Building a Better Umpire

I'm writing this article in order to give a few pointers about everyone's favorite pastime - umpiring. Sooner or later, every table tennis player will be called upon to do his duty and umpire a match. I've put a few ideas below that should help you do the best job you can when the tournament director taps you on the shoulder and hands you a scorecard and a pencil. Although I am an International umpire myself at present, think of these as coming more from an experienced player who has umpired a lot of matches and managed to avoid too many major incidents along the way!

Pay Attention

This is probably one of the most ignored requirements of umpiring. Many players seem to drift off into a coma, only rousing slightly to call the score out. Yawning while umpiring is not uncommon either, as well as fidgeting or looking around the hall at other matches.

Apart from being the cause of mistakes, it's very insulting to the players you are umpiring when you adopt this kind of behavior. Focus on the game you are supposed to be looking after, and even if the match is more boring than watching paint dry, don't show it on the outside. Put a bit of life into your voice when you call the score as well - a monotone call of the score for point after point shows your lack of interest in the match.

Know the Rules

As a player being called upon to umpire a match, you should have a working knowledge of the rules. While you may not need to know the intricacies of the expedite system in exhaustive detail, you should at least have a firm grip on the basic rules, such as service, let calls, and the penalty system. These are things you should know already as a player - how else can you hope to play table tennis fairly?

If you are an umpire only - your standard should be set a fair bit higher. The basic rules of Table Tennis should be at your instant recall, and the expedite or penalty system should be crystal clear to you. You should also have a working knowledge of the Handbook for Match Officials available from the ITTF website.

Enforce the Rules - But Which Ones?

This is a very contentious area in umpiring, and for good reason too. It's easy to say that every rule should be enforced, (and I've even argued that myself here) The main problem you will have is that there are quite a few rules to keep track of as an umpire, and if you tried to enforce each and every one you would be likely to cause a riot. As an example, according to point 7.1.5 of the ITTF Handbook for Match Officials, the umpire must check (emphasis mine) the racket covering against a list of currently authorized coverings. When was the last time at any tournament you saw an umpire do that? I don't think they even do that at the World Championships, unless they do it behind the scenes prior to a match.

So which rules are important, and which can be ignored? Well, that's a whole other can of worms. Everyone has an opinion about which rules are important and which aren't - the problem is that we generally pick which rules are important to us, and ignore those we don't care about. I'll try to give you a quick and dirty guide to which rules need to be enforced, and which don't.