Table tennis is played by two players, or two pairs, on a table split by a net. You win a point when your opponent fails to return the ball properly. The official laws are written by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and used at every level, from the Olympic final to a Tuesday night league match in a church hall.
The table, the net and the ball
The table is 2.74m long, 1.525m wide and stands 76cm off the floor. The net is 15.25cm high. The ball is 40mm across, weighs 2.7g and is now made of plastic rather than celluloid; our guide to balls explains why it changed.
Your bat, which the laws call a racket, must have a black rubber on one side and a bright colour on the other. Red was the only option for decades. Since 2021 colours such as blue, green, pink and violet are allowed too, as long as one side is black. The point is that your opponent can see which side you hit with, because the two rubbers usually behave differently.
The serve
Every point starts with a serve. The rules are strict because a disguised serve is so hard to return.
You start with the ball resting on the flat, open palm of your free hand, behind the end of the table and above its height. You throw it up almost vertically, without spin, so that it rises at least 16cm, and hit it on the way down. The ball must bounce once on your side and then once on your opponent's side. You can't hide the ball from the receiver with your body or arm at any point.
If the serve touches the net and still lands on the right side, it is a let and you serve again. There is no limit to how many lets you can serve. The full details, and what umpires look for, are in what makes a serve legal.
The rally
After the serve, each player must hit the ball over or around the net so that it lands on the other side. You must let it bounce once on your side first. If it bounces twice, or you hit it before it bounces, you lose the point.
Hitting the ball before it bounces is called obstruction when the ball is above the table or travelling towards it. If your opponent's shot is clearly flying long and you catch it before it reaches the table, you lose the point, even though their shot would have missed. Let it go.
You also lose the point if you touch the playing surface with your free hand, move the table, or touch the net. Touching the table with your bat hand or your body is fine, as long as the table doesn't move.
Edges, sides and the bat hand
A ball that clips the top edge of the table is in play. A ball that hits the vertical side of the table is out. Telling the two apart is one of the hardest calls an umpire makes, and in club matches it is settled by the players.
You may hit the ball with your bat hand below the wrist, so a shot that comes off your fingers holding the bat is good. Hitting it with the other hand, or with the bat after you've thrown it, is not.
Winning a game and a match
A game is won by the first player to 11 points, unless the score reaches 10-10. Then you need a two-point lead, so a game can finish 12-10, 15-13 or longer. A match is usually the best of five games, or the best of seven at major events. Players change ends after every game, and in the deciding game they change when the first player reaches five points. Our guide to scoring has the detail.
The expedite rule
Two defenders can keep a rally going for minutes. To stop a game lasting all night, the expedite rule starts if a game has gone on for 10 minutes, unless at least 18 points have been scored. From then on, players serve one point each in turn, and if the receiver makes 13 good returns in a rally, the receiver wins the point. It is rare at the top level, but you'll see it in matches between defensive players.
In doubles
Doubles adds two rules. The serve must go diagonally, from the server's right-hand half of the table to the receiver's right-hand half. And partners must hit the ball alternately, so moving out of each other's way becomes half the skill. Doubles explained covers the order of serving and receiving.
Those rules cover nearly every point you'll play or watch. The rest of the laws deal with equipment, clothing, umpiring and the less common situations, such as the ball breaking mid-rally, which the umpire normally replays as a let.