57 Fun Facts About Ping Pong

Table tennis switched to a bigger ball in 2000 to get what?

Slower play: the 40 mm ball, 2 mm wider than the old one, travels more slowly through the air, a change meant to lengthen rallies and make them easier to follow on television.

How is a table tennis game decided once the score reaches 10–10?

Two clear points: from 10–10 play simply runs on, with no cap on the score, until one player leads by two. Before 2001 a game ran to 21 points.

Since games were cut to 11 points in 2001, how often does the serve change hands in table tennis?

After every two points, down from five in the old 21-point game; at 10–10 the serve starts changing hands after every single point.

What do the rules require of the colour of a table tennis table's playing surface?

Uniformly dark and matt is all the rules ask of the 9 ft by 5 ft surface's colour, apart from white lines 2 cm wide along its edges; no particular colour is named.

What is the call when a table tennis serve clips the net but still lands in the receiver's court?

A let: the rally isn't scored and the serve is simply taken again, with no limit on how many times in a row that can happen; the net it clips stands just 15.25 cm high.

What is the ruling when a table tennis shot clips the top edge of the opponent's side?

It counts as good: the top edge is part of the playing surface, so an 'edge ball' stands however wildly it kicks, while a ball that strikes the vertical side is out.

Under ITTF rules, one side of the paddle's rubber must always be which colour?

Black must cover one side and a bright colour the other, so an opponent can see which rubber struck the ball: the two can spin it very differently. Pink, violet, green and blue joined red in October 2021.

When a table tennis serve is struck, the ball must be above table height and where?

Behind the end line, from the toss until the hit, so a serve struck over the table is a fault. The line is treated as running on sideways without end, which lets a server stand as wide as they like.

Which US game company bought the 'ping-pong' name and enforced the trademark in the 1920s?

Parker Brothers held the US rights to the name 'Ping-Pong' and enforced them in the 1920s, forcing American associations to call the sport 'table tennis' instead.

When Victorians first played table tennis after dinner, what stood in a row along the table as a net?

Books stood in for the net, and accounts differ on the rest: more books or cigar-box lids as bats, a golf ball or a champagne cork as the ball. It was lawn tennis shrunk to fit the dining table.

Which actor plays 1950s ping-pong hustler Marty Mauser in the 2025 film Marty Supreme?

Timothée Chalamet's Marty Mauser is loosely based on Marty Reisman, a real New York champion who hustled matches for money and called his memoir The Money Player.

Since July 2014, ITTF events have used plastic balls in place of balls made from which older material?

Celluloid balls made the game: Englishman James Gibb is credited with finding them as novelties on a trip to America, and they suited table tennis so well that it took off.

E. C. Goode created the modern paddle in the early 1900s by fixing what to its blade?

Pimpled rubber replaced the vellum and cork faces that came before it. A sponge layer under the rubber followed in the 1950s and made the game far faster and spinnier.

The first official World Championships, in 1926, were held in which city?

London staged it in December 1926. It had been planned as a European championship and became the first World Championships.

By ITTF rule, at least 85% of a paddle blade's thickness must be which material?

Natural wood must make up at least 85% of the blade, which is why the carbon fibre in some bats is only a thin reinforcing layer: the rule caps each such layer at 7.5% of the thickness or 0.35 mm.

What does the ITTF rulebook call the bat or paddle?

Racket is the rulebook's word, even though the thing has no strings: players say 'bat' in Britain and 'paddle' in North America, and the ITTF uses neither.

Which grip, long favoured by East Asian players, curls three fingers against the back of the blade?

Penhold players long had a weak backhand. In the 1990s Chinese players fixed it by hitting with the back of the bat, a stroke called the reverse penhold backhand.

Yoo Nam-kyu, the first Olympic men's singles champion in table tennis, represented which country?

South Korea had both finalists: Yoo Nam-kyu beat his compatriot Kim Ki-taik for the gold. China, the sport's superpower, won only the doubles among the men's events that year.

Table tennis became an Olympic sport at which Games?

Seoul 1988 was a cold start: table tennis had never been a demonstration sport, the trial run the IOC usually asked of newcomers, and went straight in as a full medal event.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, what replaced the men's and women's doubles?

Team competitions replaced the doubles at Beijing 2008; China swept all six singles medals there, prompting a limit of two singles entries per nation from 2012.

