Criticality & paramount importance of serves & return of serves in table tennis

[All Spins]

I was prompted to write this post because so many players think they are doing everything right and yet lose badly & keep wondering why. .
In lots of cases it is due to failure to comprehend the criticality of serves & serve returns in table tennis as compared to most other racket sports.

Serves & return of serve is about two thirds (67%) of the sport of table tennis .

Even if you are defensive player you need good serves & be able to impose your serves and third & fifth ball attacks when needed.
On the flip side you need to be able to tactically nullify your opponents' serves as much as possible & especially prevent them from launching powerful 3rd ball and 5th ball attacks or even worse win points just on the serve outright .

Also if you are a defender (mostly a chopper), keep in mind that the Click link expedite rule in table tennis always protects the attacking player & you need to be prepared attack after your serves if your attacking opponent invokes the expedite rule on you. Sure this happens mostly only on women's side (mostly o at higher levels) but could happen at lower levels on men's side as well.

It does not matter if you are just an exercise player or claims to be a fun player but yet two thirds or more of competitive players probably ignore this criticality of serves & serve return & seem to think that the serve is for just putting the ball in play. Aces are a big part of tennis both for players & spectators & excellent slice & twist serves are critical as second serves to hold your serve which is so critical. On the flip side one of the bigger reasons many players prefer badminton or pickleball is because of lesser impact of serves (If I am not mistaken pickleball designed its serves intentionally to make it easier for all , in addition to limiting the spin for all paddles to 2100 RPM……I know this spin part is impossible to limit in table tennis where pro player spins have been measured at over 9000 RPM with tennis about 5000 RPM). Because the table tennis paddle is made by players using their own separate rubbers & blades unlike pickleball (though there had been proposals such as the tournament organizers providing the same paddle for all)

This is why there had been never ending ongoing discussions about limiting (top) spin and speed in table tennis (& turn table tennis into pickleball / hardbat etc.) by limiting blades rubber thickness , 100% booster testing etc. But this won’t happen for obvious reason that (click link >) robotNazis control the ITTF & robotNazis allow the ITTF to only limit back spin & not top spin (with (click link >) 18 rule and regulation changes since 1977 that partially or fully or aim at limiting back spin, but by using deception & disruption as a convenient excuse)

Other complaints as t reasons why table tennis is not popular as a spectator sport is the third ball & fifth ball comedy of errors even at lower levels of professional play . This results in total lack of rallies and unappealing to spectators. But don' t expect ITTF to make even small rule changes to bring back more chop defenders.

Strangely though, ITTF does indeed keeps trying turn table tennis into pickleball claiming that would make it wildly popular as pickleball. Ex ITTF president Adham Sharara succeeded (after two tries) to increase the ball size to 40- mm & then 40+ mm and also to plastic ball. He eventually wanted to go to 44 mm ball if I am not mistaken & I heard rumors that Japan is pushing for this. The president after him, Thomas Weikert (before current ITTF strongwoman Petra Sorling) tried hard to push a tt variant called TTX which even had pickleball like paddle. It of course failed miserably.
So should serves be so dominant in table tennis or should table tennis use LIHA table tennis rules (look it up) for serves ? All that are great questions but as it stands now serve & return of serve is about two thirds (67%) in the sport of table tennis .

You may be good at rallying & winning points after the serve but if you do not have good serves you have to work harder even against players rated as much as players 400 rating points below you. When I played in tournaments I was able to just “excuse” players 400 rating points below me. On the flip side I rarely had trouble returning most serves against very best players in the world when I used to play in tournaments (since I am a defensive player & using long pips also helps me somewhat nullify opponent’s serves) . Of course I got beaten badly anyway because they were much better players in other ways regardless but that is something I do not want you to know LOL

But spin is the soul & essence of table tennis and that is what separates table tennis from other racket sport. Sure spin is critical in other racket sports as well but definitely not as critical as table tennis due to these complex spins being delivered at such insane speeds as well.

So in the final analysis, I do not see any these issues going away & you either learn to adapt to these circumstances or go with another sport liek badminton or pickleball etc

So my point is > If you are player who “competes” (and are not an exercise player and or self-proclaimed fun only player (only when you lose LOL) ), you may want to rethink your staying in table tennis or move to another sport if you do not want to care about the critical nature of serves & return of serves.

This webpage below may help you
https://allspinstt.com/advserve.php