How a table tennis match is started?

In order to start the game, the help of a lot is generally taken and in most of the circumstances the use of a coin toss is made. The other type of trick that is used to start the match wherein one of the participant players, scorer or umpire are generally asked to hide a ball in one of the hands and the other player has to make a guess that which is the hand that consists of the ball.

It is one the basis of such lots or tricks, it is ultimately decided that which player will be serving and which player would be first receiving the ball. Additionally, these methods are also used to decide upon the fact that which side of the table will be used by which of the players. One of the other common methods that is made use of is ‘play to serve’ method. This is also known by another name called ‘rally to serve’. As a part of this method, a dummy game is played just to decide that which player will be serving or receiving first in the final game.

The game is started by the person who was decided upon to serve first. The player who serves first will generally take the ball in his hand and will ensure that his hand is held higher than the surface of the table and also it is behind the end line. He will use the other hand to hold the racket and then strike the ball after it is tossed at a sufficient height. Tossing the ball at a sufficient strength is also a defined requirement in the competitions of table tennis. However, in most of the casual games of table tennis, the players will generally avoid tossing the ball.

While delivering the service, the player has to make sure that in no given ways, he is making use of his clothing or his body such that they act as an obstruction for the opponent player or the umpire and thus they are unable to see the ball. While striking the ball, it has to be ensured that the bounce of the ball is sufficient enough to bounce once more on his side of the table and then bounce once again on the opponent’s side of the table.

Once the opponent gets the ball, he will now ensure to hit the ball back in a manner such that it goes over the net to the other side. In this case, the opponent has to be very careful while receiving the ball and hitting it back. That is, he has to ensure that he must hit the ball back after one single bounce itself and he should not allow a second bounce on his side of the table. If he does allow the same, he will loose a point to his opponent. It has to be handled very carefully. This is because playing the serve and also returning it has been identified as one of the most difficult parts of the game.

Thereafter successive hitting of the ball has to be ensured by both the players wherein both of them hit the ball over the net and around the net during their defined turns. There can be different errors that may be committed by either of the players during this game. Based on these errors, the scoring of the game is regulated and controlled. Finally, based on the score of each of the players, the final winner of the game is announced.