adminplayers must allow a ball played toward them only one bounce on their side of the table and must return it so that it bounces on the opposite side.
Points are scored when a player fails to return the ball within the rules. Play is fast and demands quick reactions. Spinning the ball alters its trajectory and limits an opponent’s options, giving the hitter a great advantage. When doing so the hitter has a good chance of scoring if the spin is successful.
Table tennis is governed by the worldwide organisation International Table Tennis Federation, founded in 1926.
ITTF currently includes 217 member associations. The table tennis official rules are specified in the ITTF handbook. Since 1988, table tennis has been an Olympic sport , with several event categories.
Ball
The international rules specify that the game is played with a light 2,7 gram, 40mm diameter ball. The rules say that the ball shall bounce up 24-26cm when dropped from a height of 31cm on to a standard steel block. The 40mm ball was introduced after the 2000 Olympic Games.
However, this created some controversy as the Chinese National Team argued that this was merely to give non-Chinese players a better chance of winning since the new type of balls has a slower speed, while at that time most Chinese players were playing with fast attack and smashes. A 40mm table tennis ball is slower and spins less than the original 38mm one.
The ball is made of a high-bouncing air-filled celluloid or similar plastics material, coloured white or orange, with a matte finish. The choice of ball colour is made according to the table colour and its surroundings. For example, a white ball is easier to see on a green or blue table than it is on a grey table. Stars on the ball indicate the quality of the ball. Three stars indicate that it is of the highest quality, and is used in official competition
Players are equipped with a laminated wooden racket covered with rubber on one or two sides depending on the grip of the player.
The official ITTF term is “racket”, though “bat” is common in Britain, and “paddle” in the US.
The wooden portion of the racket, often referred to as the “blade”, commonly features anywhere between one and seven plies of wood, though cork, glass fibre, carbon fibre, aluminium fibre, and Kevlar are sometimes used.
Although the official restrictions only focus on the flatness and rigidity of the blade itself, these dimensions are optimal for most play styles.
Table tennis regulations allow different surfaces on each side of the racket. Various types of surfaces provide various levels of spin or speed, and in some cases they nullify spin. For example, a player may have a rubber that provides much spin on one side of his racket, and one that provides no spin on the other.
By flipping the racket in play, different types of returns are possible. To help a player distinguish between the rubber used by his opposing player, international rules specify that one side must be red while the other side must be black.
The player has the right to inspect his opponent’s racket before a match to see the type of rubber used and what colour it is. Despite high speed play and rapid exchanges, a player can see clearly what side of the racket was used to hit the ball.
Current rules state that, unless damaged in play, the racket cannot be exchanged for another racket at any time during a match.
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