4 posts tagged “Rules”
At the 1936 World Championships, a single rally ran 2 hours 12 minutes and more than 12,000 strokes, and the umpire asked to be replaced after injuring his neck from turning it so often. The absurd match produced the time limit and the expedite system still in force today.
Books for a net, a cigar-box lid for a bat, a champagne cork for a ball — table tennis has no inventor. This is how it grew from a British after-dinner game into a formal sport, and why its official name could only be table tennis, never ping-pong.
Why the 11-point game? Why did the ball go from 38 mm to 40+? Why was speed glue banned? This article runs through every key rules change in table tennis from 1937 to 2021 in order, and explains what each one was really trying to fix.
The IOC added the mixed team event and brought men's and women's doubles back, taking table tennis to six Olympic golds.
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