Which country beat China to win the first Olympic mixed doubles table tennis gold, in 2021?

Japan's Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito beat Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen 4-3 on home tables in Tokyo. It was the country's first Olympic table tennis gold, and China's only defeat in the five events.

Jan-Ove Waldner, 'the Mozart of table tennis', won 1992 Olympic singles gold for which country?

Sweden had the one player China could not stop in Barcelona: Chinese players won the other three golds, while Waldner beat France's Jean-Philippe Gatien for his.

Because of his extraordinary longevity, Waldner is known in China by what nickname?

Chinese fans call Waldner 'the Evergreen Tree' (Chang Qing Shu) for a top-level career stretching from the early 1980s into his forties; in the 1990s he was reportedly better known in China than Bill Clinton.

Through the 2024 Games, which Chinese player is the only table tennis athlete with six Olympic gold medals?

Ma Long never lost an Olympic event he entered: team gold in 2012 and 2024, and the singles and team double at both Games between. In 2012 China's two singles places had gone to others.

A table tennis 'Grand Slam' means singles titles at the Olympics, the World Championships and which third event?

The World Cup is the third leg. Jan-Ove Waldner completed the first Grand Slam in 1992, and every player to match him through 2024 has been Chinese.

Which player completed the career Grand Slam in a record 445 days, ending in 2012?

Zhang Jike went from his first world title in May 2011 to Olympic gold in August 2012. His opponent in that final, Wang Hao, lost a third straight Olympic singles final.

Paris 2024 men's singles champion Fan Zhendong is affectionately known by what nickname?

Little Fatty, Xiao Pang in Chinese, is what fans call the stocky Fan Zhendong. His Paris gold completed the Grand Slam, the full set of the sport's three biggest singles titles.

Why was future four-time Olympic champion Deng Yaping initially kept off China's national team?

She was too short, selectors said: Deng stands 1.50 m. Once on the team she won a world doubles title within a year, then both the singles and doubles golds at the 1992 and 1996 Games.

Angelica Rozeanu, who won six consecutive women's world singles titles, played for which country?

Romania's champion from 1936, Rozeanu lost the war years, came back to win the world singles title every year from 1950 to 1955, and moved to Israel in 1960.

Viktor Barna, a record five-time men's world singles champion in the 1930s, was born in which country?

Hungary's Barna won five world singles titles between 1930 and 1935. His reign ended in 1936, when fellow Hungarian Ferenc Soos knocked him out in the last 32.

Ivor Montagu, who founded the ITTF in 1926, also worked on films with which director?

Alfred Hitchcock's stalled silent thriller The Lodger was reworked by Montagu in 1926, the year he launched the ITTF, and he went on to produce several of the director's 1930s films.

Which future Wimbledon champion won the men's singles world table tennis title in Budapest in 1929?

Fred Perry was world table tennis champion at 19, before his lawn tennis career had begun. Five years later he won the first of three straight Wimbledon titles.

Ping-pong diplomacy began in 1971 when American player Glenn Cowan ended up riding with China's team aboard what?

A bus: the Chinese players had orders not to speak to Americans, but their star Zhuang Zedong stepped forward and shook Cowan's hand. Within days the whole US team was invited to China.

What gift did Chinese champion Zhuang Zedong hand American player Glenn Cowan when they met in 1971?

A silk portrait of mountains: it showed China's Huangshan range. Cowan answered the next day with a T-shirt bearing a peace symbol and the words 'Let It Be'.

Ping-pong diplomacy in 1971 paved the way for which US president's visit to China the following year?

Richard Nixon announced within three months of the matches that he too had been invited. The players were the first American delegation in China in over twenty years; he was the first US president to go.

Rong Guotuan, who in 1959 became China's first world champion in any sport, grew up in which city?

Hong Kong was home until 1957: born and raised there, Rong moved to the mainland and within two years came back from the World Championships a national hero.

In Forrest Gump, what does Forrest buy with the money he earns for endorsing a ping-pong paddle?

A shrimp boat: Forrest spends the endorsement money on one to keep a promise to his army friend Bubba, and it makes him rich. He had picked up the game while recovering from a war wound.

Which actor co-starred with Dan Fogler in the 2007 ping-pong comedy Balls of Fury?

Christopher Walken plays Feng, a ping-pong-mad crime lord: the FBI sends a washed-up former prodigy into his secret tournament to bring him down.

