
40 Fun Facts about Ping Pong
Ping Pong has been around for decades! It’s a fun game that brings tennis to a tabletop, indoors or out. Let’s look at some awesome facts about Ping Pong!
- It can be played at any age! Whether you’re three or 100, you can have fun bouncing a ball with a paddle.
- It began in 1880 in England.
- It was originally lawn tennis before being brought inside for everyone to enjoy.
- There were many early variations of the game under different names.
- It was called Whiff-Waff, Gossima, and Ping Pong!
- Some versions included cards and dice!
- The first game as we know it today was played in 1890.
- The name Ping Pong was trademarked in 1920.
- Once Ping Pong was trademarked, the term Table Tennis was born to avoid legal repercussions.
- Table Tennis is the official name of the sport at the professional level.
- The International Table Tennis Federation was created in 1926.
- Original members of the ITTF were England, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Wales, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia.
- The rules instituted by the ITTF remain the same nearly a century later.
- The ITTF has over 226 countries as members now.
- In 1971, diplomacy between the US and China started with a Ping Pong tournament.
- China hadn’t spoken to another country for six years but invited Canada, Colombia, England, and the USA to play on Chinese soil.
- China remains the best at the game.
- Table Tennis is the national sport of China.
- World Championships have been in play since 1981.
- China has taken home first place 120 out of 143 times.
- The rubber on the paddles comes in 1,600 different varieties.
- The rubber can either be smooth or pebbled.
- Original Ping Pong balls were made of cellulose.
- New balls are made from plastic.
- Regulation balls are required to be made from plastic as of 2014.
- Ping Pong is considered the most popular indoor sport worldwide.
- Tables range in price from under $40 to over $3k.
- Ping Pong can be played solo, in teams of two, or groups of four.
- There are over ten million people who play yearly in tournaments.
- The very first Ping Pong paddle was fashioned out of a cigar box.
- The first ball was fashioned out of a champagne cork.
- The first net was fashioned out of a stack of books.
- The longest time it took for someone to score a point during a tournament was over two hours.
- The most famous player is Janove Walder.
- The sport was banned for twenty years in the Soviet Union due to concerns about eye health.
- All regulation balls are either orange or white.
- Professionals can hit the ball at speeds of up to 100 mph.
- A coin toss determines who starts the game.
- Fancy footwork is necessary to succeed at a professional level.
- Balls are not empty. They contain pressurized gas.