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Have you ever wondered what is the origin of your favorite game is? If not you probably should start thinking about it as we should be curious about the things that have importance in our lives. Therefore, I wanted to discuss a quick brief history about table tennis as I love to write and know all about it.
So let’s begin with its origin: The Victorian England Legacy
It’s no surprise for us all that this game started in the 1880s, yes it is that old! Probably in the era when the lawn tennis players modified their indoor games in winters. It is originated from Victorian England and was usually played after dinners by elite class as a game called Whiff Whaff.
Therefore in 1889, a well known British sports company John Jaques and Son feigned the very first table tennis set. It was made up of a pure wooden racquet with vellum canvas extended crosswise the border. Because of an unusual sound production during the game people named it as “ping pong”.
Adding to that you might be interested to know the fact this table tennis really had to fight for establishing its own identity as many people didn’t take this game very seriously. At that time lawn tennis was also on its peak and people started to shift their interest to the ping pong as a widely played indoor game.
Cashing that status of the indoor game, the manufacturers John Jaques and Son went in front market and trademarked the name Ping Pong globally. This referred to the obligation that none of the manufacturer or any firm can actually use or name any sports as “Ping Pong” without their official permission.
Akin to most other indoor games, table tennis had a very modest developing initial stage as a “parlor game,” accessible to anybody with accessibility to a paddle, table, and small tennis balls. This game has made a long way of change from with respect to its equipment, rules and even the name of the game in its ultimate journey till date.
The Beginning of Trademark War
Later on, the US rights to the first name of Ping Pong were traded with ‘The Parker Brothers. They permitted only their own products selling in the official ping pong tournaments and they make it quite a serious deal with that as they took legal action in opposition to those who did not meet these terms.
Therefore, for preventing this local trademark war, the organizers than started to refer it as Table tennis and now you know the ping pong vs. table tennis name war. Also it was not only the name but the game’s equipment also evolved a lot in this journey.
For instance in 1901, celluloid balls were first introduced by a table tennis enthusiast named James Gibb who was an entrepreneur by profession and in the same the advance version of the table tennis paddle was invented by EC Goode by simple gluing a bumpy rubber material on the straight wooden bat.
As by the invention of sponge in 1950s new material for table tennis bats, which, until now is followed, had been a comparatively trouble-free matter with a worldwide thin covering of spiky rubber material.
From A Hobby To Professional Level Globally
With modernization within each industry, sports industry also got upgraded and Table Tennis Association came into being in 1921, England. This was the time when things started to become serious in table tennis.
Afterward with the establishment of ITTF in 1926 which is broadly known as The International Table Tennis Federation got its unique status as a professional cutthroat sport. Following the same year, the very first official world championships was held in London, which served as the basis for table tennis as a status of international indoor sports.
Also, in anticipation of this era, spin had been exercised only as a small part in a game which had been subjugated by defensive style of game. But, the modern designed of table tennis bats or paddles which were first introduced by Japanese, offered the ball capacity to move with diverse movements.
Additionally, the newly emerged ITTF governing and regulating the table tennis was efficient enough to quickly legislate to be in charge of this latest advancement, seen in some quarters as furnishing the table tennis players with any unjust benefits attached.
Therefore standards were laid down and maintained for the defined table tennis equipment like sponge thickness, table size, ball diameter, material of the blade etc. however, due to the changing nature of the game and technological assembling advancements, ITTF also balances its pace of updating its standards accordingly to the global versions of Table tennis techniques like attacking speeds and for different spin styles etc.
Then in 1988 the very first World Cup was held almost after 06 decades a table tennis was recognized as an Olympic sport and people in Europe and Japan were working out hard to master this game fully, to win different skill levels and attached titles, and achieve implausible victories. Hence, this game was now an officially recognized global game.a
The Global Table Tennis Fever
It’s quite obviously seen on the internet and known fact around the world, whenever you search for anything related to table tennis Asian names have to pop out first on the top pages. So, it’s understandable that Asia turned out to be the rising ground for few of the major name in the sports industry for example like Patrick Chila , Zhuang Zedong, Ma Long, Kaii Yoshida etc. I will surely be covering all about the famous names in this industry later in another article.
On the other hand if I have to outline US and other demographic extensions of table tennis players due to the widespread global popularity of this game more professional names like Jan-Ove Waldner (Known as the Mozart of table tennis), Louis ‘Lou’ Pagliaro and Sol Schiff cannot be simply ignored. And yes this list is quite a big and keeps on updating every month!
No boundaries for the widespread!
The extraordinary recognition of this game surely does makes sense with the true fact that realistically it’s too handy and yet considered as a full body work-out and a handy activity. For this reason the table tennis has also established its permanent grounds globally in all sports events and championships just like the Olympics. Hence this sports had a spectacular growth in each past year and years to come with the rise in the popularity of players and advanced versions of its equipment.