The History of Table Tennis

Image credited to khemart

The history of table tennis began sometime in the 1880s as a parlor game in Britain and was played among the upper class as an after dinner sport; books were put along the center of the table as net while two more books were used as rackets to hit a golf ball from one end to the other.

The game was later played with racket made of cigar box lid and ball made of champagne corks. As the game became more popular manufacturers began to sell the equipment commercially. Several names was used for the sport and the most common names were wiff-waff , gossima and ping pong.

In the early days the sports were not successful because of the ineffective ball that was used to play the game; the rubber ball had too much bounce on it making it go wild, while the cork ball had too poor a bounce when used to play.

The Early years of the game
In the early days of the game Table tennis racket was made with parchment stretch on frame attached to a handle. Ping-pong was the nicknames giving to the games because of the sound generated when the game was played.

A significant event in the history of table tennis was in 1901 when the celluloid ball was introduced to the game by James Gibbs. The celluloid balls then replaced the rubber and cork ones, these made the sport more interesting because of the perfect bounce of the celluloid ball.

In the same 1901, E.C Goode invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled rubber to the wooden blade. The game was very popular in 1901, table tennis tournaments were being organized and table tennis book was being writing. An unofficial world championship was held in 1902.

The name ping-pong was trademarked by John Jaques and Son in 1901. A similar situation arose in the United States when Parker Brothers bought the right to the name from Jaques, only to be used in the US. These trademarks gave them exclusive right to the name and for only their ping-pong equipment to be used in table tennis tournaments and clubs.

As the name ping-pong and table tennis became more popular problems began to emerge because ,in England and the US two separate association was formed with different rules for the game, ping pong association and table tennis association.

In 1921 the Table Tennis Association was founded in Britain and in 1926 the International Table Tennis Association (ITTF) was formed. The first world championship was held in London, England. In 1933 the United State Table Tennis Association was founded.

The first elected president of the ITTF was Ivor Montagu and the ITTF constitution was drafted with the first set of table tennis rules.

The Era of the Sponge Bat
In the 1950s rackets that used a rubber sheet combined with an underlying sponge layer changed the game drastically, allowing greater spin and spend in play. These were manufactured in Britain by S.W Hancook Ltd.

The introduction of the sponge bat technology was the beginning of the Asian dominance the history of table tennis. The game became very popular in the Asian continent from the 1950s and the Chinese and Japanese players have dominated the game from the European countries.

In 1953 china entered the world championship for the first time. In 1962 the First All-Africa Table Tennis Championships was held in Alexandria, Egypt.

In 1971 the first commonwealth championship was held in Singapore. Table tennis played a very important role in international relations when teams were invited to china for friendly matches after the 1971 championship. This is where the term ping-pong diplomacy was derived.

The Modern Era
Table tennis was featured in the Olympic Games for the first time in 1988 held in Seoul, South Korea. In the modern Olympic era the Chinese was almost dominating the game.

In 1992 former World champion, Jan-Ove Waldner became the Olympic singles champion and he also became the first table tennis millionaire in the history of table tennis. In the 1995 World Championships held in Tianjin, China, the Chinese won all seven gold medals.

In the year 2000 after the Sydney Olympic, table tennis ball size was increased from the older 38mm balls to 40mm balls. This increases the ball air resistance and slows down the game for improved television viewing.

The ITTF also changed the rules of service to prevent players from hiding the ball during service, the reason for the change was to increase the average length of rallies and reduce the server’s advantage. In 2001 the game score was changed from 21 to 11 point in order to make the game more fast-paced and exciting.

At the World Championships held in Osaka, Japan, China for the third time won all of the seven gold medals. The Chinese has dominated the game for a very long time and they have collected more gold medals in the history of table tennis.

If you want to know more about the ping pong history, you can check out at wikipedia.

If you want to get some information about the history of ping pong, you may refer to
http://www.tabletennisspot.com/brief-table-tennis-history/