The origin of the name table tennis and others

In the history of sports, table tennis can be regarded as a young sport. It has only a history of more than 100 years. Compared with track and field ( For more than two thousand years), it can be regarded as a veritable descendant.

In 1890, several British naval officers stationed in India accidentally discovered that playing tennis on a small table was quite exciting. Later, they used small hollow leather balls instead of solid balls with little elasticity, and used wooden boards instead of tennis rackets to play this novel "tennis game" on the table. This is where the name table tennis comes from.

Not long after Table Tennis appeared, it became a popular sport. At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States began to produce sets of table tennis competition equipment. Initially, table tennis had other names, such as Indoor tennis. Later, an American manufacturer created the new word ping-pong based on the sound made by the impact of the table tennis ball, which was used as a patented registered trademark for the "ping pong ball" he manufactured. Ping-pong later became another official name for table tennis. When it spread to China, people coined the new word "table tennis".

In Japanese, table tennis is called "snooker". Many words used in table tennis are derived from tennis. The ball used to play table tennis is called ping-pong ball or table-tennis ball, the table tennis table is called ping-pong table, the table is called court, the net in the middle is called net, and the frame supporting the net is called net support.

Table tennis single games generally adopt a best-of-three-game or best-of-five-game system. The so-called "game" in English is set. To serve is called serve.

Table tennis originated in Britain. Europeans still call table tennis "tennis on the table". It can be seen that table tennis was developed from tennis. At the end of the 19th century, tennis was popular in Europe, but Due to restrictions on venue and weather, some college students in the UK moved tennis indoors, using the dining table as a table, books as nets, parchment paper as rackets, and playing back and forth on the dining table.

20 At the beginning of the century, table tennis flourished in Europe and Asia. In 1926, the International Table Tennis Invitational Tournament was held in Berlin, Germany. It was later recognized as the first World Table Tennis Championships. At the same time, the International Table Tennis Federation was established.

The widespread development of table tennis has led to great improvements in rackets and balls. The original racket was a slightly processed wooden board. Later, someone put a layer of sheepskin on the racket. With the development of modern industry, Europeans attached rubber with rubber particles to the racket. In the early 1950s, the Japanese invented a racket with thick sponge. The original ball was a rubber ball similar to tennis. In 1890, British player Ji Bu brought back some celluloid balls as toys from the United States for use in table tennis.

Among the many table tennis competitions, the most prestigious is the World Table Tennis Championships, which was initially held annually in 1957. After the New Year, it was changed to once every two years.

In 1904, Wang Daowu, the owner of a stationery store in Shanghai, bought 10 sets of table tennis equipment from Japan. From then on, table tennis was introduced to China.

Table tennis originated in England around the end of the 19th century, and later spread to the United States, central Europe, Japan, China and South Korea. Table tennis was originally regarded as a recreational activity by many people, but it has developed into one of the major sports in the world. Table tennis was recognized by the Olympic Games in 1988 and officially became a competition event, including men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles and women's doubles.