Table Tennis (ping pong) Rules for Beginners

Table tennis rules for beginners is aimed at those who are just starting out in the sport. Table tennis is a great game, which can be quickly and easily improved, It is fast moving and requires good eye hand co-ordination.

The rules are pretty straightforward and simple but we will go through them all in this hub.I mean you don't want to look like a fool while playing,so learn all the table tennis rules so that you don't look like such a beginner. Do you know how to:

1. serve legally?
2. The scoring structure?
3. Facts about the equipment used?

if your answer to any of those was no then you need to read on to make sure that you don't play like the video below.

Scoring

• Normally a match is played either 3 of 5 or 4 of 7 games, so it is up to you how many games you want to play.
• A point is scored when your opposition fails to make a legal return
• Anyone can score points, it doesn't matter who's serve it is.
• A game is won by the first player to score 11 points.
• This must be by a 2 point margin, otherwise play continues until it is by two clear points.
• Edges of the table are part of the legal play area.
• Sides of the table are not.

So each player has serves for two points each and then the serve is switched to the other player. If the score reaches 10-10 then you only serve fort a single point and then the serves are switched.

At the end of each game the players switch sides of the table.

Serving

A legal service consists of

1. The ball must start on an open palmed hand.
2. Be thrown up a minimum of 6 inches.
3. When Hit it needs to bounce on the side of the server first and then over on to the oppositions side.
4. If on a legal serve the ball touches the net, then this is known as a let and this is not scored, and the serve is retaken

The table should be 2.74 meters long, 1.525m wide, and 0.76m high. The playing surface does not include the sides of the table and the surface should produce a uniform bounce of 23cm when a ball is dropped from 30cm.

The paddle should have a red and a black side, 85% by thickness of the paddle has to be made of wood, but the size does not matter which seems very strange.

The ball should be white or orange, should be spherical with a diameter of 40mm and should weigh 2.7g