A Brief Overview About Ping Pong

Unlike other sports, only a little can be said about the history of ping pong. For a start, there is the creation of the game. Other than that is its development, but that is merely all there is to it. However, although its history may not be that melodramatic, a growing number of aficionados have been gaining interest in the sport each year.

It was 1881 when Ping pong was created by a couple of bored British officers who used cigar box covers as bat and carved a ball from a champagne cork, and used a couple of books as barriers for their dining table. They bat the cork ball back and forth all across each side of the table. And from then on, the very first ping pong way played.

Of course, obviously the sport may have drastically changed in the past century, and its popularity has immensely grown as well. Today, ping pong can be played by anyone of age, size, and fitness level. However, you may be in shock to know that only less than 1 percent of ping pong players play competitively, the 99% of them just leisurely play the sport.

Ping pong has long been known as the miniature version of lawn tennis. In fact, you obviously may realize where it takes its inspiration from. However during the early 1990’s, before the advent of ping pong rackets, the paddles that were used was just like that of the lawn tennis rackets with longer handles and a pear shaped paddle surface. Ping pong was previously a sport played by the royalty, the wealthy, and the like.

The turn of century brought about so many refinements to the sport. The cigar boxes were replaced by wooden blades with pimpled rubber covering as rackets. Players started using celluloid balls instead of the cork ball after an English man named James Gibb discovered and proved it to be the best ping pong ball during his trip to the United States in 1901. These sporting goods have already been standardized and are pretty much permanent in the ping pong scene.

Ping pong, although not quite played competitively as much as other sports are, is rapidly getting a name for itself in the internationally-acclaimed Olympic Games. More and more countries are participating and putting ping pong into consideration. Nobody still knows for a fact what’s in store for the future, but we all have been witnesses of this sport’s transition.