The Surest Way to Get Rid of Illegal Serve Complaints

[suds79]

I don't know about you guys, but I often grow tired of the ever present threads on reddit and other places "This serve is illegal!". Yes, we know just about every player out there is trying their best to almost hide the serve so sure. Some are going to get away with it sometimes in actually hiding it.

For that reason, and because there is no real way judges can actually be in a position to see what the returner's vision is, I for some time now have been a proponent of allowing hidden serves with one change in addition to that. Table tennis should be played with a two-toned ball.

Before I get into my pitch why I feel this way, Check out these matches from this YT channel I recently found where this person is uploading old professional table tennis matches from the US Open in 2002. It's kind fun to watch some of these anyways. This must have been just before the rule change because it happened in 2002 where they made it to where you couldn't hide the serve.

When you watch these, keep in the following in mind. 1 - They were playing with the 40mm celluloid ball. This ball was ever so slightly smaller (actually 39. something mm) and the celluloid ball spun better than the plastic balls of today do (which are actually 40. something mm). So the spin was higher. And most importantly, the ball was all white.

Despite those disadvantages, the table tennis product was still enjoyable to watch. Here are two matches featuring players where at least one, if not both, were hiding the serve.

Lau Sui Fei (HKG) v. Ryu Ji Hye (KOR) Quarterfinal at the 2002 US Open

and

Ma Lin (CHN) v. Fredrik Håkansson (SWE) at the 2002 US Open

So the idea of the two-toned ball is to give something back to the returner since we're giving the advantage back to the server with allowing the toss to be hidden. But the benefits go beyond just that.

Why a two-toned ball would be good for table tennis:
- A better TV product. WTT should look at it for this reason alone. The casual viewer does not understand the spin that is involved in the game. Sure they assume it's there but they cannot see it. They cannot know what type of spin is on the ball. Was that a backspin serve? Was it a float serve? Who knows. It's all white. Slow motion replays would make understanding this infinitely better as a TV product.
- When new players come to the sport, one big hurdle & frustration can be understanding what spin is on the ball and why are their shots doing X vs a spin the newer player doesn't fully grasp. This would help expedite their learning process.
- Because I'm purposing the allowing of hidden serves, this would at least give the receiver a better chance in picking up the spin on the ball in return. Professionals did it for years & years with a pure white ball.
- You'd never have to hear someone complain about a illegal hidden serve again because that'd be perfectly legal. that alone might make this whole thing worth it. (I kid)

A number of years ago the China Super League played a season with a DHS Two-toned ball. They could do something like that. I don't really know or have a preference in how marked up the ball is. Just something to help the returner of serve out would be the idea.

Here I have a picture of that DHS ball in case you've never seen it along with service balls I make to help me train my serve.

Thoughts?

 

[Dr Evil]

In my experience, unless the ball is barely spinning, the colors blend into one and it gives no advantage to the receiver.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

chinese super league tried it before
the balls break too easily and I don't think gave much to the audience, you need to be so close, that isn't possible.

btw, as a player, you won't have too much time looking at the ball.
the contact/body action, flight, and then the ball is already over the net, but the time it has bounced, and you still busy looking, then you going to late.

 

[suds79]

chinese super league tried it before
the balls break too easily and I don't think gave much to the audience, you need to be so close, that isn't possible.

I'm not saying this is a great ball so it's not really about the durability. It's more just the visual. And for sure someone in the stadium wouldn't be able to see it. It's meant as a TV enhancement.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I'm not saying this is a great ball so it's not really about the durability. It's more just the visual. And for sure someone in the stadium wouldn't be able to see it. It's meant as a TV enhancement.

I didn't see much TV enhancement either
you can't be zooming on the ball, during live rallies.

and please don't make balls less durable haha

 

[suds79]

In my experience, unless the ball is barely spinning, the colors blend into one and it gives no advantage to the receiver.

Fair enough.

