Here's another interesting article by Glenn O'Dea.
Glenn is the editor of the popular Melton (in Victoria, Australia) Table Tennis Newsletter, Across the Net. If you would like to subscribe to the interesting newsletter contact Glenn at meltontabletennis@gmail.com.
Coaching comes in many forms. To most at club level, it usually comes in the form of giving yourself a stern talking to under your breath. If you’re lucky, it may mean some encouraging words from a teammate.
Once you get to tournament level, you may have the services of a coach, but the times that the coach can advise you has been limited. Rule 3.05.01.03 stated, “Players may receive advice only during the intervals between games or during other authorised suspension of play, and not between the end of practice and the start of a match”.
On October 1st this year, all of that goes out the window. The new rule is as follows:-“Players may receive advice at any time except during rallies and between the end of practice and the start of a match”.
Coaches are now allowed to give advice to players at any time during a game. How? Can they call out instructions? Hand signals? Semaphore? Very little detail has been given on this, but the rule is now in place.
Does this mean that the coaches can call instructions to players on what type of serve to use? Coaches and players who speak a language not understood by the opposition would certainly have an advantage. And does this make the players simply robots doing the bidding of a controller positioned outside the playing arena?
Is this in the best interest of table tennis? At least one governing body has concerns about the affect this rule will have on play. The USATT, governing body of table tennis in the United States, have rejected the new ITTF rule for all tournaments except ITTF sanctioned ones, like the U.S. Open. This was decided on at their recent board meeting after considerable discussion. I haven’t heard of any other country taking this type of stand.
The Americans were partially upset by the fact that a governing body has made a decision which affects them without their having a say in it. Isn’t that how the American Revolution started?
Posted 8 years ago
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Jean Balthazar Posted 8 years ago
For once that is something from the USA that I'd be glad if we imported it in France and the rest of the world...
At least for that freaking plastic ball they had some kind of weak justification. But who on earth advocated for this change??? What's it supposed to bring, other than tremendous distraction, expectable heated arguments and making table tennis less of an individual sport?
Dieter Verhofstadt Posted 8 years ago
The new rule has been called to life precisely because it was not possible to tell if players were getting tactical advice or encouragement from their coaches, when spoken to in languages that the officials could not understand. Myself I do not see the benefit in the trade but I can see the logic. Would you be able to distinguish "komaan hé, goed bezig" (come on, doing well) from "mik naar zijn elleboog " (aim for his elbow) in my native language?
In our club we got some explanation and advice about the new rule. Our coach told us to coach each other but not to exaggerate. Being spoken to all the time can be disruptive and after all you need to develop and implement your tactics yourself.
The reason why I dislike the new rule is that I think table tennis already errs on the tactical/psychological side and could do with more purity and sportsmanship. Increasing the amount of coaching - which will happen as it is explicitly fostered by the new rule - pushes the sport further off balance.
Now we will not only have to call out hidden serves but also players who pretend they accidentally kick a ball into their coach's direction to go and receive advice.
We live in a society governed by more and more ruling. What we need is more morality.