Table tennis, often known as ping pong, has come a long way from its introduction as a leisure among upper-class English families in the early twentieth century, to become one of the most popular sports in the world, with Asia, particularly China, serving as its powerhouse.
The Ping-Pong Association was founded in 1902, and while the sport originated in England, it spread to other countries in the 1920s.
The Fédération Internationale de Tennis de Table (ITTF) was created in 1926, marking the first step towards internationalisation. The initial members were England, Sweden, Hungary, India, Denmark, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Wales. As of 2024, the ITTF had 227 member associations.
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Table tennis made its Olympic debut in Seoul in 1988, with men and women competing in singles and pairs. In Beijing in 2008, the doubles competition was replaced by a team competition. In Tokyo 2020, the mixed doubles event was introduced to the sport, bringing the total number of medal events to five, evenly split among both genders.
While Central European countries used to be the dominant power in table tennis, China has dominated the sport in recent decades, earning a total of 60 medals, including 32 of the 37 gold medals awarded at the Olympics since its inception in 1988.
Table tennis is exactly what it sounds like playing tennis on a table split in half by a net.
Athletes utilise incredibly lightweight plastic balls measuring 40 millimetres. Table tennis racquets are composed of laminated wood with a rubber coating on one or both sides, rather than having strings in the core.
Singles matches are played in a best-of-seven style, with the first player to achieve 11 points winning each game. Team events consist of four singles matches and one doubles match, each of which is played in a best-of-five style. A team is made up of three players, and a match ends when a team wins three individual games.
| Event | Winner(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Women’s singles | Chen Meng | China |
| Women’s team | Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu | China |
| Men’s singles | Ma Long | China |
| Men’s team | Fan Zhendong, Ma Long, Xu Xin | China |
| Mixed doubles | Jun Mizutani, Mima Ito | Japan |
The table tennis event at the next Olympic Games in Paris will include 172 participants from 60 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), split evenly between men's and women's categories.
| Category | Players | Reserve Player |
|---|---|---|
| Men’s Team | Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar | G. Sathiyan |
| Men’s Singles | Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai | - |
| Women’s Team | Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath | Ayhika Mukherjee |
| Women’s Singles | Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula | - |
The table tennis competition runs from July 27 until August 10. The singles competitions took place throughout the first week, with the women's final on August 3 and the men's final on August 4. The team events take place in the second week, with men's medals presented on August 9 and women's team medals on August 10.
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