.
The most obvious problems will be solved by umpires being more strict about the rules though. The position of the ball, hand, the toss etc. can easily be called out by the umpire, they just have to enforce it.
Good on you for showcasing this, Anders. Watching high level competitions recently, I wonder why no one calls or complains about illegal serves (especially the coaches who are in a somewhat better position to do so).
Thank you for your statement.
This is really a frustrating topic and often i just accept that issue. When it is an really unfair benefit for someone i am going to discuss that or just mention it, but especially older players claim to have the right to serve like that because they are doing it for decades and never got any complains so far....
Also i recognized even young players are adapting irregular serves and hiding the ball with their arm...
But the fact that a pro player is tryin to influence positively gives me hope for more sportsmanship in our sport we love so much^^
I'm both a player and an umpire and I totally agree with you. My most inportant rule for me as a ref, is that the reciver is able to see the ball at all time when the serve is played. So I think a little like a player even when I rule. If I can see the ball and also feel that the receiving player can see it without problem, I generally let the game go on.
Great that you're addressing this openly as a very influential pro player. I am an amateur player from Belgium and have learned from you several things that makes my sport more fun and more interesting. Great and original playstyle you, ve got.
I cant tell you what an admirable video this is for you to make, i've truly gained a monumental amount of respect for you. thank you for addressing this issue, that many of us fans and players have had with the sport. this is such a chronic problem at every level, and its such a stain on the sport. in my opinion, its one of the main problems that face growing the sport globally. again, thank you very much. i'll be rooting for you in your efforts to come!
This is the ultimate definitive guide to the current rules and what the future rules should be in Table Tennis!
I remember the time when they went after illegal services in the late 1990s at many amateur tournaments. Long story short: You were only allowed to throw the ball vertically up. Easy as pie. Samsonov, Schlager (at least his high throw serve) and others showed that you can be successful without hiding the ball. in addition, make it compulsory to STAND with your entire body behind the extended white line of the table. It would then be impossible to hide the ball.
Hej Anders, Thank you for this video. I have long argued that the service rule, just like the boosting rules, are de facto unenforceable. The service rules need to be changed. 1) We could go back to hidden/obstructed serves being permitted. That would be the easiest and bring the aspect of spinny serves back to the game as it was in the 1990s. 2) We could change the rule that the ball CONTACT must be visible from the opponents side of the table. This is a far less extreme change. 3) I honestly don't think the 30 vs 60 degree toss angle (i.e., near vertical throw) matters much as long as the ball travels upward (and then down again) for minimum of 16 cm. Either way, the toss angle is impossible to enforce at anything but Pro events. Greetings from a fellow left-handed Danish TT player.
2.6.6 It is the responsibility of the player to serve so that the umpire or the
assistant umpire can be satisfied that he or she complies with the
requirements of the Laws, and either may decide that a service is incorrect.
Given this rule, vertical toss and so forth would be fairly easy to enforce. Also, amateur club players routinely copy the pros. If it became bad form to toss sideways at the pro level, the amateurs would rush to follow. This happens with amateurs in pretty much all sports worldwide.
BTW, the ITTF Handbook for Match Officials makes it clear that a player serving near the margins of what is legal runs the risk of being penalized.
10.5.3 From their positions in line with the net, especially in case of one umpire per table in the
qualification stage, it may be impractical for the umpire and/or the assistant umpire to judge
whether the ball is struck illegally if it is struck close to the end line or beside a player’s
body. It is, however, the responsibility of the player to serve so that the correctness of his
or her service action can be seen and if he or she serves near the margins of illegality, he
or she runs the risk of being penalised.
So it is purely an umpire problem.... And there are no qualified umpires in 99.9% of amateur matches, so again, the rule in unenforceable
@@ThePongProfessor By that reasoning, none of the rules are "enforceable" in amateur matches.
As I said, fix the problem at the higher levels and the lower levels will tend to copy. That's the fix.
I was goinf to point out, that it also looks like you got illegal serves, and I must say respect for showing a clip of it yourself! And I totally agree with your view on the left-right handed dilemma, weird to have serve being illegal or legal depending on your opponent
I don't see AL's point. The rules on serve visibility are written with the receiver's convenience in mind, not the server's. If it inconveniences me to _adjust my serve dynamic_ to suit the receiver's POV and position, right or left handed, that's just too bad for _me._
Neither I, nor Anders, nor anyone else is entitled to a fixed position, foot-angle, or any other element of my service production in my play or training or background to leave the righty or lefty to their own devices in getting visibility of the ball.
