Ping-pong!

140 mp/h serves are what Isner brings once in a match as one of the world's leading servers, just saying...110-115 are more like a good number to prove your point.

 

LOL. You are not gonna give up, are you?

sport 
an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

So what makes you consider marbles an athletic activity? You will have to answer this question before we can continue the discussion. Without an answer to this question, you are just wasting my time.

It takes a big man to concede after he has been proven wrong. Looks like you are not capable of doing it.

 

depends how they measure the speed. slow gun, fast gun. Like baseball, it's a matter of where in time they measure -- leaving the racket or at the returner. I've been measured at 132, nearly 20 yrs ago. I think that was the fast gun. And of course, that was just a one time day when we were getting measured. I assume I've hit 140 before. And I assume my average was less than 130. I never played in stadiums that had guns for every serve; it was just a one time deal.

Just because someone is not a pro player doesn't mean they can't hit a serve as fast as the best pros (well, when I was 23 yrs old). They place it better. And it puts enormous torque on your arm and it is hard to sustain for many sets. I had trouble finishing two bucket of balls, and wouldn't use my flat serve on every 1st serve, like the pros can.

You are being a ping pong snob. The eye-hand coordination of stars in both sports is the same.

What I'm saying is very simple to understand. If you don't react on a power serve immediately, you are toast. That means they have the same reaction time. Playing the net in doubles also requires the same reaction time. It does.

Hitting the ball on the run requires added eye-hand coordination that ping-pong just doesn't have. And I noticed you just ignored the comment about reacting to mystery bounces on grass, which are more common that just the exaggerated bounces that viewers can see. The ball can slip on grass and never come up.

I understand that ping pong has unique things as well that tennis doesn't. But it's just silly to say the players are better than tennis players at eye-hand coordination and reaction time.

Also, baseball hitters have equal eye-hand coordination and reaction time than both tennis and ping pong.

Saying I can't get a 130mph into the court consistently is something you don't know. I didn't have the placement of a pro at that speed, but going past the service line was not a huge problem. It's a matter of the aerodynamics of an object going over 100 mph. If you jump at the ball on a serve and snap your arm, you can put a slight top spin on the ball (more a roll) with a flat serve. At high velocity, the ball can clear the net at about 2 feet and then the aerodynamics takes over and it dives into the court...into the service box. My understanding is split-fingered fastballs have a slight top roll, too, that makes them "fall off the table." Trust me. It took me until age 23 to finally figure it out.

Aside from the placement, what really amazes about the pro power servers is how they can sustain it for 5 sets without their arm falling off.

 

Also want to add that a 140mph serve is also a racket choice. I'm willing to bet more (if not most) pros can hit one if they use the original Wilson Pro Staff graphite that Sampras popularized. Plus, the serve style I described makes it more difficult to play a serve and volley game like McEnroe, because it doesn't throw you into the court. It's a matter of choice to do that serve.

 

Great upset special brewing on table 2, with Portugal one match away from taking down South Korea. Portugal isn't necessarily one of the stronger teams but one of the deeper teams in Europe.

 

Germany is #2 right?

 

I would have guessed Germany is the second seed but according to the draw they're 4th? I didn't bother to look until now.

 

You're not kidding. Unfortunately my setup is $360 new which is definitely near the high end. And if you play a decent amount most players change both sheets of rubber (forehand and backhand side) every few months, which counts for $140 of that total. I know how ridiculous that sounds to people who don't play or think it's a sport, I'm already disgusted as it is.

 

Yeah Li came out firing on all cylinders. It's pretty remarkable that Ariel ended up giving her the toughest match. I hope Ariel takes one year off before college to see how far she can go.

Too bad for Ding Ning, at least one of those calls was overboard but like any other sport there's really no point arguing w/ the umpires.

 

Li XX does that all the time, not just that match. Not a fan. Guo yue FTW


Where can one play ping pong in Houston on decent tables?

 

You're the one that's wasting my time. I could care less about ping pong. The people in this thread are obviously big fans of it and want to argue about it. I don't. I simply commented about it since I find it absurd as an Olympic event.

As for the definition, physical prowess is a pretty damn wide definition. Any number of games and activities require physical prowess of some sort. Eating hot dogs for example, takes some physical prowess. Is that a sport? Of course not. Be ridiculous, it's fine. If ping pong is a sport then so is spitballing, marbles, frisbee, bowling, and any number of ridiculous things.

 

visit: http://www.usatt.org if you want to really learn about the game!

 

Can I neceobump a bs post about how every pro could serve 140 with an 85 sq inch racquet face? Because that was a dumb post. Sad I didn't see it at the time

 

The ball is bigger than before.