Man, this thread has made me want to get back into ping pong in a major way. I think ping pong is the easiest SPORT to get into and enjoy. I am actually pretty decent at it, so that helps my enjoyment of it, I guess.
Yup, until I realized that some of those paddles are spensive as schitte. However compared to others, it's not that bad. Plus it doesn't take too much room like most other sports.
I love it. I'm not the greatest. I'm decent. Have a table in my basement, and my buddy and I have some epic matches in the winter. My summers are about kayaking though.
I'm great in the garage...like singing in the shower. Was living in Atlanta during the 96 Olympics and spent a great deal of time at the table tennis venue. Really enjoyed those matches. EddieWasSnubbed, outstanding summer activity.
I'm not sure there are any sports that require as much hand-eye coordination and dexterity as ping pong. Maybe fencing? Hum, nope I'd still have to go with ping pong. Any person who says it isn't a sport is a homer and probably not have played at a decent level (yes, that means you CometsWin).
Should be a great match starting right now between Denmark's Michael Maze and Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov. Probably the best match of the QF's. http://www.nbcolympics.com/liveextra/video-watch.html?video=men-singles-table-tennis-quarterfinals-1-2
Did anyone watch that gold medal match? I feel bad for Wang Hao getting his third silver in a row. But what was up with that crowd? The younger fans were fist pumping and screaming up a storm. Didn't know the table tennis crowd was so rabid. Kind of hilarious, really. Maybe they were trolling or something.
Yeah, I felt bad for Wang Hao too even though I was rooting for Zhang Jike. Winning 3 silvers is bittersweet, and the likelihood he plays another Olympics is really low. An epic accomplishment for Zhang though, only a handful of players in history have ever achieved a TT career grand slam, and he did it all w/in about a year. I don't think the fans were anything out of the ordinary. There's pro leagues all over Europe and Asia, and although they play to smaller crowds they are really loud. Here's a great match between Adrien Mattenet and Vladimir Samsonov at last year's World Cup in Paris. Mattenet is from France so the crowd was really behind him. But they were pretty loud for all the matches in general. France has great TT fans. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CqZZY1sv4yo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> If you had to YouTube one player and and hope for a really entertaining match, Mattenet is at the top of the list now. He's amazing at long rallies and defense, for better or worse. One of my top 3 favorites in general.
I am actually looking to buy a ping pong table for our new house. The problem is I will be storing it in an indoor basketball court. It gets pretty humid in there and hot. Would I need to buy an indoor or outdoor table? It will not get wet. but just very humid. I used to have an outdoor table and it like these dead spots and the table itself started warping after like 4 or 5 years.
In the women's gold medal match against #1 Ding Ning, Li totally changed her demeanor. Instead of playing like Mr. Spock, she was overflowing with emotion and screamed after every point. Congrats to her on the "upset". If Ding Ning had controlled her emotions better, it may have been more competitive. Ariel Hsing ended up being Li's toughest opponent on the road to gold.
Explain to me why marbles isn't a sport. I've already explained this in this thread. Take the time to read it or don't. That's fine.
not sure how you can say it requires more hand-eye coordination than tennis. I'm willing to agree that they require the same, but how can you say pinp pong requires more.
Marbles isn't a sport because it's not athletic and there's no world wide competitive league for it. Table tennis requires more hand-eye coordination because you're hitting a smaller ball with a smaller paddle that has the ability to change trajectory much more than a tennis ball with 1/10th the reaction time. Any more questions?
Like I said before, I'm saying the eye-hand coordination is the same. A superstar in one sport does not have better eye-hand coordination that the other. I've played both sports, and I played tennis at a very high level. I know what it is to hit a 140mph serve that has enough top spin on it to jump to your head and 30 feet through a chain linked fence. ping pong is a shorter distance sport at significantly less velocity, meaning the there is less variance in where the ball can go (less angles and less foot work and less running and hitting a higher velocity ball while on the run). 1/10 the reaction time is hogwash. A 140mpg serve requires reaction at the point the server makes contact with the ball. If you don't react correctly in a split second, you are not returning that ball, much like baseball hitters. Doubles players are facing volleys the same distance away a ping pong at a higher velocity. The bigger racket creates the higher velocity which offsets any advantage a bigger surface supposedly has in returning the ball. In fact, a tennis racket's sweet spot is actually smaller than a ping pong paddle's...if you don't consistently hit the sweet spot of a tennis racket, you won't win the match. The mechanics of a larger racket, the strings and the tennis ball make tennis a vastly higher velocity sport...and don't even begin to tell me Eli Nastase can't put spin on a tennis ball. And then add to all that, trying to play on grass where the ball's bounce is often a mystery. They are equal in eye-hand coordination...you sound like you're not very knowledgeable of tennis.
Okay, that's actually kinda funny because not even the best tennis players can serve 140 mph consistently into the service box, but whatever. If you're playing against better servers, I guess I'll take your word for it. Table tennis balls have much less mass allowing the rotation to effectively change trajectory much more than a tennis ball. There's more variance to it because of less mass. You act as if all ground strokes are 140 mph. The fastest ground strokes barely break 100 mph. If you honestly think table tennis doesn't require faster reaction time, I'm not arguing with you anymore. Table tennis paddles have small sweet spots, too. You sound like you're not very knowledgeable of table tennis.