All that to say, _there is no dilemma._ When I (being right-handed) serve a pendulum serve to another right-hander, I will adjust my right foot further back to make sure my head and/or shoulder won't hide the ball on its descent.
Conversely, for a lefty I will bring my right foot more forward, or (more simply said) have both feet rotated in respect to each other more counterclockwise. If I don't have that level of natural talent to adjust, I will simply abandon pendulum (and shovel) serves, and serve Apollonia style: a basic, spin-variated forehand chop-serve. It works for Tiago.
@@-danRexactly. He talks about consistency, but it looks like it's extremely consistent: Play so the opponent sees the ball.
He even made clear examples that there are more angles hence he can decide precisely where to serve and how to serve to adjust to the consistency. Literally no problem here
You are creating really really impressive videos Anders. I'm glad you got this channel going.! Please keep it up.
I 100% agree to what you said. I don't even play close to a semi professional level. I play vs. a lot of 40+ people and there is a lot of out of the hand serving , not tossing the ball correctly and so on. I think table tennis should have refs like in football or any other spor´t on the amateur levels. I think it should start with the kids and everyone who begins to learn table tennis. If we manage it to teach them the serve rules correctly and we all pull on the same rope, we can make a change. I also think, that the serving rules should change, so it is equal for everyone, like you said in the video.
It's understandable for people over 40, the rules changed over the years, back in the day you could even block the toss with your body lol... unless it's a proper tournament I don't see the issue.
@@fycfyc1 A championshiüp or a league game is no different then a tournament game in my opinion. You have to adapt to the rules. I can see why a 70 year old would struggle to adapt. I don't see the problem with adapting the serve. You have to practice a few hours to get it right, that's not that hard.
Totally agree with this video, great to see one of the best players in the world stating this. At club level it is a chronic problem, with at least 80% plus players doing illegal serves. Very few on purpose, but most simply not knowing the rules. I think writing up these basic rules in easy to understand language and posting it up on the club walls may be a start.
Illegal serves is the main reason I don't like playing low-level umpire-less tournaments. Most players seem to think they can do whatever they want when serving. The older players clearly don't want to re-learn illegal serves they have been doing for decades and have "perfected". Also it takes a lot of bravery to call out illegal servers, because many of them get angry and disagree with you, creating an unpleasant playing environment.
Kudos for including your own video clip to show that you are not innocent in this matter
I believe the problem also stems from the fact that many current coaches (and even some current pros) came up in a time when hiding the ball was not illegal, but was even considered a major component of a good serve, and those habits have been passed down in training, so it may take one more generation for this to die out.
A possible rule clarification could be that the ball must be visible during the toss from every angle from within the extensions of the table's sides and top surface on the recieving player's side. This way, any reasonable starting position of the receiving player is covered.
Exactly. This is the clarification needed for the visibility rule.
I truly appreciate, that you spoke out on this topic, and gave us amateurs a honest overview of the issue. I wish you the best in succeeding with your efforts getting ITTF/WTT to review the rules.
I know that in the past, there were almost no rules for serving, and you could spin toss the ball and hide it completly. But there were not any soft rubber which was as spiny as nowadays an avarage rubber.
So my solution would be the following:
You can only decept the boll when tossing up, arroun 10° degres. And with that, you could not toss it behing your soulder, cause it wont leave its position, and you are not moving a lot during service.
Anders! What do you think?
Great video, good to get some exposure on this. This is one of tabletennis' biggest failures. Right now it's definitely a case of "If you can't beat them, join them". No-one enforces these rules even at a local/national level, whether it's a player umpire or a real umpire. The rules (not the toss one) either need to be scrapped entirely and just let things basically continue as is - with it no longer being against the rules - or otherwise umpires are going to need to up their game (this just isn't going to happen). VAR From a certain angle is a good idea but again, it's barely used at TTE/ITTF level, so it definitely won't be introduced further down, so it will still happen.
Edit: I also didn't know about holding the free arm up rule. I knew they couldn't keep it up and obscure the ball, but even holding it up being against the rules is new to me. I think it's good that it is illegal because again, otherwise we blur the line with "did they drop their free arm in time so ball contact wasn't obscured in any way".
