Table Tennis Rules Q & A

Sue Lang says:

Hi Greg, I have been asked a question about the pre-match warm up period, "Is this for slamming practice,or to find out your opponent's weaknesses, or to loosen up before the match? Is there a protocol on this?" Can you give me answer from a qualified umpire's perspective?

Thanks,

Sue.

Greg replied:

Hi Sue,

The laws of table tennis are very brief on the matter of warm-ups, with the only rules I could see relevant to the warm up being the following:

ITTF Handbook 2004-2005
Practice
3.4.3.1 Players are entitled to practise on the match table for up to 2 minutes immediately before the start of a match but not during normal intervals; the specified practice period may be extended only with the permission of the referee.

ITTF Handbook for Match Officials
13.2.2 Players are not allowed to receive advice or instructions from their coaches or advisers after practice. They may practice for up to 2 minutes, but as soon as they have finished they must start play, even if the practice period has lasted for less than 2 minutes.

Appendix A - Recommended Procedure for Match Officials
10 Time the practice period and advise the players just before the permitted time is up. Make sure that they do not receive advice or do anything else to delay the start of play after the practice period has ended.

From this, I would state from an official's perspective, the players are free to do what they choose in those two minutes. You can slam the ball, lob it, or even miss every ball if you wish to do so. Whether this is good sportsmanship is another matter. A player who refused to warm up with his opponent, for example, would run the risk of being warned by the umpire for offensive behaviour, under the rules below, which give the officials a fair amount of discretion.

ITTF Handbook for Match Officials
17.1 Responsibility of the Umpire
17.1.1 Deliberately unfair or offensive behaviour is not common in table tennis and is usually limited to a small minority of players and coaches, but its effects may be very damaging and it is often difficult to control. Because misbehaviour can take many forms it is impractical to lay down precise rules, and setting and applying acceptable standards of conduct is more a matter of judgment and common sense than of factual decision.

17.1.2 The umpire should be ready to respond immediately to any sign that bad behaviour by a player or coach is likely to be unfair to an opponent, to offend spectators or to bring discredit to the sport. If he tolerates early lapses in good behaviour, however trivial, without even a disapproving glance he will find it much harder to impose proper discipline if these lapses later become more persistent or serious.

So to conclude, you are free to warmup how you like, and if you want to use it to slam the ball, find out your opponent's weaknesses, or loosen up before the match, you can do so. Current table tennis etiquette is to do a few counter hits and easy loops at each other - look at the pros warming up as an example of good conduct - people could do a lot worse than to copy the pros in this case!

Best regards,

Greg Letts 28th June 2005

Copyright Greg Letts 2005

Comments

Sunday 9th October 2005

Jonathan Roberts writes:

As to your article on combination bat players (like myself), I think it's unfair to force players to play with both sides, regardless if you want a decent warm up, or to deceive the opposition. I'm not good at flipping the bat yet, but I'm not bad, and in the warmup, I try and minimise the amount I play with pimples because at my level, I pick up several points simply by playing pimples.

Also, I don't like players who, when they warm up, like to smash ball at you, and the warmup turns into a slogging contest. When players start doing that to me, I 'accidentally' miss a shot, so I can practise a serve.

If the rules don't stipulate you have to use both sides, then legally it is your right not to.

That's my two bobs worth.