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.
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 ..
Almost all the players who are low when they serve block vision of the ball during the toss with their head.
Almost all the players who are low when they serve block vision of the ball during the toss with their head.