TABLE

TENNIS
History
 Ping pong, or table tennis as it is more
generally known in the US, has a long history
that dates back to Victorian England in the
1880s.

It was created as an indoor alternative to the well-

known game lawn tennis because it was too chilly
to play outside during the winter. Players of this
time employed homemade equipment.
On October 9, 1885, Devonshire submitted a patent
application for his "Table Tennis". The Provisional
Specifications were approved, according to the
Journal's edition from November 24, 1885. However,
the application was reported as abandoned in
January 1887. Again, no sign of Devonshire's game
or advertisement has been discovered; it is very
likely that it was never produced.
In 1890, the honor of patenting table tennis goes to
David Foster. It was called Parlour Table Games in
England in 1890.

His version of table tennis included cloth-

wrapped 30 mm rubber balls, big side netting
supported by timber fences and strung rackets.
As you can see, the game was significantly
dissimilar from what it is today. There were just
three rules, all of which were exceedingly simple.
One of them, to not play too harshly, was hardly
even a regulation at all. Foster appears to have
been fully aware of the problems with his table
tennis game as it was at the time.
Others developed different iterations of Foster's initial idea after he
held his first game of table tennis in 1890. A table tennis variation
known as "gossima" was created by John Jaques & Sons in 1891.
Using a 50mm ball, 30cm high net, and vellum drum rackets, gossima
is a sport similar to table tennis but with a few minor differences.
Large wooden net fixtures were fastened to the table with the help of
the white belt. Gossima and David Foster's table tennis, despite using
different equipment, struggled to improve their games. The cork
ball's lack of bounce was primarily the problem for gossima. Instead,
the tempo of the game was hampered by Foster's rubber balls'
excessive bounce.

“cork ball in table tennis” “rubber ball in table tennis”

But these problems were then solved by the introduction of a new material
for the ball.

James Gibb, an Englishman, is credited with introducing hollow celluloid

balls from the US to England in 1900, while some accounts assert they were
plastic balls. Most balls used to be made of solid rubber or cork that were
frequently wrapped in material.
After the game gained popularity in 1900, the Hamley brothers
registered the term “Ping Pong” as a trademark. Shortly after,
J. Given permission to use the name "Ping Pong," British
manufacturer Jaques & Son Ltd changed the name of their
game from "Gossima" to "Gossima or Ping Pong" and then just
"Ping Pong."

In the same year, the first club in England was founded. A year
later, 1901, the national Ping Pong Association was formed,
which merged with the Table Tennis Association a little later,
due to trademark problems with the name.

Three years later, in 1904, ping pong's renown began to fade as

the price of the ball and racket increased. But was then revived
in England and Europe 1922; standard laws were also created
for the game. In the same year, the Ping Pong Association was
renamed the Table Tennis Association.
 William Henry Lawes of Wymondham formed the
International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) on
1926. The nine founding nations were Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Germany,
Hungary, British India, Sweden, and Wales. With
227 member Associations worldwide, it serves as
the table tennis sport's global regulating body. The
ITTF is responsible for enforcing rules and
regulations and pursuing technological
advancements in the field of table tennis. The
World Table Tennis Championships, which have
been held annually since 1926, are just one of the
various international competitions that are
organized by the ITTF.
On the same year, from December 6 to December 11, 1926, London hosted
the inaugural World Table Tennis Championships. In the same year that
the International Table Tennis Federation was established, the
competitions were first staged as the European Championships. The first
World Championships were formally recognized in hindsight.
 The period between 1920 and 1950 is known as the classic
hard bat era due to the lack of sponge on the rackets at the
time. The racket employed, which has a significant impact
on the game's dynamics and strategy, is the primary
distinction between hardbat and contemporary table tennis.

Hardbat rackets have short, outward "pips" without sponge,

which causes them to spin less quickly than rackets with
sponge rubber. As a result, strokes are slower and the game
becomes more strategic as opposed to the fast-paced,
heavy topspin attacking style that characterizes traditional
table tennis. Even while the earlier word "ping-pong" is
frequently used as a generalized synonym for table tennis,
hardbat is occasionally expressly referred to as "ping-pong"
in contrast to contemporary "soft-bat" (i.e. sponge bat)
table tennis.
An interesting fact, the game once helped
end the cold war between the US and
China.
The ping pong game helped defrost frigid
diplomatic ties between the United States
and China that had existed since 1949.
The Chinese national team invited the
American team to play some ping-pong in
Beijing during the 1971 World Table
Tennis Championships in Japan.
And when the United States agreed, those
15 Americans accomplished what even
politicians and diplomats had failed to do:
they became the first Americans to travel
to the People's Republic of China in 22
years. Later, this era was referred to as
"ping pong diplomacy."
 In 1988, table tennis became an
official Olympic sport.
Table tennis has been gaining
popularity throughout the 20th
century. The inaugural World
Championships were held in London in
1926, but it took a long time before
the sport made its Olympic debut at
the 1988 Seoul Games. Since then,
athletes from the People's Republic of
China have dominated the sport,
taking home 32 of the sport's 37 gold
medals from 1988 through 2021.
 Today as many as 875 million
people all over the world love the
sport!
References:

Davis, K. (2021, June 10). How ping-pong turned the tables of the Cold War. #SixthTone.
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1007688

The history of Table tennis. facts about the game that some call Ping Pong. The History Of Table Tennis. Facts
About The Game That Some Call Ping Pong. (n.d.). https://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-table-
tennis.htm

HistoryofTableTennis. International Table Tennis Federation. (2017, November 30).

https://www.ittf.com/history/documents/historyoftabletennis/

Home. Cornilleau America. (n.d.). https://us.cornilleau.com/content/71-the-history-of-table-

tennis#:~:text=In%201890%2C%20Englishman%20David%20Foster,of%20tennis%20on%20a%20table.

Horscroft, A. (2022, December 21). The invention of Ping Pong - how did it all begin?. Ping Pong Ruler.
https://pingpongruler.com/table-tennis-history/

Letts, G. (2018, August 13). What are the origins of table tennis?. LiveAbout. https://www.liveabout.com/history-
of-table-tennis-ping-pong-
3173595#:~:text=1900%3A%20Englishman%20James%20Gibb%20is,cork%2C%20often%20covered%20in%20m
aterial.
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