Hidden serve

MOG said:

in my experience 90% OF TOP PLAYERS SHIELD, OR HIDE CONATCT OR DONT THROW THE BALL CORRECTLY

It is disgusting, our sport is one of the most disgusting sports for this


too much cheating in life and sport sadly humans are a disgusting selfish species often more than not

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In professional sport, it is common to have players take advantage of the rules and circumstances.
How many basketball, soccer, tennis ruling that are used to "cheat".
Its like so common and people know about it, but accept it, as it is part of the entertainment and money generation.

If you think table tennis is bad, you need to watch soccer.
Those actors who are in so much pain and can't get off the ground until some card is given, while the rugby players don't want to leave the field with a blooded face.

tabletennisdaily1 said:

They need to simply allow any serve. That way there is no ambiguity and none of these silly confusing cases of legal/illegal serve. Same with booster, just explicitly say it is legal (because it is not a hassle to apply every single time like speed glue, and it is basically an "extra" layer of glue you put on). Easy, no more confusion and arguments.

Otherwise, if you want to make everything perfectly fair, force everyone to use the exact same official paddle made by the ITTF, and force everybody to start with the exact same easy to return topspin serve. Or better yet have a robot serve the ball.

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this is a great idea, we could go back to the days of number 2 in the world not returning number 1s serve as it is shielded and too impossible to read. Super idea

MOG said:

this is a great idea, we could go back to the days of number 2 in the world not returning number 1s serve as it is shielded and too impossible to read. Super idea

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so when number 2 serve, can number 1 return?
If yes/no then we know why who is number 1 and number 2 respectively lol

Tony's Table Tennis said:

so when number 2 serve, can number 1 return?
If yes/no then we know why who is number 1 and number 2 respectively lol

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MOG said:

this is a great idea, we could go back to the days of number 2 in the world not returning number 1s serve as it is shielded and too impossible to read. Super idea

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The point is many pros use illegal serves or near illegal serves occasionally. The receiver cannot call let on an illegal serve, only the ref can. Sometimes the ref catches it, other times not. Thus, players have to return expecting a legal or illegal serve.

If illegal serves are so OP with the 40+ ball, why aren't the "best" servers the top rated players as you say? Oh wait, its because the best players have a good receive regardless of the legality of the serve and have better skills to then win the point.

At the club I play with people who use the shovel serve and completely hide ball contact. Why do I still win? Because I read the spin on the ball as it comes over the net, return accordingly, and proceed to destroy them in the rally.

Tony's Table Tennis said:

That wasn't an ITTF event
it was the Singaporean T2 event.
An event without lines on the table if you recall

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sorry, my memory is not good and I could not remember. You are right, no middle line because no doubles.

of course the ITTF will never let itself down to accept things that have not been created in their own circles.

tabletennisdaily1 said:

The point is many pros use illegal serves or near illegal serves occasionally. The receiver cannot call let on an illegal serve, only the ref can. Sometimes the ref catches it, other times not. Thus, players have to return expecting a legal or illegal serve.

If illegal serves are so OP with the 40+ ball, why aren't the "best" servers the top rated players as you say? Oh wait, its because the best players have a good receive regardless of the legality of the serve and have better skills to then win the point.

At the club I play with people who use the shovel serve and completely hide ball contact. Why do I still win? Because I read the spin on the ball as it comes over the net, return accordingly, and proceed to destroy them in the rally.

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TLDR: “I can win against someone hiding serves” is not a valid reason for ITTF to change service rules.

PingBirdPong said:

OMG you’re soooooo goooooood!
everybody made suuuuch a biiig mistake for angering a great player like you.
Try the old guys at the park near my home, they’ve been hiding serves since the 70s.
Or better yet go play LGL, see if you can still read the serves.

TLDR: “I can win against someone hiding serves” is not a valid reason for ITTF to change service rules.

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First, I am not that good. Second, who has angered me? I just speak about my experience with the people I play with. Their hidden serves are not deceptive enough against me such that I can see the spin without seeing contact. But obviously as an amateur, against a pro it would be extremely difficult to return their serves, legal or illegal, simply due to deception and raw serve quality, regardless of hidden contact. The question is not if I can return LGL serve (obviously I wouldn't), the question is if pros can return hidden serves, especially if it is expected and that they must train for it. If they can, then remove the unnecessary ambiguities, etc etc.

Just a curious thought: do you think hidden serves are less effective with the 40+ ball as opposed to the 38 ball, or about the same?

Look, my point is that it is difficult and often times subjective to call a legal or illegal serve because the ref does not have the perspective of the receiver. Why don't we let the receiver have the ability to call let if they can't see the contact point of the ball with the blade? Wouldn't that be fair? My point is make things consistently enforceable to prevent headaches. "Oh, I lost or had the disadvantage because the opponent had illegal serves." "Oh, I lost or had the disadvantage because the ref unfairly called my legal serve illegal for some reason". These thoughts should not happen.

