(by Steve Hopkins)

As Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) prepares to launch its third season this September, the league is once reimagining our sport with a rule change that will drastically affect doubles strategy – allowing “open serves”.

What does “Open Serve” mean in doubles? In table tennis, doubles players have always been required to serve diagonally from the right side of the table to the opponent’s right side. MLTT is tossing that tradition aside. In Season 3, players can now serve from anywhere on their side to anywhere on the opponent’s side, adding a whole new layer of strategy (and skill), and forcing all players to rethink placement and footwork and the patterns that have become commonplace in doubles table tennis at the highest levels.

This change could potentially level the playing field for left-handed players who have had a serving advantage (at least the appearance of a serving advantages as most left-handed players serve from that side of the table during singles play).  Commissioner Flint Lane called the old rule “completely arbitrary,” and it is – as every other analogous racquet sport includes some sort of alternating from side to side (or the ability to choose to change the side).

MLTT has always been on the front edge of rule innovations in table tennis.  They feature a service clock (allowing 18 seconds between most points), there is instant replay (allowing for challenge of nets and edges), they have a 10-10 “golden point” where a single sudden-death point decides the game, and this is the only league with a “golden game” where teams rotate in players every four points in a race to 21 that can decide an entire match.

Season 3 will also see MLTT’s expansion to 10 teams (adding the New York Slice and Atlanta Blazers).  And the league signed a deal with CBS Sports and is a part of what should be a new influx of money and viewership when the new season starts in September.

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