Definition: In table tennis, a pop up occurs when a player misreads the amount of spin on the ball and the ball ‘pops up’ off his bat, going higher than the player intended, and often much shorter as well.
A pop up is typically caused by a player either thinking the ball has backspin when it actually has topspin, or at least a lot less backspin than the player thinks. A pop up can also occur if the ball has a lot more topspin than the player believes is on the ball.
Also Known As: pop-up