Edit2: Perhaps focusing at grass roots club level - Having coaches teach their players how to umpire matches (Players will umpire up to a semi high level) and calling out fouls. This would have club players not want to be called out also. This would be a slow initiative to see this change come through next generation, but I guess we have to start somewhere also.
Hello, wanna say great video. I'm an amater hobby player, but always try to play according to the book. If we limit top height of the ball, maybe then could say ball is ok. So now we have 16 cm rule, which limits from the bottom up, addinf rule that ball must no reach more than meter... It would mean ball with that degree will not be hidden behind shoulder. Because it would be too low.
Second option would be near vertically without 30 % which would mean ball must fall 5 cm left or right from mid line.
Cannot hide it then.
Interesting point you bring up in 2:57. However, as a right handed player, I can tell you the amount of times a left handed player has gone out of their way to adjust for serve legality (0), even though it's in the rulebook. Unsure of the pro circuit, but in the amateur ranks, there's almost an unwritten rule that left handed players get exempted from serve hiding due to left handed playing mechanics. More often than not, right handed players like myself has had to adjust our receive stance (ie. stand closer to the middle) in order to have a chance at seeing the contact of the ball during a serve. Obviously, this now opens up my backhand for fast long serves, for which due to my stance, is compromised.
I believe that the current rule is absolutely fair, even in my scenario above (and the one you mention in your video), as both players, right and left handed, would need to adjust their service to be visible to their opponent.
i really respect you for putting in a clip of yourself in the illegal serves compilation
Thanks for this video! Last saturday I played 4th league player in low level amateur tournament. He seemed to hid the ball with his body. When I raised this issue he didn't know what I was talking about. Definately at the highest level there should be cameras, that check fro the angle of receiver if ball was visible all the time. If not, after one warning this should be always a point to receiver (although one warning is probably still to much leniency on the matter). I do not understand why people don't take this rule seriously, or sometimes even don't lnow it...
it is very clear, don't put any part of your body between the ball and your opponent while serving. if you are left handed and your opponent is right handed , you will both have to alter your serves so that they are clear , orelse make a tomahowk like serve where you put your body behind the ball.
Or backhand serve
Why would I alter all my training just because you are left handed? Especially in comp where now I have to change serve mechanics just so YOU can see because YOU choose to sit in that corner? Like I could win ever receive with the logic if I just move to be unable to see the full flights of the ball. We should just use the corner and if we can see it from one corner or both. Then it is objective the opponent can not alter it and doesn’t depend on styles. Simple
@@winningwinny51 First i am right handed :) ... but the point is that i should be able to stand wherever i want behind the table to expect your serve no matter if i am right or left handed. Your serve should be visible across the table no matter the corner
correct, it's a rule so no room for opinions. every referee or opponent should call out illegal serves, or the rule has to be changed, but currently it's a mess. I would be even stricter with the rule. Every camera left AND right in a 45 degree angle to the table shall see the ball, so that there are no discussions whether the ball was visible for the opponent or not. Then it doesn't matter where the opponent is standing. And with cam+computers you can track the ball and detect illegal serves.
Most important: Calling fault on serves shouldn't immediately take away the point. The server should get a second chance to serve and only have the point taken away after serving illegaly 2 times in a row. This will make umpires feel less invasive and encourage them more to call out faulty serves.
This really seems like constructive advice and one of the solutions to the problem. It wouldn't have that big direct impact on game but it would make a players more aware of their mistake and it would make umpires more brave to call it.
Most umpire will always call a let serve before faulting a serve
@@ConstantijnII @darvan3996 thank you guys for clearing this.
Its a good idea. But i dont see this working because in the end the umpires will still not fault on the 2nd serve then despite it being illegal
why does it have to be 2 in a row? that would mean you can do illegal serves 50% of the time. perhaps a better system would be to start deducing points after the second illegal serve in a set for example. this way you can only do one per set.
Appreciate your honesty in acknowledging your own illegal serves. The ‘near vertical’ stipulation is very much open to interpretation and that certainly doesn’t help. When many players do the hook serve it’s particularly bad, practically flinging the ball back towards themselves, that’s such an obvious one that should be addressed by umpires…
Great analysis and totally agree anders! Could you make a video about the horrible new angle in the wtt events and where the camera should be placed to efficiently watch a match?
