Top players’ serves

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So Kanak’s serve does seem to be on the borderline. But he’s not alone. Uncle Vladi has the cleanest serve of all.
 
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It's hard to see if the players are hiding the ball on contact from where the umpires are sitting. It's easier to see if the player throws up the ball straight up, or towards them.

It's a huge problem, and most players abuse it
 
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Either collectively, ITTF Umpires are blinder than Mr. Magoo, or they don't have enough stones to fault serves that do not satisfy the umpire that requirements for a legal serve are met. We KNOW the majority of serves at pro level do not clearly meet the requirements for a legal serve... so what do you think ??!!

Another angle is ITTF could simply want stuff to be as it is and reward/punish umps accordingly in sly ways.

Yet another angle is the ITTF umps could have gotten together in a dark, smoke-filled back room to discuss and agree upon making such a professional call so seldom simply because ITTF umpires are paid a tiny fraction of what a person in a profession is paid. Kinda like the proportionate work/pay ration. You pay me little, I work little kinda thing.

ITTF umpires have to go through years of experience going to many places to umpire many matches making less than peanuts to wear a uniform for next to nothing. It is great if you are retired and already have a hefty income to live from, but if you think you can make any kind of living by umpiring ITTF matches, you are more a fool that you would admit.

Good Umpires at that level are a select breed.

For anyone who is not 45-95 years old, here is a video clip to get you to know Mr. Magoo's unique issue with vision... Dude can't see for crap.

 
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Either collectively, ITTF Umpires are blinder than Mr. Magoo, or they don't have enough stones to fault serves that do not satisfy the umpire that requirements for a legal serve are met. We KNOW the majority of serves at pro level do not clearly meet the requirements for a legal serve... so what do you think ??!!

Another angle is ITTF could simply want stuff to be as it is and reward/punish umps accordingly in sly ways.

Yet another angle is the ITTF umps could have gotten together in a dark, smoke-filled back room to discuss and agree upon making such a professional call so seldom simply because ITTF umpires are paid a tiny fraction of what a person in a profession is paid. Kinda like the proportionate work/pay ration. You pay me little, I work little kinda thing.

ITTF umpires have to go through years of experience going to many places to umpire many matches making less than peanuts to wear a uniform for next to nothing. It is great if you are retired and already have a hefty income to live from, but if you think you can make any kind of living by umpiring ITTF matches, you are more a fool that you would admit.

Good Umpires at that level are a select breed.

For anyone who is not 45-95 years old, here is a video clip to get you to know Mr. Magoo's unique issue with vision... Dude can't see for crap.


You dont get anything by umpiring pro level, you have to pay the most from your own wallet. Most times you get accomidation for free, but have to pay the transport tickets by yourself. You don't get any money from umpiring, you do it for free. People don't umpire to make money, they umpire to travel the world; they see it like a small vacation.

EDIT: Even if you know a player has illegal serves before hand, you have to come in to the game with no preconceptions. I umpired Emanuel Lebesson and knew he had illegal serves before hand, but I had to go into the game with a free mind. When I umpired him his serves looked correct, but when I watched the game on the video later on I realized they were reeeally incorrect. The position umpires sit on is really shitty.
 
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I personally feel by the simple nature of the rule , just having two umpires are not enough. At least two more are needed , who can basically judge from the returners perspective whether the contact is visible or not. Just look at tennis it should tell you to judge calls on a rectangular playing area you need to have eyes from all perspectives.

Well tennis has a lot of lines so the need more line judges ... but I feel atleast we need to free the umpires a little bit in table tennis and have definite funtions for the "service umpires" ... but either ITTF does not make enough money or does not want to have so many umpires for a match ..

You dont get anything by umpiring pro level, you have to pay the most from your own wallet. Most times you get accomidation for free, but have to pay the transport tickets by yourself. You don't get any money from umpiring, you do it for free. People don't umpire to make money, they umpire to travel the world; they see it like a small vacation.

EDIT: Even if you know a player has illegal serves before hand, you have to come in to the game with no preconceptions. I umpired Emanuel Lebesson and knew he had illegal serves before hand, but I had to go into the game with a free mind. When I umpired him his serves looked correct, but when I watched the game on the video later on I realized they were reeeally incorrect. The position umpires sit on is really shitty.
 
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I personally feel by the simple nature of the rule , just having two umpires are not enough. At least two more are needed , who can basically judge from the returners perspective whether the contact is visible or not. Just look at tennis it should tell you to judge calls on a rectangular playing area you need to have eyes from all perspectives.

Well tennis has a lot of lines so the need more line judges ... but I feel atleast we need to free the umpires a little bit in table tennis and have definite funtions for the "service umpires" ... but either ITTF does not make enough money or does not want to have so many umpires for a match ..

One of the big problems is that no one wants to umpire; most people who umpire are older people who have umpired for years - no new umpires are made. I got the chance to umpire WTTC in Halmstad this year, and my assigned partner was a 60+ year old grandma who had umpired for 20~ years. In my, and others, opinion she umpired really bad. She thought that she was always correct cause she "had umpired for 20 years". Even if I came with ideas how we could cooperate, she wouldnt listen cause I was a newcomer and she was a veteran. This is often the people who umpire ITTF tourneys, which is sad.

I don't think ITTF can ask much from their umpires, people pay their trips and get no money from ITTF. I feel like the quality of umpires would change drastically if they started getting paid, there would be a solid reason to start umpiring and most likely more people would umpire and thus there will be a competetion of "who gets to umpire".
 
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I agree USDC ... but there are ways to avoid it ... what happens is umpires don't call you/ your opponents don't protest and then it becomes a habit .. thats why I consider it a service to tell my friends if they blocking serves with their heads ... who knows they may get to a tournament final and then get called and lose their rhythm ... I am willing to put up with their hatred for some time to tell the truth ...
Almost all the players who are low when they serve block vision of the ball during the toss with their head.
 
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Pretty much all of us amateur players demand pro level illegal serves get called, so also national level and lower tourneys would have similar enforcement... Yet when umpires do begin to call serve faults, amateur TTers or fans go wild crazy calling umpire names that have yet to be made. Everyone ought to be an umpire under pressure and see and feel what it is like once or twice... that is all it takes.

ITTF umps better have their own income, TT isn't gunna give them any. Maybe down the road when there are more school players and TT can get money into it... but for now, it is pretty much devoid of it and players play for love and the ability to compete.

Carlsberg sponsors football every day of the week and on Sunday too, but TT would have none of that.
 
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It's just one of those silly rules that exists, but everybody tries to almost break it or practically break it and nobody cares because we all agree that everybody is doing it. So it's all even. It's like boosting in that way kinda.

I don't think it's really a problem. They all do it. Some more legal than others. But they're all almost illegal.

IMO ITTF should just get rid of the rule (judges aren't placed in a spot to call it correctly anyways so why bother) completely and go to a two-toned ball and call it a day. At least for our sanity, we wouldn't have to see any more threads about "this player has an illegal serve" etc.. ;) If I had a dollar for every time there has been one of those.
 
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