Regional competition level table tennis, showing table, net, and player getting ready to return the ball with a winning backhand topspin stroke. Table tennis, also known as Ping-Pong (that name is trademarked), is the second most played sport in the world as well as the newest of the world's major sports. Ping pong ball (乒乓球 pīngpāng qiú) is the official name for the sport in China.
General description
Play is on a nine by five foot (2.7 m by 1.5 m) hard rectangular table with the surface usually painted green or dark blue. A 6 inch (15.25cm) tall net bisects along the short axis of the table and is strung to extend 6 inches (15.25cm) beyond the table on each side. The paddles, also known as bats or rackets, are usually about 15 cm across and made of rubber coated plywood, although the rules specify no particular size. The 40 mm diameter ball is hard, lightweight and made of cellulose. Play is fast and demands possibly the quickest reactions of any sport. A skilled player can impart spin to the ball which makes its bounce difficult to predict or return with confidence. The winner is usually the first to score 21 points although the International Rules were changed in 2001 to make the winning score 11 for international competition. The 21 point game is still widely played at recreational level.
History
Table tennis has its origins as an after dinner amusement for upper class Victorians in the 1880s. Mimicking the game of tennis in an indoor environment, everyday objects were originally enlisted to act as the equipment. A line of books would be the net, the top of a Champagne cork or knot of string the ball, and cigar box lids the paddles.
The popularity of this pastime led games manufacturers to sell the equipment commercially. Early paddles were often parchment stretched on a frame and the sound generated in play gave the game its first nick names of “Whiff-Whaff” and “Ping-Pong”. The name Ping-Pong was in wide use before English manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd registered it as copyright in 1901. The name ping pong then came to be used for the game played by the rather expensive Jaques equipment with other manufacturers calling theirs table tennis. A similar situation came to exist in the United States where Jaques sold the rights to the Ping-Pong name to Parker Bros.
The next major innovation was that by James Gibb, an English enthusiast, who discovered novelty celluloid balls on a trip to the US in 1901 and found them ideal for the game.
This was followed by E.C. Goode who, in 1903, invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled, or stippled, rubber to the wooden blade.
Around 1901 table tennis tournaments were being organised, books written and an unofficial world championship was held in 1902.
It was not until 1921 that a Table Tennis Association was founded in England, and the International Table Tennis Federation followed in 1926. London hosted the first official world championship in 1927.
Table tennis was banned in the Soviet Union starting in 1930 and the ban was not lifted until 1950. The reason? Authorities believed the sport was harmful to people's eyes.
Early in the 21st century, the 40 mm size of the ball was officially adopted to replace the older 38.1 mm (1.50 inch) balls. This was done to increase the ball's air resistance, to compensate for the recent tendency to increase the thickness of the fast sponge layer on the bats, in an effort to slow the game down again, hopefully making it possible to view the ball unblurred on television.
Equipment and gameplay
The international rules specify that it is played with a light (2.7 gram), 40 mm diameter high-bouncing hollow celluloid ball, on a table 2.74 m (9 feet) long, 1.525 m (5 feet) wide, and 76 cm (30 inches) high with a masonite or similarly manufactured timber, coated with a low-friction, smooth coating. The table or playing surface is divided into two halves by a 15.25 cm (6 inch) high net. Players are equipped with a wooden racket (also called bat or paddle) covered with rubber. One side must be black, the other side red. Also your opponent may inspect your racket before playing.
Normally a game is started by one player tossing up the ball and then hiding the caught ball under the table, the other player must guess which hand the ball is in, the correct or incorrect guess gives the "winner" the option to serve first or have his opponent serve first. A point is commenced by the player serving the ball by releasing the ball (behind and above the edge of the table) palm up and tossing it at least six inches and then hitting it such that it bounces in the half of the court closest to him, then in the opponent's half. The opponent must then hit it back so that it bounces in the server's half (not bouncing in his own half), and then the players alternate playing the ball and having it bounce on the opponent's side of the table until one makes an error. Errors can be:
- allowing the ball to bounce on one's own side twice
- not hitting the ball after it has bounced on one's own side
- having the ball bounce on one's own side after hitting it
- having the ball not bounce on the opponent's side after hitting it (unless the opponent hits the ball over the table before it bounced)
- failing to allow the ball to bounce once in one's own side—you are not allowed to hit the ball in mid-air over the playing surface before it hits your side of the table.
The other player is then awarded one point. Serves are alternated every two points (regardless of the winner) and still through "deuce" play for the game. Typically, games are played to 11 points and a player must win by at least a two point difference. After each game, players switch sides of the table and in the 5th or 7th, game "for the match", players switch sides when the first player scores 5 points, regardless of whose turn it is to serve. In competition play, matches are typically best of five or seven games. Before 2001, players alternated serves every 5 points and games would be played to 21 points and had to be won by at least 2 points.
In addition to games between individual players, table tennis may also be played by pairs. Singles and doubles are both played in international competition, including the Olympics.
Competition
 A Competition game played at the highest level . While popular around the world at a recreational level, most of the world's best competitive players are from China, but several world champion titles have also gone to Sweden. The game is popular in Europe and Asia with some extraordinary players. Skilled players exhibit extraordinarily swift reaction times, footwork and body control. Also, bat construction and new rubber technology (skilled to elite players typically select and attach the rubber to their own bats and glue them before every match) contribute significantly to the amount of deviation from the expected ball flight path. The fairly recent development of special glue speeds up the departure of the ball from the rubber considerably, though at the cost of some ball control.
Notes
- Table tennis was introduced at the Olympics in 1988.
- Table tennis inspired the first commercially successful video game, Pong.
- In the 1970s the Chinese invited American table tennis players to a tournament in China. This marked a thawing in relations with the United States that was followed up by a visit by U.S. president Richard Nixon. The popular media therefore dubbed this visit "Ping Pong Diplomacy".
- At the 1936 World Championships in Prague, two defensive players took over an hour to contest one point.
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