Umpire Tom Miller - Serve Dispute

Satoko Kishida vs. Sara Fu (Shu)

2007 US Open Table Tennis Tournament

July 4-7, 2007 - Las Vegas, NV

Hilton Las Vegas Convention Center

Tom Miller directs the Japanese speaking advisor away.

Satoko's high toss paddle twirling serve is repeatedly called bad by Tom Miller as the crowd and Satoko wonder why.

YouTube Video:

Satoko Kishida's high toss twirling serve.

About.com Table Tennis Forum:

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=3&nav=messages&webtag=ab-tabletennis&tid=25137

Larry Bavly:

I was sitting near Tom Miller at the open while he was describing a match he had earlier umpired. He said he continually faulted an asian woman on her high toss serve and the audience was booing him. Tom didn't think the player understood why she was being faulted. He said that she kept spinning the ball off her fingers every high toss. Tom also mentioned that he needed to take time off after that match. This must be the match Tom was alluding to. 

Marco Borrillo:

From Rob's pictures it seems that the girl was not using a "nearly open palm" at all.  However, Tom could have explained to the translater why he was faulting her, instead of just repeatedly faulting her.

It's tough to be an umpire.  Anyone who's ever played in California knows how badly we need them.  And yet, it's important that an umpire doesn't "overtake the match."  IMO an umpire is a servant, who is there thanklessly to insure the rules are followed.  An umpire should not call out the score so loudly that adjacent tables are distracted (Ray Celvechio you listening?).  An umpire shouldn't nitpick the ever-changing serve rules.  Just let the players play.  However, if someone is CLEARLY cheating, then the umpire needs to step in.  IMO the umpire should explain clearly to the player what the violation is, and then let the athletes continue their match.  It is not clear to me if Tom did all of this.  Turning away the translator was probably not a good thing.

As for the coach of the player, he should have called a time out and went to the front desk to complain about the umpire.  Let the referee sort it out. 

Marco

Gerry Chua:

Tom is right on this one.  At times, I wonder if the player is fully aware of what occurs, why they are being faulted.

At the Pan Am and World trials in San Diego, Wang Chen was faulted several times when she did the high toss serve.  While the ball was in her flat palm (not cupping the ball), as she starts the motion of her high toss serve, the palm would tilt at a slight angle causing the ball to move a bit.   This little movement would cause some friction in the palm causing the ball to spin.

I recall during the womens finals of the 2004 US Open in Chicago.  I was taking photographs and sat on the floor somewhat close to the scorekeeper.  Tamara Boros was faulted several times during her high toss serves.  I questioned the call, but a few minutes after I looked closely at the ball mid air and saw the ball spining a bit.  Needless to say, the calls made both Boros and her coach irate.  Boros eventually lost to Li Jia Wei of Singapore.

For high toss serves, in order to be compliant to the no spin rule, one must start out with the ball on the open palm and keep the palm flat as you toss the ball.  Spin on the ball is at very minimum or non existent at all.

Gerry

Saul Weinstein:

Marco,

Thanks for your kind words for the umpires! 

Let me address as best I can a few of the umpiring items you mention.  The opinions are solely mine.....

1)  Spinning ball on high toss serve:

I would respectfully point out that a player at this level should certainly know herself that she should NOT be putting spin on the ball as she tosses it up for her high toss serve.  And should perform her high toss accordingly.

This ( spinning the ball on the high toss service toss ) is a hard problem to see and harder to call.  I would be the first to say that I probably do not see every spinning high toss that is made.  I only call those I clearly see spinning.  As in this case, the umpire will almost surely be subject to a lot of noise and criticism from the audience which can not, from it's viewpoint, see the spin on the ball and may not know or understand the problem.

As for the rule itself, the following is from the ITTF web site:

 

2.06.01	Service shall start with the ball resting freely on the open palm of the server's stationary free hand.
2.06.02	The server shall then project the ball near vertically upwards, without imparting spin, so that it rises at least 16cm after leaving the palm of the free hand and then falls without touching anything before being struck.

Note that the serve starts from the OPEN palm, not the previously required FLAT palm.  So, what is "open"?  It's hard to see the ball getting spun.  If and when I see anything, I mostly see the resulting spin. 

The rule clearly states "without imparting spin".  Umpires can not choose which rules to enforce and when, we are supposed to call our calls consistenly all of the time.  I know we are not perfect in this regard ( no one is ), we can only try our best.

