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Q: I was playing with a friend the other day, and serving similar to Stephen. My body was beside the table and arm over the table. The ball and my racket were behind the end line. I am left-handed and was serving forehand to my right-handed friend from my extreme backhand court. For the most part my body was turned away from the table so that when I tossed the ball my body was between the ball and the most of table, thus hiding the ball from my friend. In the serving motion I turned my body just before contacting the ball so that just before contact only my arm was hiding the ball and the ball was closer to the table than the back part of my body as stated in rule 7.5. Now, at the time of the service toss a left-handed receiver could have seen the ball while covering the entire court, but a right-handed receiver, like my friend, would have had more trouble covering the entire court and still be able to see the ball after the toss.
I think the rule 7 should be modified adding rule 7.1.1:
At all times between the toss of the ball and contact of the ball with the racket, the ball and the server's racket must be visible to the receiver.
Given that my rule 7.1.1 does not exist, can a server - as in my situation - serve facing totally away from the table and completely hide the ball until the last moment of ball contact with the server's racket?

While I'm on a roll, rule 7.3 states:
The server shall then project the ball near vertically upwards...
What constitutes "near vertically"? I've seen plenty of serves in tournament play that move 6-12 inches or more horizontally from point of service toss to point of racket contact with "near" vertical tosses, and I'm confused. Could you clarify this for me?

-submitted by Allen Papapetrou on Sept 7, 1996

A:Regarding your questions about the service rule: Provided that you comply with all requirements for the service to be a legal one, there is no specific requirement for the receiver to be able to see the contact of the ball. You, or any player, may be surprised to hear about this but there is, similarly, not a specific requirement for the ball to be visible to the umpire throughout service. However, if the umpire can not see it at or near the moment of contact, he may not be able to satisfy himself that the service was legal and may warn, and on second such occasion, penalize the server. Thus, since the rules cover clearly the situation you describe, you have little chance that your suggestion, to add a clause to the service rule, would be accepted by the ITTF.

It is inconceivable that every single detail be covered by the rules of TT. Occasionally, it is a judgment call by the umpire who is, first of all, supposed see to it that the intent of the rule be satisfied. This brings us to your next question, concerned with the vertical toss. While the rule allows some, but not much tolerance as to how non-vertical the toss can be for the serve still to be considered legal, the main point is the intent of the rule which is, among other things, that no spin be imparted on the ball as it is thrown. And the "no spin situation" is most likely to occur when the ball is thrown while resting stationary on the flat, open palm (not on fingers!), then thrown vertically upwards, and struck not before it is falling from the highest point in its trajectory (this, for the umpire to be able to see and judge if the ball, while in the air, rotates or not). How much non-vertical serve can be depends on how good protractor in his/her eye the umpire has. By the book, the ball must rise within "few degrees of the vertical".

- Answered by Paul Kovac - your friendly on-line USATT umpire