Table Tennis - It is just not for everyone but ITTF keeps sending the wrong messsage

[Marlboro]

ITTF & its national affiliates keep sending the wrong message to the public claiming that table tennis is a sport that anyone can play easily.
Nothing can be farther from the truth.

In countries like USA , tabletennis is viewed as a silly basement "game" of ping pong & not viewed as a real sport.

But simple fact is that table tennis is one of the most complex & most frustrating sport for an average person to play & get to be good at.
Yes anyone can easily learn to play the silly basement "game" of ping pong in few minutes & play beer pong LOL
But even reaching the level of an advanced beginner in a formal tournament is not exactly an easy task. Why ? Keep reading

ITTF is desperately trying to turn tabletennis into a sport like say pickleball. In fact ITTF even tried to promote a sport called TTX which had some similarities to pickleball but so far TTX seems to be failing miserably. And then there are other groups of players within table tennis itself who want to minimize the spins in tabletennis by regressing to hardbat or sandpaper tabletennis in the early 20th century (1926-1952).

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on which of the groups discussed above that you associate with) tabletennis has evolved into a sport of extreme & complex spins & associated high technology space age racket. It is psychotic for those who think we can go back to hardbat or we should turn tabletennis into pickleball because most of the tabletennis players stay in the sport because they enjoy creating & solving complex spins of the sport at extreme speeds which at times is also extremely frustrating. And it is unrealistic to turn back the clock or try to turn tabletennis to pickleball. There is absolutely nothing bad about pickleball & it is a brilliant design by removing the spins & complexities of mostly tabletennis and tennis so that a beginner or someone such as an older person with a lower footspeed , slowed down reflexes etc can still play a sport that looks somewhat like tennis & can also be played indoor & outdoor.
(This by no means implies that ALL pickleball players are slow or have poor reflexes or cannot comprehend spin..........in any racket sport including pickleball the best & talented athlete of course will rise to the top) .

The difficulty for mass marketing of tabletennis like say pickeball comes from the fact that not only are the spins ore complex than any other racket sport but these spins are delivered at the highest speeds and also usually a smaller playing area using high technolgy space age rackets & for the most part non-playing spectators do not comprehend the degrees & complexities of these spins or the complex designs of these rackets to be able to appreciate it . Of course there are complex spins & complex racket designs other racket sports as well but it comese nowhere close to tabletennis. And one reason pickleball may be popular is because pickleball aims to minimize these complexities to a minimum so that anyone can learn to play very quickly & not worry too much about spins.

So in summary if you think you will not enjoy the complexities of spin at highest speeds, tabletennis is just not the sport for you.
While it is true that tabletennis is the only sport that is recommended for brain development of youth as well as best therapy for older people with Alzheimers, dementia or Parkinsons etc. , you really won't enjoy tabletennis if you do not enjoy creating and solving very complex spins (compared to any other racket sports). The amounts of spins created by even advanced beginners is just ridiculous for a non-player to comprehend. Unfortunately this is also why tabletennis is just not a spectator sport for the most part and is more of participant sport. There used to be some styles of play such as defense in tabletennis that can be enjoyed by spectators but iTTF in its infinite ignorance has successfully exterminated such styles by passing an endless series of rule changes
A recent study placed tabletennis only second to people training to be astronauts in the level of difficulty required to perform successfully. Click here to go to the webpage that talks about this

[What the puck]

I agree. Even watching some pros , it really does look easy
But try going to a club and challenge some of their lowest ranked players