Marcos Freitas: Poor sportsmanship

[anchorschmidt]

Source:

"These are excerpts from the match against Timo Boll in the finals of the European Championships. Boll was up 10-8 in the first game but completely misread two serves.

Intentional serve hiding by Marcos Freitas at crucial points here:

• Picture 1
• Picture 2

Using his own sweat to "fake" a wet ball:

• looped version

Source:

For the sake of completeness: Timo Boll intentionally threw the ball away after the first set instead of handing it to the umpire and used a not allowed towel pause at 8:8 after Freitas made one. (You're allowed to take a towel pause every 6 points.)
Open to discussion
"

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Table tennis competition has become more about tricks and using more "non conventional" methods to win.

May it be your "cheerleading" squad on the bench like the Asian univeristy teams (who jump higher than the surround on every point), or tricks on "hidden serves" and all other delay tactics or tactics to change the momentum of the opponent - including getting them upset like the illegal towel break.
On a more ameteur standard, illegal coaching occurs so often too.

TT will become more unsportsmanship in the future for sure. That is my feeling from what has happened today vs the past.
Sad thing is our umpires are limited in terms of how they can protect the law of table tennis (which isn't very clear) and how the masses are abusing this and coming up with more tricks, hence over time, these kind of behaviour will become the norm and therefore accepted by the masses.

In some sporting codes, unsportsmanship behaviour (not spoted by the match umpires, but spoted by TV replays) does end up costly to the player. I hope ITTF can impliment this too.

 

[anchorschmidt]

Table tennis competition has become more about tricks and using more "non conventional" methods to win.

May it be your "cheerleading" squad on the bench like the Asian univeristy teams (who jump higher than the surround on every point), or tricks on "hidden serves" and all other delay tactics or tactics to change the momentum of the opponent - including getting them upset like the illegal towel break.
On a more ameteur standard, illegal coaching occurs so often too.

TT will become more unsportsmanship in the future for sure. That is my feeling from what has happened today vs the past.
Sad thing is our umpires are limited in terms of how they can protect the law of table tennis (which isn't very clear) and how the masses are abusing this and coming up with more tricks, hence over time, these kind of behaviour will become the norm and therefore accepted by the masses.

In some sporting codes, unsportsmanship behaviour (not spoted by the match umpires, but spoted by TV replays) does end up costly to the player. I hope ITTF can impliment this too.

In cricket we have something called a "third umpire" who has watches the camera footage and takes decisions on that. Maybe it's time for the ITTF to implement something similar, at least for checking the service.

Or at least a player should be allowed to protest a hidden service. If the player is right, he gets the point, if he's wrong, then the point goes to the opponent.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

In cricket we have something called a "third umpire" who has watches the camera footage and takes decisions on that. Maybe it's time for the ITTF to implement something similar, at least for checking the service.

Or at least a player should be allowed to protest a hidden service. If the player is right, he gets the point, if he's wrong, then the point goes to the opponent.

Yes, i'm a cricket fan myself too, didn't want to use cricket rules, as I didn't know you may know cricket, coming from Germany

Besides what you listed, there is also additional rule where players can get penalised after the match - look at all those bowlers who are now banned for having an illegal action - and they are only allowed to play again once they fixed the illegal action. Imagine the same for TT serves?

Or those unsportsmanship behaviour issue that was missed out by the umpires, but picked up by the TV replays and got the attention of match referee. Player still get punished

 

[anchorschmidt]

Yes, i'm a cricket fan myself too, didn't want to use cricket rules, as I didn't know you may know cricket, coming from Germany

Besides what you listed, there is also additional rule where players can get penalised after the match - look at all those bowlers who are now banned for having an illegal action - and they are only allowed to play again once they fixed the illegal action. Imagine the same for TT serves?

Or those unsportsmanship behaviour issue that was missed out by the umpires, but picked up by the TV replays and got the attention of match referee. Player still get punished

I love cricket and I'm a huge fan of the SA team, especially Steyn, Amla, de Villiers and du Pleiss Yeah, I'm really happy that the ICC is cracking down on illegal actions. It would be great if the same thing could happen for TT serves as well.