Newgy’s Blog

At the beginning of every point in table tennis, you are either serving, or returning the serve. Today, I am going to focus on the position you should be in while returning the serve, and after you hit your serve.

When you are serve returning you need to be careful where you stand. Most players stand in the backhand side just because everyone else does. But really you should be diagonal of where your opponent is standing, because they are most likely to serve it cross court. Another thing people seem to have a problem with is getting jammed because they stand close to the table. A good rule of thumb when serve returning is if you can touch the table with your racket, you are probably too close.

While serving there is really one main thing you need to do between your serve and next shot. It really doesn’t matter where or what you serve, but go directly diagonal from your shot. I would say about 6-7 out of 10 times, your opponent will return your serve cross court, so going across from your serve will be the most logical thing to do.

With making these two small changes to your table tennis game, I believe it can help tremendously with your game.

Perry Wilson

If you play table tennis then you know controversy can arise at any time. Some situations you might run into are – your opponent won’t start the table tennis match, you think their paddle is illegal, someone thinks your paddle is illegal, disagreement over the score, disagreement on whether or not the serve is legal and disagreement over whether a point should be played as a let or not. There are also other situations that could occur, but these are the most likely problems a tournament player can come across.

The best way to solve one of these problems is to be calm, listen to the other side of the story, and come to an agreement that seems fair. If you cannot seem to do this, you need to go get help from the Tournament Desk. If you can specifically ask for the Referee (designated to handle any tournament conflicts) he/she is the one in power. A common mistake in table tennis is mixing up the referee and the umpire. The umpire only controls one match (he/she is the one in the chair watching your match). The referee controls the tournament and has the power to assign an umpire, default a player, and also disqualify a player. Once you report your problem to the referee he will assign an umpire for the match and that umpire will most likely go back to the point in the match/game of where both players agree. Remember, they cannot rule on something they did not see.

Tournaments are supposed to be fun, and competitive at the same time, so try not to let too much controversy get in the way.

Pierce Scott