Thanks Anders! Big fan of your expressiveness, communication and style, whether posting on TH-cam or in the heat of competition. Personally I think my serves are legal for the most part as I only use a variety of backhand serves and always toss the ball quite vertically. Even then, my opponents still seem to have enough problems receiving it. By the way, I've noticed that you have a very effective serve yourself. Keep up the good work and all the best in Chongqing!🔥🔥🔥
If I understand correctly, the serving was significantly less regulated and defined just a couple of decades ago. I distinctly remember watching table tennis being played in the Olympics in the 90's, and the players would literally hide the ball and the racket during almost the entire serve, making it impossible to see which way they were spinning it.
Very honest to have included one of your serve in the list. 👍
Respect your honesty and bravery. Since the old school of covered serves are banned for so long, why and when did it start to be popular again? And as you mentioned it depends on from which visual angle you could judge whether the serve is hidden or not, how should the umpire judge?
Good to see you showed you are also one of those players. But as you said, it depends on angle and thus where the receivers are standing too.
Great support from Belgium, this is a case! I have to admit I was a wrong-server, just not aware of, until I met an umpire-player opponent. He opened my eyes. Cheers Max!
I'm glad you mentioned that you are not innocent in this matter. As I've seen before, and even during your demonstrations, at a minimum, the ball (and indeed the racket preparing to hit the ball) becomes temporarily hidden from view by your right hand. I also agree that this kind of error in judging has become rampant from what I've seen. Many, many of the top players keep their hand in front of the ball as it is about to hit the racket. It is blatantly available in all the TH-cam videos available today.
Great points Anders, perhaps a challenge system using video cameras. Each player has 2 challenges and if proven the server loses a point, if repeated then the server loses a game?!
I've always thought Dima's tosses were way too much off vertical.
This issue can only be resolved if the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and consequently World Table Tennis (WTT) acknowledge its occurrence and issue a public statement. It is imperative that they clearly communicate their intention to enforce the rules. At this juncture, it is too late to implement corrective measures solely through the umpires. As you mentioned, 80% of players are engaged in this practice, and it has likely become a habitual and subconscious action for many of them.
I too have always believed too many players get away with this, especially hiding the ball via parts of their body. I have also believed for a long time that there’s an obvious and easily implemented solution and that is to only allow backhand services and the whole body must be behind the ball at all times. I’d be interested in everyone’s thoughts on this…
Good on you for making a stand. This happens so much at my club. I refuse to win by serving illegal, but am under attack when I can’t read the serve.
1:34 Not to be that guy but that's not how trigonometry works 😂 if ball is thrown 1 metre upwards at a 30 degree angle the horizontal displacement should be 2/sqrt(3) metres, which is around 116cm
nah u aint that guy its all g. my math aint what it could be hahah focusing on sport is not making me a math professor haha :). yeah youre right. but all the serves that i showed in this video is still way beyond the legal limit..
@@AnderslindTT Considering that the ball is falling down as well, you need to add even more displacement. At maximum you get 2*58 cm (in the extreme case where you hit at the table level). The displacement can then be 75% of the table width for a serve thrown up by only one meter. To get a more precise result, one needs to calculate the displacement from a parabolic toss. Still, I agree that many players' toss is way too horizontal because most do not throw the ball up by one meter.
In general, great video as always!
@@AnderslindTT I think is not completely your foult. The rule has to be easily understand by everyone!
I wanted to do the math but comment section didn't disappoint.
@@jeffsaffron5647 😭🤣
Thank you for this open video. It's clearly one of the best I've seen for years now. I'm just an amateur player, but players, who consciously and consistently serve illegal, to gain an advantage for themselves, annoy me most in our game. I agree with most here, either the rules need to be less strict, like in the 90s and early 2000s, e.g. see old Waldner Videos, OR the existing rules need to be strictly enforced. Yes, this will disturb the game in the beginning, but then after a short transition time, players will adapt and serve better (in terms of rules). Hopefully, when people see it is enforced in top events, even amateurs feel more free to enforce it in lower leagues as well.