It's been my experience in times hitting with those service balls I've made that tossed from the hand with no spin, while a spiny serve certainly blends the ball more, IMO you can still see the difference between say pure backspin or side/back.

Pros use to be able to handle this with an all white ball. So we could go back to that (or one might argue we have hidden serves now with an all white ball) so the attempt was to give just a little something back to help one out.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

In my experience, unless the ball is barely spinning, the colors blend into one and it gives no advantage to the receiver.

true
and don't forget, pros can achieve rpm more than double then the average forum member, maybe even triple.

 

[suds79]

I didn't see much TV enhancement either
you can't be zooming on the ball, during live rallies.

and please don't make balls less durable haha

My post said slow motion replays. You read that right?

true
and don't forget, pros can achieve rpm more than double then the average forum member, maybe even triple.

They also have years of experience and faster reactions. Ultimately throughout the majority of TT's life, it was played with allowing a hidden ball. We could go back to that with the current ball. I'm open to that. But I think it'd be better to do it with a ball that aids a returner at least in a slight amount.

TT is a game based on spin and it's played with a ball where you can't see that outside of seeing the ball curve which again for people who don't play, don't really get. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

My post said slow motion replays. You read that right?

you said a lot
you said reading serves

you said tv audience, and slow motion replay yeah, but how many replays do you get in a table tennis match?

and how many of that will be super slow motion to slow down the spin so much and just focus on the serve? be realistic now, there isn't that much time in between points to slow so much thing down and are we looking at spin, or looking at replay of nice points?

super league tried the ball and then canned that idea
maybe you should go and watch a few of those matches and see if it made an value, to me, it sure didn't.

what you should is also watch a espn video on table tennis, that uses computer software tools to help explain the spin in replays.
I think tv crew should focus on technology

 

[suds79]

you said a lot
you said reading serves

you said tv audience, and slow motion replay yeah, but how many replays do you get in a table tennis match?

and how many of that will be super slow motion to slow down the spin so much and just focus on the serve? be realistic now, there isn't that much time in between points to slow so much thing down and are we looking at spin, or looking at replay of nice points?

super league tried the ball and then canned that idea
maybe you should go and watch a few of those matches and see if it made an value, to me, it sure didn't.

what you should is also watch a espn video on table tennis, that uses computer software tools to help explain the spin in replays.
I think tv crew should focus on technology

What did you think of those 2002 matches I posted? I'm guessing you didn't watch those since I'm not fully convinced you read my whole post before replying.

How do you feel about hidden service as it stands now? If you feel it's a non-issue, no worries then. If you feel like it needs addressed, how do you feel about fixing it?

 

[lodro]

In my experience, unless the ball is barely spinning, the colors blend into one and it gives no advantage to the receiver.

Indeed, the white/orange balls i bought to "test" my spins ended up just looking kinda grey. The only options that worked for me were the black/orange balls.

 

[suds79]

Looks like it was 2014 when they did that.

Here is a video of that if anybody is interested. But this isn't a full accurate picture of the whole point anyways since by this time you couldn't hide serves.

I'm not saying this was a great ball and it should be used. It has nothing to do with durability. Feel like I shouldn't have to explain that. It's simply talking about the idea of introducing a ball that better allows you to see spin vs an all white. A game based on spin and played with a ball that the average person can't see seems strange to me.

If someone where to make the case "I hate the idea of a two-toned ball just allow hidden serves with the current ball." I'd be open to that. Shoot we basically have that now.

 

[Arkady]

I'm pretty sure I've read it somewhere a few years back: The Chinese TT Association had proposed the introduction of two-colored balls in all matches and tournaments.

The general idea of this proposition was that less points would be lost by bad reception of tough serves.
If less point are lost by bad reception, there will be more rallies and thus making the sport more exciting to watch and attracting new people to the sport who would be fascinated by the long rallies.

But Europeans opposed to that proposition, since Chinese are by far the best in open game and rallies so their dominance would be even greater.

 

[NextLevel]

Looks like it was 2014 when they did that.

