Table tennis is a racket-and-ball sport played between two players or doubles teams, similar to tennis but on a table as its name suggests.
By whom, where and when was Table Tennis invented?
It is thought that upper-class Victorians in England invented table tennis in the 1880s as a genteel, after-dinner alternative to lawn tennis, using whatever they could find as equipment. A line of books would often be the net, the rounded top of a champagne cork would be the ball and occasionally a cigar box lid would be a racket.
In 1926, meetings were held in Berlin and London that led to the formation of the International Table Tennis Federation.
It is estimated there are 40 million competitive table tennis players and countless millions playing recreationally, making it the sport with the most participants worldwide.
What are the rules of Table Tennis?
Exact scoring rules may differ from tournament to tournament and even round to round within an event, but generally matches are best-of-5- or best-of-7-games. Within each game, the first player to 11 points with a 2-point cushion takes the game. There are also rules regarding what type of paddles are legal.
Table tennis and the Olympics
The first World Championships were held in London in 1926, but the sport had to wait a long time before it was given its Olympic debut at the 1988 Seoul Games. Athletes from the People's Republic of China have dominated the sport, winning 32 of 37 gold medals from 1988 to 2021.
Best Table Tennis players to watch
While Chinese paddlers such as Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, and others remain at the top of the sport and the best players in the world, a wide variety of teams have produced players able to go deep in tournaments, including Germany, Japan, Sweden, Brazil, Chinese Taipei, Slovenia, and Nigeria. And watch out for the French brothers Felix and Alexis Lebrun.
Table Tennis competition rules and event format at Paris 2024
All events in table tennis, including the team events, were held as single-elimination direct knockout brackets. Top players usually received byes to the second and third rounds. In the team events, the first team to win three rubber matches out of five won each tie.
