Table tennis is derived from lawn tennis and was initially played as after-dinner entertainment among upper-class English families who would use whatever they could find as equipment. At the time, they would place books on a table to serve as a net, the lids of cigar boxes for rackets and a rounded-off cork from a champagne bottle as the ball. Thankfully, table tennis equipment has evolved over time and in 1926 competitions were organised in Berlin and London, giving rise to the first world championships which were held in London that same year. Enormously popular in Asia, table tennis is played by over 40 million people around the globe, making it one of the most popular sports in the world.
Brief overview of the rules
Table tennis is played on a table divided into two halves by a net in the middle, using an extremely lightweight ball and sophisticated rackets or ‘paddles’ comprising a wooden blade coated with a rubber surface on both sides.
Singles matches are a best-of-seven games format, with the first player to 11 points (by a margin of two clear points) winning each game. Team matches consist of four singles matches and one doubles match, each played in a best-of-five games format. Each team consists of three players and matches end when a team has won three individual games. In doubles matches, players take turns to hit the ball.
Olympic history
Table tennis first appeared at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988, with singles and doubles competitions for men and women. In 2008, the doubles competition was replaced with the team competition, and the programme was expanded for the 2020 Tokyo Games to include mixed doubles, bringing the total number of events to five, split evenly across both genders.
Up until the mid-20th century, the sport was dominated by central European countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. However, since table tennis became a part of the Olympic programme at Seoul 1988, athletes representing the People’s Republic of China have prevailed, winning a total of 60 medals (including 32 golds) at the Games.
