Full Disclosure: I never knew how TT's scoring system read

Until now.

The 2014 US Nationals just wrapped up not that long ago and I was checking out the results of the men's final.

The scoring system format shown there is the same you'll find on ratingscentral.com. This is important to understand because if you've ever played in a tournament and wanted to look back on your past matches, you need to understand what things like −8 7 7 −10 8 means in order to know what exactly happened in your games.

−8 7 7 −10 8
?Does that say 7 to 10? #Confused
This was me.

Google table tennis scoring system and you'll get a slew of links talking about playing to 11, changing serve every 2 points, etc., but very little on how to read these score sheets. This issue is probably more of a me thing than anything else and I fully admit is an egg on face moment.

However if there is one person who reads this and is in the same predicament as I was in not understanding that system, then I'll own this and it'll be worth it.

Here's How It Works.

Take the final between Jim Butler and Kunal Chodri.

If you check the results link I posted above, you will see that Jim won and the scoresheet was...
9,-7,4,-4,13,-6,8

Thankfully the full match can be viewed here.

If you watch the match you will understand the following.

The score shown always refers to the winner of the match. 

• If the number is positive, the person who won the match won that game. 
• Since the winner naturally scored 11 or 2 more than the opponent, the positive number tells you what the loser's score was.
• ex: game 1: 9. meaning the score was 11 to 9
• If the number is negative, the person who won the match lost that game.
• Again, we know the other person scored 11 or 2 more than the opponent.

So if you're checking your prior matches from raitingscenteral.com, if you have more negative numbers than positive, obviously that means you lost. If you have more positive ones, you won that match.

So lets recap that final one more time.

We know that Jim won 9,-7,4,-4,13,-6,8

meaning...

Game 1:

Jim won 11 to 9 

Game 2:

Jim lost 7 to 11

Game 3:

Jim won 11 to 4

Game 4:

Jim lost 4 to 11

Game 5: 

Jim won 15 to 13

Game 6:

Jim lost 6 to 11

Game 7:

Jim won 11 to 8

Bada bing bada boom!

Hopes this has helped.