Serving rules

Sebastian Unknown Asked 15 years ago

Hi guys, love the site and youtube page.

My question is, when serving, are you allowed to put a slight amount of spin on the ball as you toss it into the air? I've noticed if you let the ball sort of roll off your palm as you toss the ball into the air it helps create a lot of spin on the serve.

Alois Rosario Answered 15 years ago

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for your kind words about our site and youtube videos.

You are not allowed to spin the ball with your hand when you are serving. Most of the time the ball will rotate a little when it is going up but technically it is ilegal to impart spin. Here is an extract of the International rules that covers this area.

.06.02

The server shall then project the ball near vertically upwards, without imparting spin, so that it rises at least 16cm after leaving the palm of the free hand and then falls without touching anything before being struck.

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Doubles Serving Rules

In this video we go over the somewhat complicated rules of serving for doubles in table tennis. There are a couple of extra rules for doubles that you don't apply to singles. In doubles you always serve from the right hand box diagonally to your opponent's right hand box. Each player has 2 serves each. If you've just been receiving then it's your turn to serve next.

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benoit Unknown Posted 15 years ago

excuse my bad english, but the rule says "near vertically upwards". What does that mean ? because I saw games (Japan open for exemple on ITTTV) where players toss the ball with a semi-circular trajectory without penalty. Thank you for the answer and your site which I recommend to my friend as often as I can.

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 15 years ago
You are right Benoit, often players throw the ball up on an arc and get away with it. Until they decide to clamp down at one tournament. Then the players have problems and need to change their service action. My advice is to have a legal serve that will hold up in all circumstances then you will never have to worry about it.