It's the most popular racket sport in the world. The second most popular participation sport. A sport with over 20 million active participants in the U.S. alone and, as of 1988, an Olympic sport. Ask most people to name this sport and they'd immediately name that other well-known racket game. But they'd be wrong. You know what sport we are talking about or you wouldn't be reading this. Table tennis never calls it ping pong except to other players! It has probably gotten the worst press of any comparable sport in the world. Most people think of it as, yes, ping pong, a game where a small white ball is patted back and forth until someone misses. I hope you know better than that. At the beginning level about all anybody does is just pat the ball back and forth. This is where its image as an easy sport probably came from, as it does take practice to learn to keep the ball goin9 at a fast pace. But once learned, it's a skill for life. It is hoped that this book will help you to help others in developing this skill. Perhaps it will help you as well. Table tennis is the second most popular participation sport in the world after soccer. The sport is not as well known in the U.S. as in Europe and Asia but it is gaining in popularity very rapidly. The United States Table Tennis Association (USTTA) has nearly 6000 ranked tournament players from 300 sanctioned clubs nationwide. They participate in over 250 USTTA sanctioned tournaments annually. According to polls, over 21 million people play table tennis in the U.S., making it the most popular racket sport in the country.

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