Oh? Bold statement. What makes you so sure of yourself?
I think there is some ground to the referee's decision. From the short form video it is hard to judge whether the serve at 2-1 11-11 is technically correct, even in slow motion. The hand travels a long distance vertically before the ball is tossed, but it is doubtful that the toss itself is bigger than 16cm (16cm is about the height of a paddle face). The moment when the ball leaves the hand cannot be clearly ascertained from the video since the hand is in front of it from the camera's POV. It would be easier if ML's hand was wide open. It is also very difficult to say from that perspective whether the toss is vertical.
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The statement was a little bold I agree ... and I had no referee exam either - hence the little "imho" in the end ; ) Ok, I would agree with the part of your post I just quoted, about how high the ball traveled after leaving Ma's hand, but ...
here are the reasons I was "bold":
- umpire - as you said - had a better view and yet he didn't react to Ma's server at 2:1 10:10 which seem to me, to be even lower than the one at 11:11.
- starting 2:1 and about 10:8, do you think Liam's toss was "almost" vertical"? Liam used this serve also when he was facing the umpire, so the arc must have been at least a little visible to him.
- I've been discussing the toss thing with my pro friend (actually Europe Championship 1986 runner-up : ) according to him, the reason for introducing this rule was this one guy, who's serves were somewhat peculiar. He practically didn't throw the ball up but rather rolled it against the rubber giving it an enormous spin, quite hard to receive - as you might imagine : ) So in the case od Ma's serve and considering how long was the downward part of the ball's parabole, the spirit of the rule was definitely preserved.
- I still remember OG 2012 Ding - Li Xiaoxia final ... really umpires should be very careful when awarding the penalties for serves. That match was completely deformed because of how lavish was the empire when awarding the points - against Ding ... (although Li was stronger and played better at that time ; )
True, situation when the referee interferes, distracts both players, but the confidence of the penalized player really suffers at that moment, specially 11:11. It's too bad there are no more, like 2-3 warnings the empire could issue and order a player to replay the point i.e. ...
Apart from the above ... no sarcasm here, congratulations to Liam! Overall a great performance.
Edit: I removed my second point, Ma could have hidden the ball with his head, when examined the video in slowmo. Sorry to the Umpire.