Quiet Eye Technique

Has anyone heard of the quiet eye technique ?From the link, " It refers to a gaze behaviour observed immediately prior to movement in aiming tasks.  An example of this is during a basketball free-throw: when a skilled individual prepares for their shot, they generally pause with their eyes steady on the target before initiating the movement of the shot.  The final pause where their gaze remains steady on a single location before the movement is defined as the QE in this task." ... "Similar gaze behaviour is seen in a number of other aiming based tasks such as archery, darts, golf, football, ice hockey, shooting, snooker table tennis, tennis, and a number of other sports."

Do you use the quiet eye technique at all or have any tips in how to apply it to table tennis? One of the ways I have found it useful, before even knowing about the technique, is staring at the ball for as long as possible when the opponent is going to serve.

What do you all think about this technique? Is it as applicable to table tennis as other sports in spite of the speed and reaction times needed in table tennis?


Edited by zephyr - 11/24/2015 at 12:34pm

I've never heard of it before. Interesting concept. I played basketball when I was younger. I also shoot handguns and a bow. I can see some similarities in targeting in all the activities.

If you look at pictures of the top pros hitting forehands, it seems that they don't watch contact point.


Which is contrast to tennis where, Federer for instance, watches the ball to contact and after.


This picture of wang liqin looks similar to the fed one though:

Nothing I'm saying is definitive, just trying to look for examples.

Great paper on gaze in tennis, which could be equatable to table tennis: http://www.internationaltennisacademy.net/resources/Research_proposal_Gaze_Lafont.pdf


Edited by zephyr - 11/24/2015 at 3:24pm

I have to use my peripheral vision at a certain point, but many players watch the ball all the way to contact....

Edited by LOOPMEISTER - 11/24/2015 at 4:50pm

I think the reason why Wang Hao is not watching the ball in the picture is because he is about to smash it. In this case he probably wants to watch his opponent, to get an idea where to hit, rather than watching the the ball right until contact. If there is no tricky spin on the ball there is very little chance to miss for a player of his class.

In most other pictures he also keeps the eye on the ball.

Edited by Da Baobei - 11/25/2015 at 4:34am

When receiving serve in TT it is more beneficial to watch the servers bat than the ball so you can read what he is about to do to it.