Lack of self-awareness when serving illegally

TableTennisTom · Feb 22, 2018

A new guy came to the club last night.

He was playing doubles on the table next to me.

I was doing a coaching session, but got distracted by this new player.

He was giving a lecture (not in a nice way), to an older female player about how to serve legally. Every time she did it wrong he would stop the play, walk towards her and tell her what she did wrong - not tossing the ball high enough and cupping the ball with her hand. This poor lady was taking a real verbal bashing. She wasn't trying to gain an advantage, she just didn't know how to serve properly.

Eventually, it was his turn to serve. And guess what? His serve was totally illegal too! Funny how he thought it was ok for him the lecture another player, when he was guilty of the same mistakes. Complete lack of self-awareness.

There's not much point to this story. I just wanted to share! But interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Shifu · Feb 22, 2018

Most people in the lower leagues here don't even know the correct serve rules or just don't care.
If my opponent does not throw the ball properly I will stop playing right away and complain. Many people just serve out of their hand.
It usually goes like this:
Opponent does totally illegal serve, like a really fast one right out of his head which is a clear advantage. Then I stop playing and tell them what's wrong.
Then they look at me like I am some alien. "We're not playing Bundesliga", "My serve was correct", "Don't go on my nerves" etc. Last time I had an opponent who replied that I would not throw it up either, blatant lie. My toss is really high, no way it's illegal, I have filmed myself often enough to know that.

I don't get how people expect table tennis to be considered serious sports if they don't care about the rules themselves. They act like I'm being unfair or a bad loser if I complain, I hate it.

vvk1 · Feb 22, 2018

TableTennisTom said:
A new guy came to the club last night.

He was playing doubles on the table next to me.

I was doing a coaching session, but got distracted by this new player.

He was giving a lecture (not in a nice way), to an older female player about how to serve legally. Every time she did it wrong he would stop the play, walk towards her and tell her what she did wrong - not tossing the ball high enough and cupping the ball with her hand. This poor lady was taking a real verbal bashing. She wasn't trying to gain an advantage, she just didn't know how to serve properly.

Eventually, it was his turn to serve. And guess what? His serve was totally illegal too! Funny how he thought it was ok for him the lecture another player, when he was guilty of the same mistakes. Complete lack of self-awareness.

There's not much point to this story. I just wanted to share! But interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Yup, every once in a while. In my experience, it's never someone who is a good server or who is good at reading serves who complains about "illegal" serves.

Perhaps it is the prevailing advice people are given which stresses the importance of watching the ball at the point of contact that's causing this.

IMHO, it is far more useful to watch the ball bounce and trajectory on the table after contact - which is far longer than the moment of contact and much easier to observe. This way you're not affected by all the pre/post serve deceptive motions and your brain develops reflexes to deal with the actual real spin/lack of spin on the ball.

UpSideDownCarl · Feb 22, 2018

Question: did anyone point out to this person that his serve was also illegal?

When someone is annoying like that, often people start to not want to play with him.

TableTennisTom · Feb 22, 2018

UpSideDownCarl said:
Question: did anyone point out to this person that his serve was also illegal?

When someone is annoying like that, often people start to not want to play with him.

On reflection I wish I had of said something. I think because I was in the middle of coaching someone, and this guy seemed a bit prickly, I thought it would cause to much disruption. I imagine he would have reacted badly. This wouldn't have been fair on the person I was coaching. But if he comes to the club again, I'll have a word with him. I spoke to the lady he was berating at the end of the evening and she seemed to take it ok, but she had also observed how illegal this man's serves were too.

NextLevel · Feb 22, 2018

The serving rules are so complicated that just about everyone has something borderline illegal or plainly illegal about their serves. Tossing with the fingers, tossing none vertically (watch Ma Long on many of his pendulums or ZJK on the reverse or Dima on the Tomahawk), tossing too low (watch Boll sometimes though he seems to be working more on it recently only falling back to bad habits under pressure) or not tossing at all, leaving the arm in the way on the pendulum (too many players to count), hiding the serve with other parts of the body or borderline doing so, sometimes because of sideways toss (again, lots of players, Par Gerrell, Maharu Yoshimura, anyone) etc.

