Basic Rules of Table Tennis

Like all sports have a governing body, ITTF is the world governing body of table tennis with 226 member associations around the world. ITTF(International Table Tennis Federation) was founded in the year 1926!!!

Like all sports there are some rules that you should know to play table tennis. You can read the Official ITTF Handbook

This article is about some basic rules that on how to play table tennis.

Basic Rules

How the game proceeds

Each player serves 2 times and the winner of the game is the player that reaches 11 points first. However if the score is 10-10, then each player serves 1 time and the winner of the game is decided by a difference of 2 points.

Serve

The server should

• A legal serve must rest on open palm of players hand
• project the ball near vertically upwards, without imparting spin, so that it rises at least 16cm.
• strike the ball so that it touches first his/her court and then, after passing over the net assembly, touches directly the receiver’s court.
• In doubles, the ball must touch successively the right half court of server and receiver.

Let Serve

If the serve is legal except that it touches the net, it is called a let serve. Let serves are not scored and the server need to reserve.

Let’s read some Interesting rules of table tennis.

Have fun and enjoy playing table tennis.