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PLEASANTON, Calif. — Portland’s Nikhil Kumar (SPINDEX: 2760) tosses the ball in the air and rattles it on the table. Sid Naresh (2673) stands to his right, and the Florida Crocs’ Chihwei Yeh (2680) and Carlos Hernandez (2623) await the serve. Kumar has made these serves many times before; the Paddlers often turn to him for their doubles matches. He's long since memorized the century-old rules for serving. Kumar must serve from the right side of his end of the table, and the ball must travel in a diagonal line and hit the opponent’s right side.

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Kumar doesn't plan to follow those rules. He told Naresh right before this moment that he was going to serve the ball right down the middle, where it would hit the Crocs' left side of the table. He's never been allowed to do that before now. That plan would have been shot down every time over the last 100 or so years. But on this serve, and on all Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) serves going forward, he can serve that way. This stark rejection of the rulebook is not only completely legal, it’s being encouraged.

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MLTT made a lot of rule changes leading up to the league’s third season, but none were bolder than open serve doubles. No more limits on how and where a player can serve in a doubles match. The server can now line up anywhere they want, and now, they can hit it anywhere they want. That rule would take effect on the first serve of the first match of Season 3, and Kumar’s plan at that moment was to ensure it would.

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“I definitely wanted to take advantage of the new rules, given that it [was] open serve,” Kumar told Table Tennis TV.

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This change was not met with complete acceptance at first. Even Kumar had his doubts when he first heard the news. This is a massive change to the current rules, the only doubles rules the Olympian has ever followed. And now, as Kumar stands behind this table, with the ball in his hand, every MLTT player’s understanding of how to serve in doubles will be altered as soon as Kumar hits this ball.

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“Many players, including me, were quite skeptical of [the rule change],” Kumar said. Being professional players, we’re very used to what exactly is already set up, the common general rules and everything.”

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That skepticism wouldn’t stop Kumar. It couldn’t. The Paddlers now needed Kumar, the only southpaw on the team, to perform well in a doubles format that benefited left-handed players more than ever before. That necessity would start with this serve. A serve with a ball that Kumar tosses into the air. A serve that is about to change table tennis history.

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Because for the first time in nearly 100 years, the ball goes right down the middle.

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It reaches the paddle of Hernandez, who hits it back to the other side of the table toward Naresh. Naresh hits the ball back to Hernandez before Yeh scurries to his left and smacks the ball toward Naresh. But he hits it a little too hard, and the ball soars over the table. Kumar and Naresh win the first-ever point of the open serve doubles era.

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That point would eventually earn Portland the game, their first of three to sweep the set. It was a dominant showing from the Paddlers, whose fears, worries and anxiety surrounding this change had all dashed away by then.

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And it will stay away as long as they continue to perform like Kumar and Naresh did in that first doubles match.

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“It is definitely not as strange as I was afraid of what it would be, because it’s a new thing,” Paddlers coach Christian Lillieroos said. “We can train all day long, [but] when we’re going to a competition moment, that’s when it really counts,”

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You can catch more open serve doubles points when MLTT returns for its second week of Season 3 on Sept. 19, exclusively on Table Tennis TV. Sign up now for two weeks free.

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