Or simply discard the rule, because a rule which no one follows is useless. And then there is no need to argue about 😆
Glad you made this video. I completely agree with you on every points. I do see 2 more ways to resolve it :
1/ the only available serve should be the backhand one
2/ remove all serves rules :')
Jokes aside, if any referee is reading this, we will always support you on being brave BUT don't forget : the most important thing is that the player can see the ball in everytime. Other rules are less important. Focus on that please !
thank you anders for the video, my opinion on this matter is to serve like tennis, 🎾, the rallis would be amazing every time and players with good lobbing skills and far from the table skill would shine, short game would be dead and defence players would be back... table tennis would become a major sport and players would make a great payday... fans will be excited to see great rallies.
you put a line 2 meters from table you tauce the ball over your head and serve to one side of the table on your first serve and to the second side on your second serve. it would be easy for spectators to understand and beautiful to watch
Lmaoooo! Are you trolling?
My idea is a VAR system should be used to judge ball throwing angles, height, and hidden serves in table tennis. Defining 'hidden' as 'unseen by the receiver from their position' is ambiguous. Instead, we should use a fixed point at the table's middle: if the ball can't be seen from this midpoint on the receiver's side, it's a hidden serve. While this doesn't perfectly address RH vs LH (it still can be hidden relative to the receiver but legal to VAR’s midpoint) players technically can choose where they are standing regardless of their dominant hand, making the midpoint the fairest solution.
To support this system, VAR cameras should be positioned accordingly. To avoid interrupting every point, players could be given 2 challenges per game to dispute a serve. If a challenge reveals a fault, the receiver gets a point or the point is replayed.
Implementing this isn’t difficult-we have eagle-eye technology and advanced VAR systems in other sports. We live in the era of self-driving cars and autonomous robots with advanced cameras perceiving the world and doing calculations, we can certainly create a system to judge proper ball throws.
Lastly I want to say that It's also unfair to blame umpires or players. Umpires simply can’t accurately judge hidden serves from their seat and will face backlash and hate from the player's fans. Players might not realize they're serving illegally, often thinking 'if it’s not called out, it’s legal.' and 'if 1 out of 10 umpires calls out, then that one umpire is wrong'. An objective system like VAR would solve these issues.
They used to have this, called the TTR (Table tennis review) system back in 2019, don't where it is now though.
Great video explaining the rules and their abuse.
I just want to give my two cents on the visibility rule; in the left to right server and receiver case (and vice versa) the serve is legal as long as you turn your body with the ball or beforehand. The turning of the body should sufficiently accomplish the visibility problem. So, you should be able to make any service against any player.
IMHO if your service is not visible at any one particular position where a receiver stands then it's your burden to make sure the ball remains visible.
Anyways excellent job covering this controversial topic.
Thank you for talk about it, is incredible how wrong are the serves right now and a lot of people argue with "but im playing world championship, wtt or whatever, and they dont say nothing to me, why are you angry about the serve here in national tournament or nationals trials?" And im tired of discussing this because they thing because umpire are not brave to call the fault, their servers are in rule or ok.
Nice video. For the angle it might be possible to change the rule so that the ball has to be visible from the perspective of the middle line of the table. So a right handed receiver can not stand on the left side of the table and claim that a lefty serve is hidden in his viewing angle.
Its also sad that the var project stopped. Timo Boll also mentioned in an interview that he would like to have this system again. Maybe it is too expensive for wtt.
Another improvement might be to change the rule so the ball only has to be visible at the contact point. Ma longs serve at the var check was illegal because the ball was hidden behind his head for a short time. But the contact point was visible. If we dont change this then almost every forehand pendulum serve is illegal. For example Dang qiu, dimitrij ovtcharov, lin yun ju sometimes.
"the ball has to be visible from the perspective of the middle line of the table" This is an interesting idea. eg. Nothing shall be between the ball and the middle line of the table on contact.
It has the advantage of not requiring umpires to have telepathy powers to adjudicate the rules (seeing through the receiver's eyes is a skill I'm pretty sure most umpires don't have).
Hi Anders- I have not read all the comments, but it seems to me that the only real practical and most easily enforcible solution would be a rule change stating
that the ball must be tossed vertically,and/or making the variation much less (say 5 to 10 degrees off vertical). Perhaps one of the difficulties for the ittf
Is the fact that many players have spent years developing their serves (which may be illegal), and because these illegal serves have been largely overlooked
by the umpires, these off vertical and partially hidden serves have become ingrained as a normal part of the modern game and used (intentionally or unintentionally) by most players.
Even a lot of service coaching videos are featuring off vertical ball tosses.
My solution would be;
-change the service toss rules (vertical would be most unambiguous)
- educate the players,coaches and umpires
-indicate a rule change far in advance (even years) so that players can adapt .
