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Is Ding Ning Foul Serving?
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I agree. Some of the faulted serves were called when the umpire was looking at Ding Ning's back. That's just ridiculous.A lot of people are way too nitpicky about the serving rule. Words are by their very nature subject to interpretation, and the rules written regarding serving are no different. The writer of the rules purposely added the word nearly in the portion that says project the ball nearly vertical upwards, in order to allow some leeway. What is a correct definition of nearly? There isn't one. And that's the way it should be. You would utterly destroy sports if you defined and executed each rule too narrowly. Sports by their inherent nature need some level of wiggle room and flow, without having some umpire to barge their way into the game and unnecessarily affecting it. Frankly the amount of spin imparted by throwing the ball a little towards you is completely negligible.
"She does throw the ball upwards, but not the required height and she throws it towards her, allowing her to generate much more spin." is simply not true. A professional serve has so much spin that adding 1-2 rotations per second does absolutely nothing.
People also talk a ton about covering up the ball when the fact is, the video we see is completely different from the viewpoint that an opposing player gets. What looks like an illegal serve from our point of view may be perfectly visible to the opposing player. What should be the measure for whether a serve is illegal is if the opposing player brings it up with the referee. To have the referee interpret the rule excessively narrowly ruins the game. Especially considering the fact that the ref sits at the side of the table and thus his view of the serve is nothing like what the opposing player has.
Yes it is illegal, but the issue is that these serves weren't picked up on earlier in the competition. The final is not the place to start being picky about serves. Shame.
Whether it is right or wrong, I think there is no reason to do the thing that people do not like. Ding Ning's fault.
... But the umpire evidently wanted to make herself "important", instead of being honored for simply being there.
Yes it is illegal, but the issue is that these serves weren't picked up on earlier in the competition. The final is not the place to start being picky about serves. Shame.