Here is a video of that if anybody is interested. But this isn't a full accurate picture of the whole point anyways since by this time you couldn't hide serves.

I'm not saying this was a great ball and it should be used. It has nothing to do with durability. Feel like I shouldn't have to explain that. It's simply talking about the idea of introducing a ball that better allows you to see spin vs an all white. A game based on spin and played with a ball that the average person can't see seems strange to me.

If someone where to make the case "I hate the idea of a two-toned ball just allow hidden serves with the current ball." I'd be open to that. Shoot we basically have that now.

You are going to need high speed cameras to make this work.

 

[AchyGeorge]

We tried 2 tone balls at our club to help beginners. It only really helps to highlight very low spin balls, everything else just looks like a slightly paler orange, exactly the same for chop and topspin.
So I don’t think the multi coloured ball iidea would work to make it more TV or audience friendly.
They have spin sight at some events and are able to show the rps of the ball, I wonder if a little graphic depicting the direction of spin as well as the rps would help tv viewers?

 

[suds79]

We tried 2 tone balls at our club to help beginners. It only really helps to highlight very low spin balls, everything else just looks like a slightly paler orange, exactly the same for chop and topspin.
So I don’t think the multi coloured ball iidea would work to make it more TV or audience friendly.
They have spin sight at some events and are able to show the rps of the ball, I wonder if a little graphic depicting the direction of spin as well as the rps would help tv viewers?

Could be.

There are a lot of things in play they could do to try to improve the television product.

I was most interested aiding the players in the game in reading spin. That's why I mentioned the two-toned ball. All visual graphics or cameras could help the viewer but does nothing for the player so that's why I went the direction I did. I do think it could slightly help the TV product but my main focus was the serve & the players in the game. If it helps great? If not, then I think I really could live with just allowing hidden serves. Single or multi colored ball. They can't enforce the rule anyways. So just go back to how TT was for most of it's life.

 

[blahness]

You won't be able to judge between sideunderspin and sidetopspin with this. It will have an effect to destroy those who rely on heavy backspin/no spin serves, which are most of the 3rd ball attackers such as Hugo. Penholders also love this serve and will suffer even more.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

What did you think of those 2002 matches I posted? I'm guessing you didn't watch those since I'm not fully convinced you read my whole post before replying.

How do you feel about hidden service as it stands now? If you feel it's a non-issue, no worries then. If you feel like it needs addressed, how do you feel about fixing it?

i did, but i won't address everything, it is such a long post.
so far we addressed tv and service return - these are 2 different things.
but your heading is about serves.... so i am happy we can focus on that, since my previous post was derailed to tv.

I started my table tennis with hidden serves.
to think hiding serves is a super big problem is true, but also not the end of the career.

for fair play, it needs to be addressed
i personally don't see how the 2 tone ball will address this issue.

if you play in such rpm level, and speed, you don't have enough time to watch the ball and there is nothing to see too.
by the first bounce of the serve, you need to have made up your mind already - there is no ways you can see the 2 tone spin as you think it is possible.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Looks like it was 2014 when they did that.

Here is a video of that if anybody is interested. But this isn't a full accurate picture of the whole point anyways since by this time you couldn't hide serves.

I'm not saying this was a great ball and it should be used. It has nothing to do with durability. Feel like I shouldn't have to explain that. It's simply talking about the idea of introducing a ball that better allows you to see spin vs an all white. A game based on spin and played with a ball that the average person can't see seems strange to me.

If someone where to make the case "I hate the idea of a two-toned ball just allow hidden serves with the current ball." I'd be open to that. Shoot we basically have that now.

i fast forward to a random point and the first receive Dima had, he netted the ball
ask any pro if 2 tone ball helps in service return in hidden era, my money will be on very very low priority.

when coaches say watch the ball, we don't really mean, watch the ball that closely

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

You are going to need high speed cameras to make this work.

even if you have all the tools and resources

do you have time to focus on the spin side of commentary between points?

for educational purposes, rather have more ESPN educational videos on table tennis