This morning I received an email from an Expert Table Tennis Academy member asking;
“Is there a time limit for serves? Recently, I played with a friend and he complained that I took a long time to start to serve. I think I took less than 15 seconds. What is your advice?”
I shot him an email back in response but thought it would be worth sharing the answer here, on the blog, as well.
The first thing to say is that this is a very common problem in table tennis. Some players like to take their time in between points. Others prefer to begin the next point as quickly as possible. Put these two players together in a match and one, possibly both, are going to find the others style of play irritating.
Here is a similar story I found on one of the table tennis forums…
“Whenever I play this guy at my club, he would let the ball drop and roll on the floor for a while before picking it up to serve, for nearly every single point. And before his service, he would palm the ball, stare at it for 2-3 seconds, then serves. I swear, it takes him almost 10 seconds to serve. This drives everyone crazy, which is why not too many people prefer to play with him even though he is just alright of a player.”
So, what do the rules say?
Unfortunately, they aren’t particularly helpful. There isn’t an official time limit in between points in a game. In competitive matches it is the umpires responsibility to stamp out deliberate time wasting tactics and it comes down to a judgement call.
The actual phrase used is that “play should be continuous” – whatever that means!
If the umpire subjectively feels that you are taking too long in between points they are allowed to give you a warning. After that, they can start giving points to your opponent. I’ve seen this go wrong a few times in professional matches where umpires have got a bit carried away and started penalizing players unnecessarily. On the flip side, I’ve also seen plenty of umpires sit there quietly while one player is blatantly time wasting.
So, in conclusion, there is no official time limit in between points in a table tennis match – it’s a bit of a grey area. If you have an umpire, it’s up to them. If you don’t, you need to work it out between yourselves. Provided you aren’t deliberately time wasting, you shouldn’t really have a problem. But remember that “play should be continuous”, as much as possible.
For more answers to questions about the rules of table tennis, check out my Table Tennis Rules page.