Me, I tend to let the ball drop more than toss it really high. I serve standing straight on many occasions and since I raise my tossing hand while tossing, the height the ball travels looks short. I also toss from the ball to make contact over my right foot /hip but I start the toss over my left foot or somewhere else so my toss is usually non-vertical and gets worse if I don't toss the ball very high. And of course the right hip can hide the serve. And on my backhand serve, I innocently spent year trying to toss the ball and get the hand out of the way quickly, leading to me turning over the arm very quickly while tossing in a way that some think is illegal, distracting and adds spin to the ball.

But for the most part, most people consider my serves legal from a practical standpoint and I rarely get complaints. And most players are like me in this regard - serves that are generally well intentioned but can be nitpicked if you look at every single rule. So I don't waste my time complaining too much about serves. I just focus on trying to figure out how to read and return them.

jawien · Feb 22, 2018

Fabian said:
[...] I have filmed myself often enough to know that. [...]

Yeah I have similar experiences. In our league we have this guy everyone knows about, he serves right of his hand - almost no toss at all. So you tell him to toss higher - ok next serve he would toss like ~10 cm up, no more and the very next serve he goes back to his illegal routine again ... Since he is using his long pimples side I just stopped paying attention. It was far more distracting for me to correct him and argue than just to concentrate and make a good return.
But this is just lower leagues stuff so ...

But the reason I'm quoting you Fabian is that lack of self awareness specially in tt is just amazing. I filmed myself recently also. I was really convinced my fh is like ML for sure

It turner out is was much more like a Tibor Klampar style from the 70/80 ties ...

Little reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdMokbnQZV4

Thanks to my smartphone camera I was able to correct it and now I use my forearm more. So the moral of the story - film yourself! ; )

KM1976 · Feb 22, 2018

Most self learners, when trying to understand on how to generate spin on the ball often miss out on removing the non-serving hand during their follow up action. An easier example which I think most of us could relate to would be to serve and not turn into a neutral position but being standing their and watching the spin on the serve. This soon develops into a bad habit thus becomes hard to overcome. I am practically facing both these issues since I didn't learned the sport in a formal way. But as you become fluent with your technique it becomes easier to make changes like these and adopt to the correct framework. One of the most important things to understand and adopt is that serve is not about taking a point but it is more towards setting up a point. Recording your serves and matches is always a invaluable feedback to improve and correct your faults. While you improve your faults, always be ready with a backup plan like a backhand serve so that if someone faults you for an illegal serve then you can switch over to your backup serve and still play the same.

Brs · Feb 22, 2018

I played a tournament last weekend, giant rr. There was one kid in the group of 11, and ten old men (florida). We all know each other and meet almost every tournament, incuding the kid. Nobody ever says anything about serves. The kid's dad started calling everybody out for every possible violation, toss too low, not straight, cupped hand, over table, spinning ball with fingers. This is all players in the usatt 1900s. Umpires had to be called for a couple matches. It put a lot of pressure on the kid, who had a bad day and forfeited his last match or two and went home.

Thing is, you could clearly see the contact. And none of us are smart/good enough to get extra spin by twirling the ball with our fingers or whatever. Yes, we all serve illegally, me very much included, since I toss the ball back at my body and not straight. None of us get any advantage from it, so what's the point? One guy actually said tossing higher made his serves better, they had nore spin. So maybe it was a plus for him. But it made what should have been friendly matches feel a lot less friendly. And I never got to see if the kid serves legally himself (although I've played him lots of times and never had a problem), mine was one of the matches he defaulted.

Practically speaking, everyone in the US serves illegally at least some of the time, almost always unintentionally. To me that says more about the rules than about the players.

Tinykin · Feb 22, 2018

NextLevel said:
The serving rules are so complicated that just about everyone has something borderline illegal or plainly illegal about their serves. Tossing with the fingers, tossing none vertically (watch Ma Long on many of his pendulums or ZJK on the reverse or Dima on the Tomahawk), tossing too low (watch Boll sometimes though he seems to be working more on it recently only falling back to bad habits under pressure) or not tossing at all, leaving the arm in the way on the pendulum (too many players to count), hiding the serve with other parts of the body or borderline doing so, sometimes because of sideways toss (again, lots of players, Par Gerrell, Maharu Yoshimura, anyone) etc.

