ABSTRACT
Facing a game situation or a prolonged exercise in table tennis, the player has to adapt as much to the energy requirements as to the level of motion performance. A player wanting to win the rally will have to keep up a high level of precision, a stable movement execution and a quality of footwork, despite fatigue which increases with the number of strokes. These constraints are increased by the new rules in table tennis: as the new ball is bigger (40 mm) and heavier (4.2 g), it moves forward more slowly and thus, tends to increase the duration of rallies (Sève, 2001; Yquel, 2001). These alterations should influence the energetic cost and require technical and tactical adjustments from the player (Durand, 1992). Since adaptation processes depend on practice level (Abernethy et al., 1994), a difference between national level and regional level players might be expected.