-focus particularly on change with the young players ,so that the vertical serve is normal and automatic for them
Thank you for your great vids-keep up the good work!
Mike-Waiheke Island,New Zealand
I totally agree that at this point something needs to change. If for no other reason than it doesnt look good for the sport to constantly see people arguing over serves in the comment section of every video. If there is so much disparity then clearly something needs to happen. Really cool to hear someone at Anders level actually addressing it, hopefully other pros will do the same. 🏓
The thing is that theres a balance between following the rules and excitement for the audience watching the sport.
- First you want to make the match more fluid, not to many stop and go situations. So you have to ignore certain rules from time to time
- Second, a lot of rules makes the game boring by being to pragmatic in order to cover all bases. Again going back to the bottom line which is the audience, they need to be entertained because they pay for all this. This is especially true at the top level, where they break the rules the most without consequences
This stuff is not only in Table tennis, its everywhere, its extremely prevalent in the NBA
Thanks for the video.
As a new and "older" player in tabletennis, I have experienced this issue multiple times, where the unfair advantage from older more experienced players won
a match simply by hiding the ball in the hand or serving out of the hand. (this is on a much lower level), or so I thought.
Climping the ladder it is a general issue that service and illegal service cant completely change the game.
However without judges or generally counting people not being "allowed" to call out illegal service, it is problematic that when you adress the matter of an illegal service,
the amount of self righteous anger, that suddenly completely switches the atmosphere of a game is really problematic.
Young players do not want to adress older players due to hostility, if it is pointed out that the service is illegal.
We need to change the way we talk about the service, rather than just the rules because currently most people really dont care at all, they just do the same illegal service they always have done.
Hello anders really nice demonstration about the service rules. 2 left handers that do legal services at all time are dina meshref and Sofia polcanova. With regards to rule change all forehand service to be done on the forehand side of the table. In that way there is no hiding of the ball . Just a thought.
Thank you for addressing this. Officiating for serves has been pretty inconsistent. The players have just been used to hiding the ball and seeing it as normal
very interesting video. I think it´s great that you open up on this issue. I think the problem for umpires is that they can´t really estimate or tell whether the ball was hidden from the opponent or not. Its a guessing game for them, so in high level a camera system should be involved.
If as a player i want to serve legally, i choose to do backhand/tomahawk serves. Those are almost always legal, unless of course the ball toss isnt vertical/high enough.
I hope that ITTF creates a rule that is easier to follow through.
Easy solution (maybe), at the starting, finishing and during the entire service motion both hips and shoulders need to be also parallel to the net.
In this case it would be harder to shield the serve.
Appreciate your effort in addressing this issue
To me is funny and frustrating when on an amateur match a referee calls an illegal serve when the fault is not so clear. Many times I've seen coaches arguing "that's the same service as... (name your favorite pro player)"
im a casual who played in tournaments and a club for a few years, so i might not grasp the topic from a pro perspective, but from how most people play table tennis regularly.
i think the most important part that must be able to see is the tossing up of the ball. u need to see if someone is putting spin on the ball, how fast it is, so u can calculate how long its in the air and so on.
what happens in the middle doesnt matter that much.
but as soon as your opponent starts moving their arm or hand to approach the ball it has to be visible so u can have an idea when its coming.
if u just hide it because ur head naturally leans forward but as soon as it reaches neck height its visible, in most cases the opponent has a fair chance of seeing the ball.
the way i would change it, is reducing the allowed angle to whatever is easy to do even for amateurs and possibly having a rule that tournament organisers or leagues can allow or disallow, to have multiple chances to throw the ball. at a pro level they should all be able to throw it less than 10 degrees, but not every casual in a beginner league/tournament can.
also i would change that the only part that is allowed to block the ball from being seen is the your head.
For me the best solution is to remove the rule about hiding the ball and get back like old times because like you said it´s very difficult to avaliate. And keep the other rules like they are because you can judge it easier
I think, You are right. Rules, which are not judgeable destroy the game. A good player advice me to learn a hidden serve and do it, when it comes down to the last point. If you have not been warned beforehand, the wrong serve has no consequences.
@@hermannulrichvogelsang6041 The umpire doesn't have to let the first dubious serve from a player off with just a warning, they can fault the serve, awarding the point to the opponent, and probably would do if it happened at the end of a close game.
