table tennis

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or (trademark) Ping-Pong

Game similar to lawn tennis that is played on a tabletop with wooden paddles and a small, hollow, plastic ball.

The object is to hit the ball so that it goes over the net and bounces on the opponent's half of the table in such a way as to defeat the opponent's attempt to reach and return it. Both singles and doubles games are played. A match consists of the best of any odd number of games, each game being won by the player or team who first reaches 11 points or who, after 10 points each, gains a two-point lead. Invented in England in the early 20th century, it soon spread throughout the world. Since the mid-1950s, East Asian countries have dominated the sport. It has been an Olympic sport for both men and women since 1988.

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Olympic Games - Sports festival.

More on "table tennis" from the 32 Volume Encyclopædia Britannica:

table tennis - ball game similar in principle to lawn tennis and played on a flat table divided into two equal courts by a net fixed across its width at the middle. The object is to hit the ball so that it goes over the net and bounces on the opponent's half of the table in such a way that the opponent cannot reach it or return it correctly. The lightweight hollow ball is propelled back and forth across the net ...

TABLE TENNIS - At the 1997 world table tennis championships in Manchester, Eng., China again dominated play, winning six of the seven titles. The men's team from China defeated France (the first time since 1948 France had reached the final), while the women's team downed North Korea. Deng Yaping, the 24-year-old 1992 and 1996 Olympic champion, won her third world singles championship, then announced her ...

Table Tennis - In 1999, for the first time ever, the men's and women's table tennis team events were not part of the world championships. Originally scheduled for Belgrade, Yugos., on April 26-May 9, the now biennial championships had to find another host city quickly-hence, the unique inclusion of just the singles and doubles events in Eindhoven, Neth., on August 2-8 and the upcoming "off-year" adjustment of ...

TABLE TENNIS - At the 42nd world championships in Goteborg, Sweden, Jean-Philippe Gatien became the first Frenchman to win the world men's singles championship when he defeated Jean-Michel Saive (Belgium) in the final game 21-18. Jan-Ove Waldner (Sweden), ranked number one in the world, lost to Saive in the semifinals. For the first time since the 1950s, no Asian player reached the semifinals. Sweden captured ...

TABLE TENNIS - Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus, the 1997 world men's singles runner-up, justified his ranking as the International Table Tennis Federation's (ITTF's) top male player in 1998, winning not only the climactic 1997 Pro Tour grand final but also all the most prestigious 1998 European tournaments, including the European championship, the Europe Top 12, and the European Masters. Other prominent players ...

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