2)  Calling out the scores:

IMHO this comes under "damned if you do, damned if you don't".  If you don't call clearly, the players can and sometimes will suffer confusion as to what is called and when.  We always seem to get some calls to matches which started without an umpire for disputes between players over "what's the score?"  They sometimes even say that they were themselves calling it out between every point.  And still disagree.

Some voices "carry" more than others.  I don't have any better answers for you here.

3)  "Nitpicking" over "ever changing service rules":

As noted above, umpires can't pick and choose which rules to call and which not or when to call them.  I try to only call faults on service when it's clear to me that the serve does not fit the rules.  And I believe most umpires feel and do the same way.

Some players get an unpleasant surprise when they reach event semis or finals and suddenly have an umpired match.  Or when an opponent does not like the service and requests an umpire for that match.  Their serves, which previously were not a problem, are "suddenly" getting called. 

Of course, the serves were that way all along, their opponents just tolerated them and didn't call for an umpire earlier.  I STRONGLY urge players to practice and use "legal" services ALL THE TIME, not just try to use them when there is an umpire at the match.  It's very hard to make changes from old habits just for special occasions.  That's almost sure to throw off one's game and cause problems competing for the important win. 

4)  Calling for the Referee:

If the player ( or coach ) feels an umpire is making inappropriate calls, they can call for the Tournament Referee, without even needing to spend their one precious time out for the match.  And, again, a player at the level of the young lady in the match in question does or should know this.

-------------------------------------

Marco, you seem to have a lot of sensitivity about good umpiring and treatment of the players.  We need many more good, knowledgable umpires.  Have you considered becomming an umpire?  It's easy to become a Club Umpire, it's just an open book test.  I also found that taking this test made me think about the rules and learn much that is helpful when I play.

Regards,

Saul

Saul Weinstein, IU

John Jarema (sp?):

Where do you draw the line between nit-picking on the service rules versus allowing clear violation of the rules? 

Reminds me of the question of what is the difference between a procedure and surgery?

A Procedure is when it is done on someone else, surgery is when it's done on you:)

Tryharder:

"ITamara Boros was faulted several times during her high toss serves.  I questioned the call, but a few minutes after I looked closely at the ball mid air and saw the ball spining a bit."

This is interesting. Is it physically possible to toss a ball over 5 feet high without putting any spin on it? I tried about 50 times, and all 50 times the ball has noticeable spin on it. So if an umpire wants to pick on a player's high toss, the only thing the player can do is to switch to different serves - I believe that's what happened to Ms. Kishida.

I think the question is what's acceptable by the Table Tennis world, and not just USA enforces its own standard on international players.

I am being out of line here. Can players ask umpires to show them what's legal? It will be funny to see Tom make all those high toss serves - with spin on it, in front of a big crowd.

ajchien:

I wasnt at the Open. but this was apparently a big deal that upset quite a few people. Numerous players who came back from the Open were talking about it.

Most thought that if Tom would have made an attempt to explain to the player why the serve was being called illegal, the crowd would have been satisfied.

The crowd was not interested in seeing a match where one player gets faulted numerous times each game. The focus of the match became the umpire and not the play or players.

So, should an umpire make an attempt to educate the player why the fault was called? Would he have answered why the serve was being faulted if asked? Apparently, the player didn't ask (language barrier) - or seem to be upset - she just kept serving, and kept getting faulted ...

MyTableTennis.net Forum:

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12194&PN=1

pingpongpaddy:

Its possible she maybe doing that. In the seventies I took some super 8 film of some chinese serving with a backdrop which had vertical lines in it. You could clearly see that the ball did not go straight up and down.
I then tried to do it myself. Did not have skill to do good serve, but definitely was able to put spin on the ball.(you dont have grip the ball, just throw it up vigorously from flat palm so that it rolls off your palm) You probably need about twenty foot ceiling to get good effect. The guy I filmed tossed it 3 times his height. Mind you with that high a toss even without finger spin a lot of spin will be generated at racket contact anyway .

Faulted Serve Toss - With Spin

Good Serve Toss - No Spin

Stevebtx:

A definite difference.  The one on the left is rolling over the fingers instead of being projected up from the open palm.    As far as spin goes, I've seen 5 -10 ft tosses with less than 2 turns per second.   I've also seen tosses where the ball is spinning like a top.  I'd call the top-like serve a fault.  and not the slowwwww one.

Copyright © 2007 - Robert Trudell