Illegal Serving

[JHB]

What would also be nice is if local leagues and even clubs would insist on players having the basics right ( ball on hand/throw ball up/hit it on way down ) rather than this attitude which seems to prevail in our sport that "He/she has been doing it this way for 40 years, we can't force him/her to change now." To which I say "So %^&*ing what ?? The palm of the hand rule was in place 30 or even 40 years ago, he/she should have sorted out their serve back then !!"

 

[Tinykin]

What would also be nice is if local leagues and even clubs would insist on players having the basics right ( ball on hand/throw ball up/hit it on way down ) rather than this attitude which seems to prevail in our sport that "He/she has been doing it this way for 40 years, we can't force him/her to change now." To which I say "So %^&*ing what ?? The palm of the hand rule was in place 30 or even 40 years ago, he/she should have sorted out their serve back then !!"

Sorry to be rough, but what are you talking about?
Do you play LL, Grand Prix etc?
If you do then you must have umpired quite a lot. So have you called players for illegal serving?
If you feel so strongly about it, have you put a motion to your AGM re serves?
And don't tell me about old people on the committees. Every LL in the land are bawling for new blood to volunteer and help with the running of their league. Are you on your LL committee?
If you want these things to happen, the effort starts with you.
Volunteer to be an umpire.
Volunteer to help out your LL committee.
Volunteer and become a coach teaching the kids to serve properly.

 

[Mr. RicharD]

The issue with service is that it's all subjective to the umpires. Whether or not it is illegal doesn't matter because it won't "fool" an opponent of equal skill. Tossing the ball backwards doesn't necessarily give a "huge advantage" because without height you have no gravity to work with. Since the ball is struck while falling there's no added force from the toss since gravity has overcome it at this point.

The law of service only states that the ball must be nearly vertical in height. There is nothing saying anything about the direction in which it is tossed so long as it meets the nearly vertical criteria. This is where the sketchiness comes into play and also why umpires rarely call service faults. It's quite hard for the umpire being form the side of the table to know exactly how much the ball is traveling horizontal compared to vertical from their seated position. Thus you have many players who get away with this motion. But frankly at the world class level of top 50 in the world you're not going to get much of an advantage by tossing this way that will force mistakes form your opponent. And since it's fair on both sides with tosses similar in style being allowed you have no advantage in this either.

Most table tennis pros are all about fairness. They are willing to push the boundaries and know how far to go to prevent any umpire calls. And equally each opponent just let's the dice roll when an umpire does make a call. Typically there's an honor system where if you don't complain I won't complain unless someone is obviously taking it too far.

Just my two cents.

 

[JHB]

Sorry to be rough, but what are you talking about?
Do you play LL, Grand Prix etc?
If you do then you must have umpired quite a lot. So have you called players for illegal serving?
If you feel so strongly about it, have you put a motion to your AGM re serves?
And don't tell me about old people on the committees. Every LL in the land are bawling for new blood to volunteer and help with the running of their league. Are you on your LL committee?
If you want these things to happen, the effort starts with you.
Volunteer to be an umpire.
Volunteer to help out your LL committee.
Volunteer and become a coach teaching the kids to serve properly.

LOL and thrice lol, no I refuse to play league or have anything to do with it any more, I much prefer social table tennis now - if people know they're going to see you regularly they tend not to be nearly so unpleasant as they are in one-off meetings. As I've said before in this forum, what I strongly dislike is people holding the ball in their fingers or throwing it backwards onto the bat - but I'm obviously WAY out of line on this as nobody else objects, so I keep my objections to myself. I think if I were to make a fuss the likeliest result is that be told to nip off and play somewhere else if I don't like it. I've only been there six months so I'm still an incomer. Hence I would rather see the club itself take a lead, which isn't going to happen.

And as for old people on committees, I are the old people.....