For many, scoring in table tennis is simple, but there are lots of rules out there that many casual players are unaware of. I’m even surprised by how many veterans don’t know some of the basic rules!
Today I’m going to cover all of the main ping pong rules in a clear, and easy-to-understand way. Hopefully, this will help put to bed arguments about your playing partners unknowingly cheating or enforcing table tennis rules that simply don’t exist!
The table tennis serving rules may seem a little restrictive but in all honesty, they are not. They help keep the game fair. Each rule helps prevent exploitation. For instance, having the ball in the palm of your hand prevents you from flicking the ball with your hand to produce spin. And throwing the ball above the table’s surface ensures that your opponent can see it as soon as it is launched.
Fun fact: Table tennis serve rules have changed a bit over time. In the past, players were allowed to hide the ball with their non-playing arm to conceal spin, making serves particularly deadly!
Table tennis doubles rules are the same as singles with a few exceptions:
Although doubles serving rules can seem confusing, they are fairly straightforward once you become familiar with them.
The sequence begins with a coin toss. The winning team decides who gets the first serve, and then that team chooses their server. The receiving team, on the other hand, gets to choose the receiver.
As with singles, each player gets two serves. Once you’ve had your two, you swap with your partner. They first receive two serves, and then they get to do their own. The sequence then goes back to you, where you receive two before serving for yourself.
After each game. The first serve swaps to the opposing team and they choose their server. Unlike in the first game, the receivers cannot choose who receives. This is determined by who was not receiving the first server’s serve in the prior game.
If the match goes down to the final game at 5-5 the teams swap ends, and the receiving player swaps with their partner.
“Hitting the ball around the net isn’t allowed!”
Although this might seem like the case this is not true. Hitting the ball around the net is actually one of the funnest and hardest shots to pull off in table tennis.
“I smashed it at your body, point to me, you should have got out of the way”
Hang on there bucko. Looks like you’ve got your sports mixed up. The ball needs to hit the table. You can’t go around hitting the ball at people. Well, you can… but you won’t win any points… or friends.
“Let’s play up to 21, I don’t like playing up to 11”
I feel your pain there chap, I too prefer playing up to 21. Unfortunately, games up to 21 are no more. The ping pong rules for 21 points got rewritten, all games are now played first to 11 points.
“The ball hit your finger, that’s my point!”
Not if the ball lands in it isn’t. Your finger is considered an extension of your racket so all finger shots are legal.
“That’s a double hit. My point.”
In most cases this is incorrect. All accidental double hits are completely legal. So unless you pop the ball up yourself to smash it, double hits are fine.
“You leaned over my side to hit the ball, you can’t do that.”
Leaning over the table to hit the ball is absolutely fine — we aren’t playing badminton.
“The ball came off the post of the net therefore it’s out”
Incorrect. The net post counts as part of the net. So all balls that deflect off of the post are still live.
“What a volley! They don’t call me Roger Federer for nothing!”
Again, wrong sport ya silly sausage! You can’t volley the ball in table tennis, you have to wait for it to bounce!
There is nothing in the rulebook that forbids it, it’s just switching hands is very difficult so few people try it.
That’s a hard no. It’s not only not allowed, but pretty damn dangerous. You’ll also wreck your precious bat in next to no time.
You certainly do my friend. This doesn’t happen all that often, but enough at a medium to advanced level that you’ll probably experience it sooner or later if you play often enough.
I’m afraid that means you lost the point. You can’t touch the table with your non-playing hand when the ball is live.
This depends on the angle it hits the edge. It must make contact with the top section of the edge as this is part of the playing surface. It’s usually easy to tell based on the trajectory of the ball after it makes contact with the edge.
No, you can only change rackets if your current one is deemed unplayable.
The server in table tennis is decided by a coin flip. The winner chooses whether they would like to serve or receive first. You can also use other random means such as flipping a scoreboard and calling odd or even.
So that about wraps up all the main ping pong rules you need to know. It really is a pretty straightforward sport when it comes to the ruleset. It’s just strange how many myths are lurking out there, god only knows how they came about.
If you want to dive a little deeper into the rules of table tennis I recommend you consider checking out the official ping pong rules here. Like all official rulesets, they are pretty damn formal and can be hard to understand for a beginner. Nevertheless, great for referring to if you need to.