Are You Allowed to Stamp Your Foot When Serving? What About During the Rally?

Question: Are You Allowed to Stamp Your Foot When Serving? What About During the Rally?

Answer: Interestingly, there is no specific law that bans footstamping in table tennis. However, this does not mean that it is allowed under all circumstances. The ITTF have provided regulations in their Handbook for Match Officials that give the umpire the discretion to take action against a player that he believes is footstamping to gain an unfair advantage against an opponent.

17 BEHAVIOUR
17.1 Responsibility of the Umpire
17.1.1 Deliberately unfair or offensive behaviour is not common in table tennis and is usually limited to a small minority of players and coaches, but its effects may be very damaging and it is often difficult to control. Because misbehaviour can take many forms it is impractical to lay down precise rules, and setting and applying acceptable standards of conduct is more a matter of judgment and common sense than of factual decision.

17.1.2 The umpire should be ready to respond immediately to any sign that bad behaviour by a player or coach is likely to be unfair to an opponent, to offend spectators or to bring discredit to the sport. If he tolerates early lapses in good behaviour, however trivial, without even a disapproving glance he will find it much harder to impose proper discipline if these lapses later become more persistent or serious.

17.2.2 When, however, the umpire believes that an opponent may have been adversely affected or that the behaviour is likely to offend spectators or otherwise to be detrimental to the sport he should immediately declare a let and formally warn the offender, by holding up a yellow card, that further misbehaviour will incur penalties.

17.2.4 It should be remembered that, once a formal warning has been given, subsequent offences must automatically be penalised by the award of points. The umpire should not be afraid to use this procedure when it is justified, but if a formal warning is given too readily he may find that he has to penalise a player at a critical stage of a match for an offence that to many people may appear trivial.

The summary of all these regulations is that if the umpire believes a player's footstamping is affecting an opponent unfairly, whether during the service or the rally, then the umpire has the power to call a let and warn the player who is footstamping to stop doing so. If the player continues to stamp his foot, the umpire is empowered to award penalty points against the player in favor of his opponent.

However, if the umpire does not feel the player's footstamping is unfairly affecting his opponent (such as if the playing hall is noisy, and the footstamping is not distracting to the opponent), then the umpire can also decide not to take action until the footstamping becomes loud enough to distract the opponent unfairly.