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TABLE TENNIS FACTS
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Find funny table tennis slogans, intresting table tennis facts and historical data...

-- Football is work, tennis is handcraft, table tennis is art --

-- China produces about 300 billion table tennis balls per year --

-- In the past smashes were forbidden, because of the risk of injury for the other player. --

-- At the world championships in Prague 1936, „Alex“ Aloizy Ehrlich (Poland) and Farkas Paneth (Romania) fighted 2 hours and 12 minutes for one single point. At the same tournament the match between Michel Haguenauer (France) and Vasile Goldberger-Marin (Romania) was aborted after 7.5 hours. (5:3 at the 5th set) --

-- The longest rally in the history of table tennis takes 8 hours, 34 minutes and 29 seconds. This happened at the 31. August 2009 in Japan in the match between Koji Matsushita and Hiroshi Kamura-Kittenberger --

-- The longest single match contested the both Baden-Württembergerer Uwe Geiger and Thomas Opiol (both from Schömberg) from 14. till 21. April 1985. Altogether they played 168 hours --

-- The longest double (102 hours) was played by Roland Merklein, Volker Fernath, Hilmar Küttner und Helmut Hanus (from Stuttgart) from the 23. til the 27. May 1980 --

-- 170 touches of the ball within one minute were accomplished at the british championships at the 28. February 1986 in Newcastle by Alan Cooke and Desmond Douglas (both GB). This are almost three touches of the ball in one second. This only was excelled at the 7. February 1993 in Ipswich (Great Britain) by the sisters Jackie Bellinger and Lisa Lomas with 173 touches of the ball (the current record) --

-- The longest team match was played 1936 in Prague. The final of the Swaythling-Cup between Austria and Romania started at Sunday, the 15. March (11 o`clock) and ended at the next wednesday. At the end Austria won. --

-- During a tournament a pro table tennis player loses 3.5 kilogram at one day. During one set (11 points) he uses about twice as much energy as a track and field athlete, who runs 100 meter in 10.2 seconds. At the european championships in Prague 1976 the highest loss in weight of one player was 8 kilogram --

-- Ann Haydon-Jones, who lost 1957 all three World Championships finals (single, doubles, mixed) in the fifth set, was from 1960 twelve years at the top ten in tennis and won Wimbeldon --

-- 1954 in october the first table tennis competition was broadcasted in the tv. The Südwestfunk showed the match between Germany and Swiss in Baden-Baden. --

-- Also today (first of all in the USA, but also in Germany) hardbat-tournaments are played. In these tournaments the racket has to be pimpled rubber without sponge. A legendary champion was Marty Reisman, who is even today world class with 67 years of age. --

-- In September 2001 the 1.TTC Ketsch established a 24 hours record in table tennis. In 24 hours each with 2 players played at one table, but one player was only allowed to play max. 10 minutes. 1036 players were involved, also the netherland national player Trinko Keen --

-- In May 2008 under the motto "a village plays table tennis" through the SG 1908 Oberbiel, 200 hours table tennis, without a break at least at two tables was played. So the SG established the german record for the longest without a break hobby sport event. --

-- 1993 the firts time twins were won the German Championships: Melanie und Yvonne Wenzel (Hachmühlen) won the title at the student doubles. At the same year they won the silver medal in doubles at the Youth European Championships in Ljubljana. --

-- The first stamp with a table tennis motiv was released at 1949 by Nicaragua. In Germany the first table tennis motiv was release at the 21. February 1985 in Berlin in line with the series for the sport --

-- Joachim Kreck cutted a 14 minute short film table tennis, based on the match between Peter Stellwag abd Stellan Bengtsson at October 1980. The film was released 1982 and was assigned by the film rating agentur Wiesbaden with the rating extreme valuable. --

-- The hungarian Victor Barna is until today the most succesfull table tennis player. Between 1929 and 1939 he won 22 World Championships titles: five times in single, eight times in doubles, two times in mixed and seven times with the team --

-- As the best table tennis player until today counts the swede Jan-Ove Waldner. He is: Olympics winner, six times world champion, eleven times european champion, seven times TOP 12 Winner and two times World Cup winner. --

-- Table tennis player are playing football only at the warm-up! --

-- From 1958 the DDR tried to distinguish from the western countries. 1961 the whole sport-intercourse was aborted. Table tennis lost acceptation, especially after the competitive sports resolution in April 1969, which said that table tennis isn`t a eligible sport. 1972 the DDR attended at the European Championships, but after that the DDR failed to appear at all European- and World Championships. The attendance on tournaments in which non-socialist countries were playing, was forbidden. --

-- In the 1950s and 1960s the USA and China tried to advance their diplomatic relationships with "normal" actions; the Warsaw dialogue didn`t bring the hoped for results. The table tennis players came to rescue. During the World Championships 1971 in Nagoya (Japan), China invited the table tennis player to China. After this visitation, more meetings from high-ranking politicians followed (Nixon 1972), which reduced the tensions between the two countries. These events are known until today under the concept ping-pong-diplomacy --

-- Table tennis for the first time ever was played by the end of the 19th century in England and was called "ping pong". But 1901 this appellation was registered as trademark and from that time on it wasn`t allowed to apply it at competitions or at business. Non-standard "ping pong" is used anyway and in china the official name for the sport is "ping pong ball" --

-- If table tennis would be easy, it would have called football! --

-- There are no rule in table tennis, which said, that the ball has to be played over the net. --

-- By pro players the table tennis ball reaches 150 km/h abd 4000 rounds per minute. Although there are a few sports in which the ball moves faster, table tennis applies as the fastest ball game in the world, because the players, even the amatuers, have less then one second to react at a ball. (pro players: ~0.2 seconds) --

-- The aperture of a table tennis ball is ca. 40 mm and he weighs 2.7 centigram. Before the year 2000 the balls were smaller. The aperture was ca. 38 mm and he weighed 2.5 centigram.
The amplification was made, because the speed of the ball should be reduced. It should lead to longer and attractive rallies and the audience at the tv should see the ball better. This wasn`t accomplished, because rackets developed and faster bats and rubbers caused that the speed of the ball remains. --

-- 1999 Jjpanese an british scientist simulated the characteristics of avalanches, by rolling 32.000 table tennis balls down a ski jump. 2004 the experiment was retried with 550.000 balls. --

-- Table tennis is likely the only sport, in which a (false) decision of the umpire is directly discussed by the players. And is changed if the players comes to the same result. (happens because fair play is very important in table tennis) --

-- The world record in permanent-table tennis with 2 players is 105 hours. In september 1979 Helmut Hanus und Volker Fernath are playing outside in Stuttgart 105 hours and 8 minutes. 1984 Jean-Marie Sins (30 years old, Elsass) played againts 20 players, 150 hours, 14 minutes and 53 seconds --

-- The biggest "go-around" was played at the 21. june 2002 on the stuttgarter marketplace. On 50 tables, 454 hobby players were playing 62 minutes. --

[Source:Wikipedia/Tischtennis]
[Source:Wikipedia/Tischtennisball]