46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

Changing Dimensions

By Tim Boggan, ITTF and USATT Media

In a recent ITTF paper, George Segun and Abel Toriola concluded that a LONGER--rather than the standard 9’ x 5’--table tennis table would promote more rallies and better physical fitness in South African players. They suggested that the ITTF ought to experiment with such a table “to test its suitability for TV coverage and public appeal.”

Interestingly, it’s not only the length of the table that’s been discussed among pockets of players and officials but also its HEIGHT.

ITTF Sports Science Committeeman Dr. Michael Scott (USA) has long felt that the table ought to be higher, and has brought with him to Osaka an article from a U.S. newspaper that he thinks will rationally support his view.

Turns out that U.S. bathroom cabinet makers, to satisfy customers who are tired of stooping to wash their face or brush their teeth, are now raising their vanity cabinets from a standard 30 inches—the exact height of a table tennis table—to as much as 36 inches.

These cabinet makers have become aware that the average height of people not only in the U.S. but other parts of the world has steadily been increasing. In 1851, the height of an average American was 5’, 5.’’  Seventy-five years later, in 1926, when the ITTF was founded and the dimensions of the first World Championship tables were official, the height of the average American was 5’, 7.’’  Today, in 2001, it’s 5’, 9.’’

It therefore might not be stretching a point to say that the ITTF ought to begin testing not only longer but also higher tables in preparation for the gangly six-footers that without such a change will be towering over the tables at the ITTF’s second 75th Anniversary Championships.

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