History

Table tennis has its origins in England as an after dinner amusement for upper class Victorians in the 1880s. Mimicking the game of tennis in an indoor environment, everyday objects were originally enlisted to act as the equipment. A line of books would be the net, the top of a Champagne cork or knot of string as the ball, and a cigar box lid the paddle.

The popularity of this pastime led game manufacturers to sell the equipment commercially. Early paddles were often pieces of parchment stretched upon a frame and the sound generated in play gave the game its first nicknames of "Whiff-Whaff" and "Ping-Pong". A number of sources indicate that the game was first brought to the attention of Hamley's of Regent Street under the name "Cossima". The name Ping-Pong was in wide use before English manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd registered it as copyright in 1901. The name ping pong then came to be used for the game played by the rather expensive Jaques equipment, with other manufacturers calling their versions "table tennis". A similar situation came to exist in the United States where Jaques sold the rights to the Ping-Pong name to Parker Bros.

The next major innovation was that by James Gibb, an English enthusiast, who discovered novelty celluloid balls on a trip to the U.S. in 1901 and found them ideal for the game. This was followed by E.C. Goode who, in 1903, invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled, or stippled, rubber to the wooden blade.

Around 1901, table tennis tournaments were being organised, books were written, and an unofficial world championship was held in 1902.

However, it wasn't until 1921 that a Table Tennis Association was founded in England, and the International Table Tennis Federation followed in 1926. London hosted the first official world championship in 1927. Table tennis was introduced at the Olympics in 1988.

Around the end of 2000, the 40 mm size of the ball was officially adopted to replace the older 38.1 mm (1.50 inch) balls. This was done to increase the ball's air resistance, to compensate for the recent tendency to increase the thickness of the fast sponge layer on the bats, in an effort to slow the game down again, hopefully making it possible to view the ball unblurred on television.