The 1972 arcade game Pong was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise at which company?

Atari's first machines kept 'breaking down' in bars for a happy reason: their coin boxes had overflowed with quarters. The game had begun as a practice task for a new engineer.

Pong's concept was based on a ping-pong game included with which pioneering home console?

Magnavox Odyssey's table tennis game was demonstrated to Nolan Bushnell in May 1972, months before Pong appeared. Magnavox sued Pong's maker, which settled in 1976 by buying a licence.

In 1975, the home version of Pong was sold exclusively through which retailer?

Sears sold Home Pong under its own Tele-Games name for Christmas 1975, after a buyer in its sporting-goods department championed it. The console's success spawned a wave of clones.

At the 1936 World Championships, the opening point of one table tennis match lasted roughly how long?

2 hours and 12 minutes, in fact: neither defender would attack, and one of them, Alex Ehrlich, played chess at the tableside to pass the time. Time limits followed, the root of today's expedite rule.

Under table tennis's expedite rule, who wins a rally that reaches 13 returns?

The receiver wins it, so a server can no longer push the ball back for ever and has to attack. The rule usually starts when a game is still going after ten minutes, and each player then serves one point in turn.

During a table tennis rally, a player loses the point if what touches the table top?

Their free hand, the one not holding the bat, may never touch the playing surface while the ball is in play. A bat or a sleeve brushing the table costs nothing unless it moves the table.

Chinese-born Feng Tianwei, who won three Olympic table tennis medals, represented which country?

Singapore had waited 48 years for an Olympic medal when Feng's team took silver in 2008. Her singles bronze in 2012 was the country's first individual medal since 1960.

The ITTF has its headquarters in which Swiss city, also home to the International Olympic Committee?

Lausanne is home to the IOC, which calls the city the Olympic Capital, and federations for sports from rowing to volleyball have gathered there. The ITTF's first museum opened in the city too.

Timo Boll, world No. 1 in 2003, 2011 and 2018, played for which country?

Germany chose Boll to carry its flag at the 2016 Olympic opening ceremony. He never won an Olympic singles medal, but took four with the team and eight European singles titles.

Which performance-boosting substance, used on table tennis bats from the 1980s, did the ITTF outlaw in 2008?

Speed glue wore off within hours, so players kept re-gluing their rubbers. Its solvent fumes were judged a health risk, and the 2008 Olympics were the last event where it was allowed.

The 'World Championship of Ping Pong' requires wooden paddles covered with what?

The event uses plain wooden bats faced with sandpaper, so spin is minimal; 'hardbat', the related variant with short pips and no sponge, similarly strips out most of the modern game's spin.

Which attacking stroke brushes the ball to produce heavy topspin?

The loop grazes the ball to load it with topspin, so it dips onto the table and then kicks forward off the bounce. Players perfected it in the 1960s, and most top attackers now rely on it.

Richard Bergmann, a world team champion at 16 and singles champion at 17, first played for which country?

Austria won the 1936 world team title with Bergmann, then 16, in the side, and he took the singles crown a year later. His three later singles titles came as a British player.

In table tennis, what is the ruling if a player volleys the ball while it is still above the table?

They lose the point for obstruction. The law bites only while the ball is above or heading for the table, so catching a shot that has already flown past the end costs nothing.

In doubles, a serve must bounce in which part of the receiver's court?

The right half-court is the target at both ends: the serve must cross from the server's right half to the receiver's. The white centre line exists only for this, and a serve that lands on it counts as in.

ITTF rules cap a paddle's rubber at 4 mm but set no limit on which feature?

Overall size is free: the laws allow a bat of any size, shape or weight. Oversized ones are legal but unwieldy, which is why nearly all are about 15 cm across.

In table tennis, a chop, the classic defensive stroke, puts which kind of spin on the ball?

Heavy backspin: the bat cuts down the back of the ball to cancel an attacker's topspin, and a good chop floats back so loaded that the ball can seem to rise.

In table tennis doubles, unlike tennis doubles, what must partners do throughout a rally?

Take turns hitting the ball: the four players must strike it in a fixed order, and a pair that hits out of turn loses the point. They may stand wherever they like.

In table tennis, what is the ruling if the ball comes off the fingers of your bat hand and lands in?

A legal return: the laws count the bat hand below the wrist as part of the bat, so a ball off the knuckles or fingers stands as a good shot.