I am not a professional, so my opinion doesn't matter. Its just fun to talk about. I am actually curious on Pros opinion on this question. If there was a poll how many would prefer 1. any serve allowed 2. The current rules, legal until called on by the ref. 3. Even more rules such as removing the tossing hand immediately to prevent contact masking and maybe even requiring a higher toss height.

tabletennisdaily1 said:

First, I am not that good. Second, who has angered me? I just speak about my experience with the people I play with. Their hidden serves are not deceptive enough against me such that I can see the spin without seeing contact. But obviously as an amateur, against a pro it would be extremely difficult to return their serves, legal or illegal, simply due to deception and raw serve quality, regardless of hidden contact. The question is not if I can return LGL serve (obviously I wouldn't), the question is if pros can return hidden serves, especially if it is expected and that they must train for it. If they can, then remove the unnecessary ambiguities, etc etc.

Just a curious thought: do you think hidden serves are less effective with the 40+ ball as opposed to the 38 ball, or about the same?

Look, my point is that it is difficult and often times subjective to call a legal or illegal serve because the ref does not have the perspective of the receiver. Why don't we let the receiver have the ability to call let if they can't see the contact point of the ball with the blade? Wouldn't that be fair? My point is make things consistently enforceable to prevent headaches. "Oh, I lost or had the disadvantage because the opponent had illegal serves." "Oh, I lost or had the disadvantage because the ref unfairly called my legal serve illegal for some reason". These thoughts should not happen.

I am not a professional, so my opinion doesn't matter. Its just fun to talk about. I am actually curious on Pros opinion on this question. If there was a poll how many would prefer 1. any serve allowed 2. The current rules, legal until called on by the ref. 3. Even more rules such as removing the tossing hand immediately to prevent contact masking and maybe even requiring a higher toss height.

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PingBirdPong said:

I’m sorry about my comment. Yes, I don’t hate the idea that people should be able to call illegal service. But this may pose a lot of problems when some people use technicalities to obstruct the continuity of a game. For example, not many pros I’ve seen actually toss the ball in a perfectly straight line, and some toss just barely over 16cm. Someone with ill intentions could call every single serve and no one would have a good way to verify the serve. Some people could also use it to get out of returning good serves or ones they haven’t seen before. If an umpire has to verify the serve, then there is no point to this change. If the umpire does not have to verify it, then malicious intent happens.
I can see it being possible, but there would have to be a lot of rule changes and new technology involved.
If one we’re to bring back old serves today, it would kill even more styles, because no point would get to looping. It would just be serve- return- slapp. Also, I think the ball size increase gets outweighed by the advances in rubber technologies that allows more spin to be generated.

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Hey no worries, debate is all in good fun, and I appreciate the humor. I agree that this is a tricky with no absolutely perfect solution. But I just wonder, theoretically, if the rules allowed hidden serves, would you really see a major decrease in play at the pro level, or would they adapt well enough? The con is it would increase missed serve returns more, and the pro is it would make the playing field truly fair.

Actually here is a pro example: Yoshimura had a really good serve that could fool even Xu Xin due to hiding contact behind his head with really good blade deception afterwards (I think blade deception is also key point). If I were Xu Xin, I would be very frustrated to loose more points on the receive than normal. That being said though, his serve definitely gave him an advantage, but it was not enough to get to the tip top (highest WR15, current WR112).

Crazy idea: what if they changed the ball to black and white stripe serving ball to allow you to clearly see the spin on serve? (This would never happen, but just a wild thought.)

tabletennisdaily1 said:

Hey no worries, debate is all in good fun, and I appreciate the humor. I agree that this is a tricky with no absolutely perfect solution. But I just wonder, theoretically, if the rules allowed hidden serves, would you really see a major decrease in play at the pro level, or would they adapt well enough? The con is it would increase missed serve returns more, and the pro is it would make the playing field truly fair.

Actually here is a pro example: Yoshimura had a really good serve that could fool even Xu Xin due to hiding contact behind his head with really good blade deception afterwards (I think blade deception is also key point). If I were Xu Xin, I would be very frustrated to loose more points on the receive than normal. That being said though, his serve definitely gave him an advantage, but it was not enough to get to the tip top (highest WR15, current WR112).

Crazy idea: what if they changed the ball to black and white stripe serving ball to allow you to clearly see the spin on serve? (This would never happen, but just a wild thought.)

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IB66 said:

1) Any serve allowed!!!! - Watched a clip once where a couple of the CNT players were mucking about, throwing the ball onto the blade, spinning the ball with their fingers etc perhaps 1 or 2 lucky returns managed to get back onto the table!!!! It was soooo funny, both players were close to wetting themselves!!! It may be great entertainment but a big NOOOOOO!!!!!😂🤣
2) Leave current rules - I haven’t got an issue with that!! But, perhaps at the top level, additional serve judges, lining themselves up with the receivers.
When a lefty and righty play each other, this can prove even more problematic as both players are generally standing on the same side of the table, rather than diagonally across from each other. So a good serve righty to righty could be bad serve righty to lefty!!!
3) Even more rules - depends on what they are!!!!

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I think the rules are fine but i want those 15 cameras and the digital technology that goes with them 😁
This could be used as a transition up to the time when even the smallest local club teaches every newcomer and junior the proper way to serve.

IB66 said:

Is there a rule that states something like “ the receiver MUST stand facing the server??
if there isn’t, then the receiver could stand with their back to the server, thus making the existing rule about the receiver being able to see the ball completely redundant and all serves would be illegal !!!!!! 😂 😂 only joking!!!!

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how then about having half naked cheerleaders dancing to distract the receiver from the coming serve ?
Even my serves would become useful then 😁