5 years ago
In this show we discuss a radical change to the service rule which involves serving directly onto the opponent's side. Plus we have our usual segments including another quality joke, and we answer the best questions from the Ask the Coach section of the PingSkills website.
What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Maharu Yoshimura is having a birthday.
Andrew has won the competition and will receive 4 PingSkills t-shirts for his creative video of Harimoto style celebrations in the office and out about in down town Sydney.
We discuss the results of the brilliantly run Australian Open and our involvement in the fun days.
Work on a unique feature of your game.
Peter: Hi guys, I have devised an alternative set of service rules as a fun game for entertainment value. But I was also wondering if it could be used as a serious contest in an exhibition-type setting to promote the sport of table tennis generally. Of course that would presuppose that the rallies would be worth watching. But I am not sure. Could you give it a road test to help me find out?
Here are the basic rules:
1. Firstly you will need about 6 inches (15cm) of gaffer tape (or similar) to use as your ‘service-mark’. Fix it to the floor 2.5m (8ft+) behind the table, and line it up lengthways as if it were an extension of the table centreline.
2. The server then places his front foot on the ‘service-mark’ so that the front part of the mark is still visible. Until the ball is struck, the front foot maintains contact with the ‘service-mark’ and the rear foot remains farther from the table.
3. The ball must be tossed lower than the server’s chin, and contact is made to the right side of the right front foot or to the left side of the left front foot. This means you are hitting the ball off the ‘wrong’ foot. (Ahem! Perhaps not a good coaching tool, but an acquired skill nevertheless)
4. The ball is struck so that it travels directly onto the receivers half of the table. There is no restriction of where the receiver may stand to receive. All returns are then as per conventional table tennis rules.
These are a few of my own observations so far:
A common service tactic can be to loop the ball (off the ‘wrong’ foot), but chops and any other spins are also achievable. See if you can ‘ace’ your opponent by swinging the ball out wide, or maybe try to ‘jam’ it into his body. But watch out! If he manages to get it back, you may be in for some long protracted loop-to-loop rallies.
I would love to get some feedback
Pieter: Would you please clarify what constitutes a GAME, SET and MATCH. My understanding is that a game is 1 game first to 11 points. A set is the 3 or 5 games of 11 points. The match is the winner of all the sets.
Dimple: I observed one thing in UTT series that at 10-10 score despite having a two point lead they concluded the match winner at 10-11 or 11-10. I searched about it it's called a Golden point. I didn't get this concept could you elaborate and make me understand the difference between these two?
Michael: Hi Alois and Jeff, I’ve seen lots of your impressive videos that mention the need to have a loose grip of the racket - are there any occasions where’s there a need to have a tight grip of the racket?