Musings Of A New Doc

Table Tennis is one of the most remarkable sports ever. It’s easy to learn, agile, reflexive and immensely enjoyable. That makes it popular too –the Table Tennis table can be found everywhere from schools to colleges, workplaces, common rooms and homes around the world. The number of people who play it makes table tennis one of the most popular games in the world, even surpassing soccer. But, I would ask: is it really a proper sport?



I know some big Table Tennis fans since I am one myself. But nobody I know of –even players playing many hours/day professionally –ever talk about any international or national Table Tennis league. This sport hardly gets any time on TV, and even when it does most players are looking and dressing almost identical. More than 60% of Men’s World Championships since 1959 have been won by players who are Chinese (Europeans, like Swedes and Germans, also fare better).Tennis, Cricket, Squash, Football are all athletic sports like Table Tennis, but while all of these sports have fans that worship big players, Table Tennis players seem to be just freaks who are moving around the table in super synchrony at dizzying speeds.

So yes, Table Tennis is a freak sport. It’s virtually impossible for the crowds and the TV audience to make any sense of the progress. A point lasts roughly 5-8 seconds, and most shots are hard to capture even with Japanese camera shutter speeds. Other sports like Cricket, Football, Badminton or squash have their contests laid across on an area of some decent dimensions; table tennis has all of its lightening fast action on a table only three meter long. And the players do not have enough time between points for the crowds to at least awe at leisure: anything more than a 3-5 second gap can break a player’s rhythm. It’s like the players are deliberately making it quick since you came to see the match.

No coincidence that sports that ARE very popular with the audiences at competitive levels share some features. First, they are spread across a large area that is easily viewable. Second, they are not so fast as to keep the audience on their toes to keep up. Third, the talent is distributed across the world with people of different countries performing on competitive stage. While Table Tennis, with its surging popularity across the world, can soon counteract the third factor, it will forever remain, thanks to its very nature, a sport as elusive to bystanders and crowds as a conversation in whispers.