Table tennis rules, from the player's side of the table

Law 2.11.1: a game is won by the first player or pair to score 11 points, unless both reach 10, when the game is won by the first to lead by two.

There is no upper limit. 10-all can go to 12-10, 15-13 or further; the only thing that eventually forces it to move is the expedite system, and even that speeds the rallies up rather than ending the game.

A match is the best of any odd number of games (2.12.1). Best of five is the usual individual format, and the phrase you will hear from the umpire is the score with the server's number first.

Every point is a point. Table tennis has used rally scoring since the switch to 11 in 2001 — you score whether you served or received, which is not true of every racket sport and is worth saying explicitly for anyone arriving from squash's older system or from pickleball.

The service laws are the most enforced part of the rulebook and the part most club players get away with breaking. Five requirements, all from Law 2.6:

1. 2.6.1 — The ball rests freely on the open palm of a stationary free hand. Not held in the fingers, not in a cupped hand.
2. 2.6.2 — It is thrown near-vertically upwards, without spin, rising at least 16 cm after leaving the palm, and falls without touching anything before it is struck.
3. 2.6.3 — It is struck as it falls, so that it touches your court first and then, directly, the receiver's court. In doubles it must touch the right half-court of the server and then the right half-court of the receiver.
4. 2.6.4 — From the start of service until it is struck, the ball is above the playing surface and behind the end line, and it must not be hidden from the receiver by you, your partner, or anything you wear or carry.
5. 2.6.5 — As soon as the ball is thrown, the free arm and hand come out of the space between the ball and the net.

Sixteen centimetres is roughly the height of four balls stacked, and it is judged by eye — no umpire carries a ruler. The hiding rule is the one that ends most arguments: the receiver has to be able to see the ball from the moment it leaves your hand.

One warning, then no more. 2.6.6.1: if the umpire is unsure about a service, they may interrupt play and warn you once in a match. Any later service by you or your doubles partner that is not clearly legal is called incorrect. The warning is per match, not per game, and it covers your partner as well as you.

Law 2.13.3: after each two points the receiver becomes the server, and so on until the end of the game, unless both reach 10 points or the expedite system is in operation, when the sequence stays the same but each player serves for only one point in turn.

So at 0-0, one player serves points one and two. The other serves three and four. At 10-all the pattern compresses to one serve each, and it stays compressed for the rest of the game however long it runs.

Between games, the first server becomes the first receiver. 2.13.6: the player or pair serving first in a game receives first in the next game of the match. You do not need to remember who started the match; you only need to remember who served first in the game that just finished.

Score	Who serves
0-0 to 1-1	Player A (two points)
2-0 to 3-1	Player B (two points)
…	alternating every two
10-10	one serve each, alternating
Next game	whoever received first in the last game

Doubles is where table tennis differs most sharply from every other racket sport, because the partners must alternate strokes. Law 2.8.2: the server serves, the receiver returns, then the server's partner plays, then the receiver's partner, and so on in that sequence for the whole rally. You cannot take two balls in a row, however easy the second one is.

The service rotation follows from that. 2.13.5: at each change of service the previous receiver becomes the server, and the partner of the previous server becomes the receiver. Written as a cycle with pairs AB and XY, where A serves first to X:

Service	Server	Receiver
1st	A	X
2nd	X	B
3rd	B	Y
4th	Y	A
then repeats	A	X

2.13.4 covers the start of each game: the pair with the right to serve chooses which of them serves, and in the first game the receiving pair chooses who receives. In later games the first server is chosen, and then the first receiver is fixed — it is the player who served to that server in the preceding game.

And one rule that exists only in doubles, only in the last game: 2.13.6 — in the last possible game of a doubles match the pair due to receive next changes its order of receiving when the first pair scores 5 points. It happens at the same moment as the change of ends, which is how most players remember it.

The serve itself is also different: right half-court to right half-court (2.6.3), and the centre line counts as part of both right half-courts (2.1.6), so a serve that clips the line is good.

Ends change after every game (2.13.7). In the last possible game of a match they change again when the first player or pair scores 5 points — not at the interval, mid-game, and the umpire will stop play to make it happen.

What you are entitled to between and during games, from Regulation 3.4.4:

Entitlement	Detail
Interval between games	Up to 1 minute (3.4.4.1.1)
Towelling	Brief break after every 6 points from the start of each game, and at the change of ends in the last possible game (3.4.4.1.2)
Time-out	One per match, up to 1 minute, requested by you or your adviser between rallies (3.4.4.2)

The towelling rule is worth knowing precisely, because umpires apply it strictly: after every six points means at 6, 12, 18 and so on in the combined score, not whenever you feel warm.

If a game has run ten minutes and fewer than 18 points have been scored between you, the umpire introduces the expedite system (2.15.1, 2.15.2). Two things change and neither is subtle:

• Each player serves one point in turn for the rest of the game.
• If the receiver makes 13 correct returns in a rally, the receiver wins the point (2.15.4).

That second clause turns the match around. Under expedite the server has to win the rally within thirteen returns or lose it, which means the pressure moves from the defender to the attacker. A chopper who was happy to rally for two minutes now has the advantage on every one of their opponent's serves.

Once introduced, expedite stays for the rest of the match (2.15.6), including the games that follow. And it can be brought in early: 2.15.1 allows it at any time when both players or pairs request it. If you are both tired of a long defensive game, you can agree to it.