OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Mr Bowers plays with dtects in o60's pretty sure with ox though. He gets a huge amount of sideways bounce on the ball. Give someone with a big windup like myself fits because the ball is never in the spot you expected when you committed to the shot. May have been him? In the grand scheme of vets hes not a high level player though so maybe not?. In any case he easily gets the most funk on the ball of anyone I've ever played. Very hard to deal with when you are not used to it. Dtects is easily the most problematic lp to play against when the guy punches with itlike that. None of the other common lp rubbers are anywhere near it imho. I tell Reb that all the time and he says its equally hard to use a it is funky so it's not worry it.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

Yeah, I think John Bowers does use Ox and he is more of a push blocker than a puncher. Also, he is probably not strong enough to trouble the guy haggisv is talking about.

He actively hits from his backhand against me, that's how I loose almost all the points when I'm playing him. I would say against a stronger player like yourself he doesn't get the chance and has to resort to blocking.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

Thanks for the kind words guys... Office bitch ? Lol... Chris...
It was good to meet some old friends and make some new ones.
Elbow has taken another turn and have now started a course of glucose injections, one every four weeks for three appointments. Hopefully this will get the healing going. No table tennis for a while, but I did fill in for cricket and score a fifty

Keep in touch.. And bring on Darwin, hopefully no Darwin awards up there ..

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Main - JUIC StellaNanospin II Globe 999
Main (backup) - 729 8030 - Focus III 729-FX
Spare 1- Tamca Gergely - Faster 729FX
Spare 2 - Tamca Gergely - Focus III 755-2

Good luck with the treatment guy. If the glucose doesn't work then ask your doc about a blood injection - it worked wonders when I had tennis elbow.

He was one of them indeed. Although my friend said he did beat him (it must have been another one he lost to), he gave him a lot of trouble.

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That is one of the next options. I am seriously considering the surgery option..

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Main - JUIC StellaNanospin II Globe 999
Main (backup) - 729 8030 - Focus III 729-FX
Spare 1- Tamca Gergely - Faster 729FX
Spare 2 - Tamca Gergely - Focus III 755-2

Carbonman I am continually confounded by club servers and the variety of illegal serves you face at that level. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to use one of your serves here to questions its legality (not that it matters ). Actually its only that the vid happened to freeze on me right at this point that it occurred to me to do so Around the 8 second mark of the vid you serve and it seems your hand is still up in the field between ball and net, when ball is struck. Would you say this is technically illegal? And have you been called on it at any Vets you've played? Now there is far worse "serve-hiding" that goes on and far worse transgressions in serving than that, but I'm interested to see if you even realise you do that at times as I have had other players do it worse than that (by hand following ball right up) and insist they serve legally. I've been warned to serve legally by a particularly pedantic ref at Vets, which is annoying when you see so many others serve way worse. I know serving is always going to be contentious because without instant video replay a lot of players won't even believe they do anything wrong. I wish there was an easy answer to it.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Reb, back in the day I used to have extremely hidden serves and during my 10 years off they introduced the arm outa the way rule. After having my hand in the way for decades it took a considerable effort to to remember to do things right. I think I have got it pretty correct now but I am sure I slip up every now and then. I have never been called on it by an umpire in a match even though qualified umpires have officiated on several of them. Once at Croydon a player - legitimately I think - questioned a serve I did. I agreed to a let and instructed the umpire to fault me if he deemed any future serves to be illegal. In Canberra one of the players questioned the very first serve I did in a doubles match however in this case I am certain the serve was 100% legal and he was questioning it gain a psychological edge (he pulled other stunts during the week in order to put players off their game).

The serve you mention i think might be line-ball enough not to worry about. As I tried to do all week, as soon as I threw the ball up I straightened my arm forward. Due to the angle of the vid it looks like it is still sideways but I don't think it is. I am not saying for certain that is 100% legal but I think it is probably close enough. Compare it from a different angle at 0.36. That is exactly the same serve (I did quite a number of these serves in this match) and the arm appears to get out of the way well in time.

From my limited knowledge of them, the current service rules can be tricky to interpret. I think many many players frequently serve illegally. Some examples include - holding the ball in the fingers rather than the palm, not throwing the ball up 15cms, and not throwing the ball straight up (just about every strong player fails in this area from time to time). I can't remember the last time I questioned someone's serve - it would probably be 30 odd years ago. To me, if someone ain't getting an advantage from it then I don't care. I remember a little while back hearing someone complain about someone else's serves and yet the complainer served every one of his own serves out of his fingers!

Thanks CM for the explanation, and yes I was well aware you had to make adjustments for the new rules and the point you raise about the angle of where the arm is interesting as I'd not really considered it. I certainly agree there are plenty of bad serves out there. The worst are the ones where players effectively serve by throwing the ball directly back into the bat and having perfected unexpected angles the ball can be across the net before you have any idea of the direction its headed as you can't see it until then. I agree, if someone is not getting an advantage its not a big deal. Unless forced to, I know I serve at the base of my fingers rather than from palm, even though my hand is flat. It gives me no advantage except the ball doesn't roll off the palm. I know others serve from a cupped palm to overcome this. The trouble with bad serves is that those who do get huge advantages from theirs, won't change cos they believe "no-one serves perfectly, so I can't be called on mine either" and will argue black and blue over it. Some people generate so much extra spin from serving off their hand its nigh impossible not to give a pop-up for them to kill. I know one bloke who pulls this out every time he's challenged in a set. People say he's such a good player, yet if he didn't effectively get away with cheating, he wouldn't be so good.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

In the interests of being a "pedantic vets umpire" and to correct an incorrect recounting of the service rules, the ball must be thrown up at least 16 cm from where it leaves the hand, ie 1 cm more than the height of the net.

Other than that, I agree that service rules are the least and hardest to enforce and most argued about.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Thanks for the clarification retriever. As I said, my knowledge of the service rules is pretty limited!

Reb, I can appreciate your frustration and I am sure you are not alone with this. I know a few players at Coburg have had similar concerns as you. It is a tricky one to enforce without having to get into a heated dispute over the matter. I don't know the correct solution. One thing though, I think that if you are going to challenge someone on a serve your own serve has to be pretty legit. Even if you are not getting an advantage from serving from your fingers it is technically illegal. The rulebook doesn't specify different scales of legality (ie ones you get an advantage from and ones you dont) - its either legal or it aint. Perhaps this topic deserves its own thread!

Agreed CM! I'm sure its been discussed in the past, but its probably a good thing to discuss again and see if anything new comes out. Its own thread it shall have! And while I agree with the "don't throw stones if you live in a glass house" premise of serving, its simply a case of why put yourself out to be pure when others won't even slightly unsully themselves?

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

The laws:
[i]2.6.4 From the start of service until it is struck, the ball shall be above the level of the playing surface and behind the server's end line, and it shall not be hidden from the receiver by the server or his or her doubles partner or by anything they wear or carry.
First test - Not being hidden - reasonably easy to test for/ define. Can't see any problem here with carbonman, the ball is clearly visble to the receiver.
[i] 2.6.5 As soon as the ball has been projected, the server’s free arm and hand shall be removed from the space between the ball and the net.
The space between the ball and the net is defined by the ball, the net and its indefinite upward extension.[/i]
Second test - removing the arm. There is a problem with the definition of "as soon as", as this is a vague term which is subjective and would be subject to a reasonableness test. Within 0.001 of a second is clearly not reasonable, yet it could be said that this is a requirement.. if carbonman makes an effort to remove the arm, within a reasonable time, it should be "legal" - IMHO.

For everyone interested in this serving topic I created a thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21128

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.