The Distinctive Features Of Table Tennis

In the field of racket sports, lawn tennis is the most popular game. You can name numerous prestigious lawn tennis tournaments- Wimbledon, Family Circle cup and etc. - that are being joined by prestigious lawn tennis players.  The major names in your list might be Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. But have you imagined these people doing lawn tennis while reading a newspaper?  Such circumstance might be out of your imagination until you tried being serious towards playing table-tennis .

A table tennis player once told me, “Playing ping pong is like playing lawn tennis while reading a newspaper”.  It is like moving your body while moving your thinking. The statement might be an exaggeration for you. But for hard table tennis players, the statement just describes ping pong the way it is. Its nature of being a mind sport is only one of the qualities that set it apart from other sport. Let me give you two more special qualities of ping pong:

1. It’s easier to set up than any other sport. 

2. It does not entail many physical requirements.

Table tennis is easy to set up.
The most popular sports such as basketball, volleyball, lawn tennis and etc. do require playing areas that are hard to set up. In ping pong, you won’t encounter that dilemma. All you need is a room space, a table tennis, a paddle and a ball and you can learn table tennis anytime you want.

It is a brain game.

You might be thinking that any sport is a brain game. However true that is, in other sport such as basketball, you need a tougher body than a tougher brain. It is like 75% body and 25% brain. But in table tennis, you need a tougher brain than a tougher body. It is 60% thinking and 40% skills.

It is a non- contact sport and its court area-a table- is small. A non-contact sports do not post physical toughness as a challenge. There is a little opportunity that you can out power your opponent. Aside from being a non-contact sport, the playing area is too small. Outrunning your opponent is not the key. Instead, you must outwit your opponent by doing the right combinations and doing the right strategies. You are encouraged to think before you make a move and while doing your move. You ought to think about your opponent’s weaknesses and strengths as for you to pick the right strategies.

But before you can think of the right combinations and strategies, you must learn the basic skills. If you are lucky enough, there might be an available table tennis player who can teach you. But if you feel like you are not that person, you can learn from table tennis instructional videos .

Being a great ping pong peddler does not entail physical superiority.

Of course, tall players have advantages over small players even in ping pong. But the advantage is not too huge. Tallness means having a longer reach and longer feet movement. But in ping pong, it can be compensated by the agility of small players. Unlike in basketball and lawn tennis, being tall is really an advantage.

In basketball, you may limit the moves of your smaller opponent by using your body as a post.  In the latter sports, being tall means higher service efficiency and steeper strokes. Table tennis is not the sport that makes a big deal out of the known physical advantages such as tallness and muscle volume.