Me, I tend to let the ball drop more than toss it really high. I serve standing straight on many occasions and since I raise my tossing hand while tossing, the height the ball travels looks short. I also toss from the ball to make contact over my right foot /hip but I start the toss over my left foot or somewhere else so my toss is usually non-vertical and gets worse if I don't toss the ball very high. And of course the right hip can hide the serve. And on my backhand serve, I innocently spent year trying to toss the ball and get the hand out of the way quickly, leading to me turning over the arm very quickly while tossing in a way that some think is illegal, distracting and adds spin to the ball.

But for the most part, most people consider my serves legal from a practical standpoint and I rarely get complaints. And most players are like me in this regard - serves that are generally well intentioned but can be nitpicked if you look at every single rule. So I don't waste my time complaining too much about serves. I just focus on trying to figure out how to read and return them.

And that is fine for most matches. But it's the trouble starts when an opponent has problems with the serve, not the action per se. He then takes the opportunity to complain about the serve in order to make the receive easier.
I've seen this scenario many a time.

NextLevel · Feb 22, 2018

Tinykin said:
And that is fine for most matches. But it's the trouble starts when an opponent has problems with the serve, not the action per se. He then takes the opportunity to complain about the serve in order to make the receive easier.
I've seen this scenario many a time.

Yes, but some returners have typical problems with typical actions. I have an unreasonably bad problem with low tosses - just can't read the ball if it isn't forced to have vertical rebound off the paddle to generate side top.

Jimbob MacInbred · Feb 22, 2018

Tinykin said:
...But it's the trouble starts when an opponent has problems with the serve, not the action per se. He then takes the opportunity to complain about the serve in order to make the receive easier.
I've seen this scenario many a time.

Ohhhhh yes. Happened to me last week. An old fella constantly complained on my underspin serve that I would make contact with the ball over table (whereas I'm sure I make contact 5 if not 10 cm behind the table) until he came over and frantically screamed into my face and explained the rules. I eventually stepped back about 2 feet from the table on my following serves...

jawien · Feb 22, 2018

Jimbob MacInbred said:
Ohhhhh yes. Happened to me last week. An old fella constantly complained on my underspin serve that I would make contact with the ball over table (whereas I'm sure I make contact 5 if not 10 cm behind the table) until he came over and frantically screamed into my face and explained the rules. I eventually stepped back about 2 feet from the table on my following serves...

Ha ha ... sounds like it was a tt on fire! ; ) And who won in the end?

Jimbob MacInbred · Feb 22, 2018

jawien said:
Ha ha ... sounds like it was a tt on fire! ; ) And who won in the end?

It was actually a doubles match. My partner remained calm and assured him that we (that is me!) would step back a little from the table whenever we have to serve. We still won 3-2 in the end, thanks to my partner and my Vega Pros.

jawien · Feb 22, 2018

Jimbob MacInbred said:
It was actually a doubles match. My partner remained calm and assured him that we (that is me!) would step back a little from the table whenever we have to serve. We still won 3-2 in the end, thanks to my partner and my Vega Pros.

My congrats you kept calm and didn't get into the fight or got distracted. I'm impressed you even agreed to change your serves ... wow.

Jimbob MacInbred · Feb 22, 2018

jawien said:
My congrats you kept calm and didn't get into the fight or got distracted. I'm impressed you even agreed to change your serves ... wow.

Well, it wasn't really a big deal. Besides, it is usually pointless to argue with this old fella (and his friends). These guys, they want to be right on everything and when they are playing doubles together, there is always a lot of screaming and shouting going on until someone just leaves (happened a few times). I usually try to avoid playing against them...

jawien · Feb 22, 2018

In my area we had this one older fella, who was very cocky as well. Unfortunately he practiced boxing before tt. Usually when there was a dispute he would propose a boxing match outside ... ha ha. Everybody was as calm as it gets ... ; )

berndtjgmann · Feb 23, 2018

One need only go to YouTube to find a number of videos demonstrating how to make a legal serve according to present rules. If you haven’t served legally during your table tennis life, it will take some adjustment to retool your serve so that it becomes kosher, but you do have YouTube to assist you, you’ll feel better about yourself once you make that adjustment, and your opponents will be grateful. Also you won’t have anymore that little sliver of guilt in the bowels of your conscience.

Sent from my handy-dandy new iPad Pro 10.5 with 512 ripsnortin’ gigabytes under the hood

yogi_bear · Feb 23, 2018

Probably because old habits that are bad habits really die hard.

Lack of self-awareness when serving illegally

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