@AnderslindTT I would like to know which players you consider having the most legal serves on the tour. One that comes to mind is Moregardh, whose ball can probably be seen by a right-hander as well as a left-hander.
You probably won't be able to answer that second part, but which players have the least legal serves? I would say Wang Chuqin, first his palming is not flat, and the ball is constantly hidden by his head
Big thanks for your comprehensive analysis of the rules and what they mean and aim to achieve. If any referee/umpire ignores violations of rules to keep the game going, it is a clear sign that they are not doing their job. Keeping the game going is not unimportant but cannot take priority over keeping the game fair according to the rules of the game.
Blatant and obvious violations of the serve rules have to be punished or the rules need to be changed.
What the players in your example and you yourself are doing at 3:51 constantly is cupping the ball and throwing it towards themselves. It is basic physics, that you need to do that, because you never intend anything like a vertical throw at all. I would suggest to enforce that flat hand part first and foremost, I’m sure the rest will follow more or less on its own.
From what I see, you and all those other top players are mostly trying to make their serves less returnable, by bending the variations accepted by the umpires to the point, where they are not even recognizable anymore. If everyone stopped using the uncertainty of the umpires enforcement of the rules, everyone would win: the rules, less experienced players and sportsmanship in table tennis.
About time that someone pointed this out. 80%+ of professionals have illegal serves - and local leagues aren't that much better either. Umpires shouldn't be afraid of calling out the BS straight away with a let and warning, then after that losing the point if it happens again.
Maybe a rule where the BALL AND RACKET must be visible at all times during the serve as if the receiver was standing at the middle white line (which obviously in practice they are stood slightly either side depending on left/right handed) would help a lot to stop servers being so side-on to the table and concealing the service with their body.
Enforcement of rules needs to start at local levels - club, state before players get to ITTF standards. Club level matches are umpired by players themselves but organised events by state and national bodies probably needs a lot of work to weed this problem out.
Well done, @anderslindtt , for speaking out about this topic
Extremely nicely crafted and helpful video, great insights!
At minute ~1:35: Just to say that your calculation is way off. 30° does not mean 30 cm horizontal distance per 100 cm vertical distance, but ~58 cm!
The calculation is: 1 / sqrt (verticalDistance)
Another example: 45° would mean 1 m horizontal and 1 m vertical distance.
Thank you for sharing your opinion! I am with you. I have been umpair and I can tell it is quite difficult to know if a service is correct or not, and even more if ot is a right handed vs a lefty.
On the other hand, related to illegal things... I have also seen players asking to repeat a serve because they "saw a net". This may be true the majority of times, but also may be just a lie when it is an important point and the service did not result as the player expected, or if he did not read the spin properly when resting.
The umpire is the only one who should call the net, but it is very difficult and regularly they rely on the players opinions.
I wish ITTF could implement an automatic detector to avoid these situations.
Thank you for this great video. But there's a dilemma.
The rule about open serve is released at around 2002, the new 40+ ball is used since about 2014. After the 40+ ball was introduced, the spin of the ball is much decreased; blade, rubber and technique (such as backhand flip) have been much developed. If the serving rule is enforced strictly, the receiver have a good chance that he/she can read the ball right and score with just one stroke. That's not what we want to see, as little as illegal serve.
I love table tennis. I'm not defending the illegal serve, but there's a balance to keep. If someone really want to change the rule, please keep that in mind and make the game better, not worse.
5:00 one good point you overlooked here. Is that what if the receiver of the serve would face the other way, would that make every serve hidden and therefore illegal???
Thank you Anders! I believe this video with your comments and explanations is just right and at a good time! My feeling is Table tennis Scene here germany is taking itself more seriously and valuating what a fine Sport we do! No place for cheating! Only place for great Games and fair play!
Is the 30 degree rule official? That's actually much laxer than you may think. The trajectory of the ball is a parabola. If the ball is tossed at 30 degree, the parabola equation is y=sqrt(3)x-kx^2 where k is a parameter depending on the initial speed. Regardless of k, the ratio of the horizontal displacement to the peak height is about 2.3 to 1. The table is 1.525m wide, so it's perfectly legal to toss the ball 33cm high and go from the middle to one side.
Do you have any idea why VAR was only used once?
Got the same question... At 1:37 it seems he explains it as 30%, but then he emphasizes the word angle again.
I'm on your side that 30° would be waaay to much. 30% would make sense though.
