Table Tennis

History

Table tennis or ping-pong originated in England in the 1800’s as an afterdinner game and indoors substitute for lawn tennis. Today it’s not only played in Europe but also in Asia, especially China, Japan and Korea. The International Table Tennis Federation or ITTF was formed in 1926.

Stars

China has been the undisputed king of table tennis, often making a clean sweep of all the titles in the World Championships and Olympics and leading the world rankings in both individual and team events. Wang Liqin, Deng Yaping, Ma Long and Ma Lin from China are some outstanding players.

Kamlesh Mehta, Chetan Baboor, Indu Puri were some star Indian players. Achanta Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh and Manika Batra are some of the top–seeded TT players now.

Rules

Unlike tennis, the ball cannot be taken on the full or volley and has to touch the table on the player’s own side of the net for him to return it. The player who reaches 11 points first with a two-point difference wins that ‘game’ or ‘set’. The match winner is decided over best of five or seven or more ‘games’ or ‘sets’ as the case may be. Players can use different surfaces on each side of the bat to provide spin or speed.

Did You Know?

The talks between China and the United States in the 60’s were termed ‘Ping Pong Diplomacy’.