On Table Tennis

Very little can be said about the history of table tennis. There is the creation of the game, and the development of the game, but that's all. Table tennis was created in 1881 by bored British Officers who carved a ball from champagne cork and used cigar box covers to bat it back and forth across a barrier of books dividing a table. Of course the sport has changed drastically in the past century, and it has become much more popular

Table Tennis or Ping Pong likely began as a social hobby in England toward the end of the 1800´s. Dining-room tables and balls of cork made up some of the early equipment that was used. These early pioneers may have referred to their sport as gossima, flim-flam, or ping-pong. Around the turn of the century, the game underwent a few changes in England.

The origin of table tennis has never been exactly pinpointed, even though it's a relatively young sport, younger than lawn tennis and not much older than basketball. The earliest known form of the sport, called indoor tennis, was played in the early 1880s by British army officers in India and South Africa, using lids from cigar boxes as paddles and rounded corks from wine bottles as balls, with a row of books set up across the middle of a table to form the net.

History Ping Pong Anyone? The sport got its start in England towards the end of the 19th century when, after dinner, some upper-middle class Victorians decided to turn their dining room tables into miniature versions of the traditional lawn tennis playing field. Several different every-day objects were employed in constructing the sport. They used a line of books as the net. Rackets were lids from empty cigar boxes, and a little later, parchment paper stretched around a frame. The ball would be either a ball of string, or perhaps more commonly, a champagne cork or rubber ball.

Table tennis is an exemplary game of skill requiring remarkable hand eye coordination by the players. In order to play the game professionally you require high degree of perseverance and concentration to position the ball at the required place in the opponent's side of the table