Table Tennis: A Growing Sport in the U.S.

 By: Bhani Sethi

  Competitive table tennis has been very popular in East Asia and Europe, and now it has been gaining a lot of attention in the United States.
Table tennis is governed by the worldwide organization the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), which was founded in 1926. As of right now there are 200 countries that are part of the organization. Table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988 and is under several event categories. Until 2004, the categories were men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, and women’s doubles. Since 2008, the doubles have been replaced with team competitions. Some of the well-known players from America are Jasna Fazlić, Leah Neuberger, Ilija Lupulesku, and Peggy McLean.
The sport was invented in Victorian England, the upper-class played it as an after-dinner parlor game. In the 1860s and 1870s, similar versions of Table tennis developed by British military officers in India who spread the popularity of the sport. The British military used a row of books as a net on the table and two books were used as rackets. They also used a golf ball as instead of a ping-pong ball.  

The name, ping-pong, was used to describe the game using the expensive equipment from the J.Jaques & Son Ltd, but it was used before the British company trademarked it in 1901. Other manufactures called the game table tennis.  Jaques sold the rights for the ping pong name to Parker Brothers. In the 1920s, the Parker Brothers changed the name back to table tennis. James W. Gibb discovered celluloid balls on a trip to the US in 1901. E.C. Goode in 1901 invented the modern version of the racket, by attaching a sheet of rubber to the wooden blade. In the 1950s S.W. Handcock Ltd. Introduced the rubber paddles with a sponge layer to Britain, creating better spin and speed.
By 1901 table tennis was becoming so popular that unofficial rules were developed and in 1902 an unofficial world tournament occurred. In 1921, the Table Tennis Association was created in Britain and in 1926 the International Table Tennis Federation was formed. In 1926, London held the first official World Championships and in 1933, the USA Table Tennis (United States Table Tennis Association) was formed.
The object of the game is to score 11 points before the opponent does. If the score is tied at ten points then the first person to establish a two point lead wins. A match consists of winning the best of any odd number, usually three, five, or seven games. Every player gets two serves, before switching the ping pong ball to the opponent. Players hit the ball back and forth over the net and must only allow a ball that is hit towards them bounce once on their side of the table and must return it so that it bounces on the opposite sides at least once. A point is scored when a player fails to hit the ball so that it bounces on the opposite side. Spinning the ball changes the course and limits an opponent’s chances of giving back the ball.
To learn more about Tennis Table, one can go to www.allabouttenistable.com and www.teamusa.org. One can go to Boston University Fitness and Recreation at 915 Commonwealth Ave Boston, MA 02215 to watch and partake in games.
Sources:

www.allabouttenistable.com

www.teamusa.org

www.pongworld.com

www.tabletennis.org.au

www.experttabletennis.org

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall04/baksh/history.html