History of Ping-Pong

The game of tennis was always popular among the wealthy classes of Europe and that tends to be the case today. Ping-pong, also known as table tennis, was also birthed from the society that relished the game of tennis. During parties, people would try to recreate the game of tennis inside of their homes, and the result was the game of ping-pong. Since it was originated, it has become a popular and widely played sport that is even part of the Olympic games.

  1. History

    • Ping-pong originated in England during the 1880s. It was a popular social game that was played at parties, when tennis courts could not be used. Household objects such as books and champagne corks were used as paddles, nets and balls. It became a more technical game as it developed in England, the United States and Japan. Soon, companies such as J. Jacques & Son and Parker Brothers began to manufacture ping-pong sets in the early 1900s. In 1921, the Table Tennis Association was created to organize the game in England. Five years later, the International Table Tennis Foundation brought the sport global. The game became an Olympic sport in 1988, and in the 2008 Olympics, the first team event was introduced.

    Identification

    • Ping-pong is a very easy game to identify. It is played on a table that is longer than it is wide. It is divided down the middle widthwise and lengthwise by stripes that divide the table into quadrants. Cutting the table in half widthwise is a net. Each person gets a paddle, and there is one ping-pong ball played at a time. Paddles started out as cigar box tops, transformed into parchment spread over a wire frame and eventually evolved into what they are today. When the balls began to be manufactured, they changed little, though various sizes were created as the game evolved over time.

    Size

    • When ping-pong first started, the size of the table, rackets and ball were not specified or enforced. However, once solid rules were created by the various ping-pong organizations, this was not the case. Today, the typical ping-pong table is 274 centimeters in length, 152.5 centimeters in width, and 76 centimeters in height. The most common ping-pong ball used is 40 millimeters in diameter, but there are other ball sizes, including 44 and 54-millimeter varieties.

    Function

    • The tournament rules for ping-pong were developed in the 1920s and have not changed much since then. The game is played with either two players, or four players that make up two teams. A coin toss determines who serves first. The server tosses the ping-pong ball in the air at least 16 centimeters and the two sides hit the ping-pong ball back and forth. The ball must be above the table at all times. A person scores when they serve a ball that bounces on the opponent's side more than once before being hit back, or when their opponent hits a ball that does not bounce on their side of the table.

    Geography

    • Ping-pong developed separately in various countries until the International Table Tennis Foundation was set up in 1926. Even then, though, players in different countries continued to practice slight variances in their style of play. This can be seen, for example, in the way players hold their rackets. Asian players tend to use a penhold technique, which is named because they hold the racket like one would hold a pen or a pencil, with three fingers supporting the back of the racket head.