Lover's Quarrel: Legal Serve or Breaking the Rules

Okay here is the scenario: this guy is serving a backhand serve from the forehand side of the table. His girlfriend is complaining that his serve is illegal because she says he taps his racket on the table as part of his pre-toss ritual and the tap is distracting her. A person who knows the couple and me, and knows I enjoy this kind of thing, calls me over and asks my opinion.

I tell them I have to see the serve. He does the serve. I ask him to demonstrate a second time. I watch again. I have seen it twice. The tap is light. It is the edge of his rubber tapping the end line. Not a bang.

I respond that his serve is not legal but that it is not because he is touching the table with his racket before serving. When he reaches forward with his racket to tap the table, his left hand moves back and hides the ball. The ball is also not in his palm. Then, without presenting the ball, he tosses from the hidden hand. Not legal. a friend also sees and says the tap in and of itself constitutes an intentional distraction and he would call "let" and tell the person not to tap the table.

Now I played this guy about 2 months ago and I did not even notice that he was doing this.

If, after he tapped, he were to present the ball before tossing it, the ball was in his open palm and not cupped in his fingers and there was a pause while he presented the ball where his hand is stationary,

WOULD THE TABLE TAP BEFORE PRSENTING BE LEGAL?

or

WOULD TAPPING THE TABLE IN AND OF ITSELF BE AGAINST THE RULES EVEN IF THE BALL IS NOT YET IN PLAY?

Some of us in NYC think the tap itself is not a problem. Others say that the tap constituted a premeditated distraction and is not legal. What do you guys have to say on the issue?

Is stomping your foot--in my opinion a bigger distraction than this light tap of the table--legal or against the rules?

The New York Table Tennis email group is up in arms over this issue. I thought I would see what insights could be gleaned from Table Tennis Daily and the international Table Tennis Community.

Tadex said:

How can anything before the ball toss be considered illegal? I can bounce the ball of the table then my bat and then on my head and then toss the ball and it would be legal, no? Even the pros, they will toss the ball on their balls, bounce on the table etc. Ma Lin even throws in a fake action between toss and contact.

Click to expand...

Funny, here is one of the things I wrote for the NYC list:

"But, if he moonwalks like Michael Jackson from the backhand side to the forehand side, bounced the ball, does a spin move like James Brown, taps the table with his racket and then presents the ball before tossing, I might laugh at him, but I think it would be within the rules."

azlan said:

Interesting I might say Carl hehehe it's definitely the first for me. Basically, a player may do anything he/she wants before the actual serve as his/her pre-serve ritual. The boyfriend may even do a little dance if he wants to (as long as it's shorter than Ditmar BH serve action)..it would still be legal. Whatever works for him actually, because it doesn't constitute as the actual serve, it's just a pre-serve action.

Rafa Nadal fixes his hair, rubs his nose and pulls his underwear out of his crack before he serves..Novak bounces the ball at least 13 times before he serves. Michael Maze needs to raise his bat in front of his face before he does he FH serve, Ma Long needs to do a little bounce of ball on the table before he serves. There are too many to mention actually

As long as the tapping does not alter/damage the table in terms of it's position/orientation and physical condition, or the action somehow damages the edges of his sponge, it's perfectly legal I'm afraid. As hiding the ball, very very illegal

Matt is quite right here actually, it can be annoying and the GF may not like it.

Click to expand...

Nice one Azlan, thanks for posting. That is what I thought.

More info, the guy is definitely better than his girlfriend. If the rest of the guy's game were as good as his serves he would be a much better player then he is. But he is basically a low level player. His girlfriend is not nearly as good as he is, and I would be surprised if she can get his serves on the table consistently, if he gives her his good ones. So one of the guys from the NYC list said it was probably part of her excuse for why she was having trouble returning his serves.

PingPongPom said:

Nothing wrong with tapping the table before you even throw the ball up, perfectly within the rules, just people making a fuss over something they don't like.

Click to expand...

Thanks Matt.

Okay, since nobody from the New York email list who felt it was against the rules, I am going to put some of what they presented out there.

This link was used to to say it is against the rules:

http://www.usatt.org/rules/stumpump/stump99/06.shtml

Here is the text

from Stump the Ump said:

"Q: Suppose a player has a nervous habit of tapping the table with his bat intentionally after every time he/she hits the ball. Is there a rule that would protect a player against this distracting behavior by his/her opponent?
-submitted by Dave Wiener

A: Accidental touching the table with the racket during play, without actually moving the table, is tolerated without comment (when an umpire is assigned to the match). Intentional tapping, such as you describe, is not tolerated. This situation is not addressed by the rule but it can be handled by applying rules dealing with behavior of players and the rules addressing intentional damage of equipment. The situation you describe is a typical umpires judgment call. I'd find appropriate to warn the player informally on the first occasion, without pulling out the yellow card. On the second occasion, a formal warning with the yellow card. After that, it should be a penalty point, and after that two penalty points. After that, the referee should handled the situation.

- answered by Paul Kovac - your friendly on-line USATT umpire"

Click to expand...

I pointed out that the example does not apply because the racket contact is happening during the point after each stroke.

Someone else pointed out that the example seems flawed because anyone who plays knows that, to try purposefully and consciously to hit the table after ever stroke would probably not work. He also pointed out that sometimes tennis players, when over the table, instead of pushing, do a tennis chop stroke and their follow through causes their racket to hit the table. Which would also mean that the contact is not deliberate.

Also, under the category of equipment damage this would not apply to the case above since the tap is very light and it is topsheet that is contacting the table not wood. No umpire would deem this to be a danger to the equipment.

Another person brought up what he thought was a rule about handling disputes in a sportsman like manner and said the tapping of the table was unsportsmanlike because it distracted the opponent.

I thought that was strange but.... It did not seem unsportsmanlike to me and my thoughts on this were that, if we just decided that everything an opponent said was unsportsmanlike actually was unsportsmanlike, then it would be a good match strategy to just keep saying that is unsportsmanlike until you won. "His loop is unsportsmanlike, it has too much spin, I cannot return it. Call that a fault and give me a point."

The guy who brought that up also said he thought foot stomping during the serve was not legal. Someone on the forum pointed out that the USATT had tried to petition the ITTF to make foot stomping illegal and the petition was rejected.

But then someone showed this link where foot stomping had been called in a match and that an umpire could determine certain behaviors against the rules and call them:

Foot Stomp Video said:

footstomping has been called out before

http://youtu.be/Y_basrnRtBE?t=4m35s

Click to expand...

That link that the guy posted is pretty cool. If you click on it, it will bring you to the video on YouTube, right to the point where the foot stomp gets called. But if you would rather watch it here, here is the video. The point in question starts at 4:34.


I thought some of the guys from the NYC list might jump on here and join the conversation, but I guess, so far, it has not happened.

Well now, someone out there voted it was not legal. I would love to hear their arguments as to why.