Mark Beachum, age 14, of Fargo, N.D., for his question:
WHEN WAS TABLE TENNIS FIRST PLAYED?
Table tennis is a game that is played on a table by two or four contestants. They use a small celluloid ball and four small rackets, often called paddles or bats. Most authorities believe the game was originated about 1890 by a group of British army officers in India.
Soon after the British army came up with the idea, table tennis enjoyed varying degrees of popularity throughout the world.
Equipment manufacturers around this period came up with a game called Indoor Tennis and they introduced it into the United States. In 1902 the game was called Whiff Whaff, Gossimar, or, more commonly, Ping Pong, the latter being a patented trade name.
Table tennis swept across America and the game became a craze. Its popularity, however, soon waned.
Then in 1921 a simultaneous movement started in several parts of the world to revive table tennis as a serous sport. A meeting was held in 1926 in Berlin, Germany, between seven nations resulting in the formation of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).
The U.S. Table Tennis Association (USTTA), founded in 1933, governs all tournament competition in the U.S. The annual national championships consist of matches in more than 40 different classifications, such as men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles and junior and senior events with players under the ages of 11 to over 70.
The USTTA joined the ITTF in 1933. Tae International Federation is now composed of more than 100 member nations. The organization sponsors individual and team play at world championships held every two years.
The table used in table tennis is nine feet by five feet with its upper surface 30 inches above the floor. The table is divided into opposing courts by a net that is six inches high. A white stripe running lengthwise down the center separates the players in doubles matches.
The surface of a standard table is made of three quarters inch five ply wood, the resilience of which is such that a standard table tennis ball, when dropped from a height of one foot, will rebound to a height of from eight and three quarters to nine and a quarter inches.
The white celluloid ball is hollow. It is about an inch and a half in diameter and weighs less than an ounce.
The rackets may be of any shape but usually are oval and made of wood, faced with sandpaper, rubber or sponge that may be pimpled or smooth.
Like tennis, table tennis involves hitting the ball back and forth over the net until one of the players misses the ball, or hits it into the net or off the table. In each of those cases, the opponent scores a point.
To serve properly, a player holds the ball on the flat, outstretched palm of the hand, then throws it up and strikes it as it falls. The ball must then hit the table on the server's side of the net first, whereupon play continues as in tennis, but the ball must hit the table before being returned by a player.