EDIT: 30% meaning the ball is allowed to travel horizontally a maximum of 30% of its vertical travel, resulting in an angle of about 5°.
I think that the rule is pretty clear and does not need any modifications. Every service should be visible from any angles, and the rules stated that the space between the net and the ball should be visible at all time (to my understanding, the triangle surface formed by the left and right end of the net and the ball (and its indefinite upward extension) should remain free of any obstacle). I think having mini cam on both ends of the net might be a solution to state if a service is illegal or not. We might need to change habits of serve undoubtedly but if it's for the benefit and sake of the sport it could be the solution.
4:42 the tossing arm remained outstretched to help hide visibility of the ball there; it could be dropped before striking it, unless the arm was needed to maintain balance.
Left or right handed, no one would stand at the diagonal to receive service.
digital camera in each net post, with a program that works out where the ball is. Once thrown, if a camera loses sight of the ball, it gives a (red) light and serve is illegal. This would hopefully address shielding issue and could do throw angle too (table tennis hawk-eye?). This removes responsibility from the umpire to have to judge whether it's visible to the opponent or not (which is very hard) and it could enforce those two rules as I believe they are intended.
What's more, the receiving player can freely choose on which side of the table to receive the serve, and this will impact the visibility angles. So, it's not only right-handed vs left-handed etc
Hi Anders Lind, I love your videos! I even posted your videos on some table tennis forum and hopefully it gives you more views along with motivation to make more videos. A topic suggestion that only pro like you could make: there are many table tennis tutorials out there, but none is about the path from amateur to pro player. Like what they have to learn, technically and mentally. At which stage they need to achieve what techniques. What makes the difference between pro level vs amateur level.
1:36
First of all, there's no single mentioning of any degree of toss in the official rules.
Sesondly, if we say, that the ball can be tossed +- 30 degrees upwards, then a 1 meter toss, can land ~58 cm from the start point. 30 cm is mathematically incorrect, since it is a relation of two opposite sites (ctg, tg of 30 degrees).
That difference is important, because the ball can go twice as further as Anders believes - 30 cm vs 58 cm.
Good you bring this up, they need to do something before one of the worlds greatest sports is ruined..
Interesting point about technical errors! Proper grip and ball judgment are fundamental yet so many players struggle with them. Coaching needs to focus more on these basics.
The problem is that the empire will never have the viewing angle of the receiving player so he will always have to “guess” if the service was hidden or not. In my opinion the rule must state instead where the ball can be struck depending on the position of the body. For example: hit the ball always in front of the torso therefore the player cannot turn his upper body to serve behind himself and hide the ball.
Besides the hidden service, actually the rule of 'near vertically upwards' is also undefined. As what is said in the video, the angle should no larger than 30 degrees. But it is just a rough explain. No one knows which angle should below 30°. Maybe 'the initial velocity', or maybe the 'line from the resting point to the highest point'. That is a big difference. The tangent of the back one is actually twice the tangent of the front one.
Like 7:26, the serve of MaLong, 'the initial velocity' is under 30 degrees, but using the other definition, it exceeds 30 degrees.
Hope ITTF and WTT would perfect these rules. That's a great and thoughtful video, love from China.👍 Sorry for my poor English.
Thank you for sharing this video. Many fans have been reaching out to ITTF to resolve this issue.
So now I’ll just run away when my enemy is doing his serve. I’ll hide anywhere were I can’t see the ball and then it’s my point. In my opinion you are right, this rule really needs to be reworked
It's so convincing to hear the opinion of a pro player himself rather than some online haters to hate on a player with illegal services. At 5:07 Anders explained a very important point that somebody used to argue with me before. He said WCQ's service is illegal but then I ask him why Kristian Karlsson can return his serves so well. He just tell me cuz left handers can see better. But wait a min, if he can see means it is not illegal he basically contradicted himself with the argument. The point is rules are just too subjective and I demand a review of service rules.
In some previous video I was very critical of you. Gotta say you kind of redeemed yourself in my eyes. Still I fail to find problem in the 'spirit' of the rule.
If from your younger years you were punished for the leaning of your body forward and had points lost for free - you would learn to serve according to the spirit of the rule.
In that china open there was a case of Ma Long receiving a penalty for service (it might have been a doubles game) - sadly it was cut out from the highlight video. This could have been a powerful message. Cheers, good luck and stay true to the spirit of the rule against all ods ;)