46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

On Tables and Chairs

By Tim Boggan, ITTF and USATT Media

In striking contrast to the conventional multi-legged tables generally being used in these Osaka World Championships, the two legless Japanese San-Ei tables, each centered over a base—sacrificial altar-like to the new millennium table tennis gods—stand strong on the two feature courts.

Like the look of them, do you? Or would you prefer the more conventional ones, skirted and color-coordinated with the floor, the surrounds?

Aside from the aesthetic considerations regarding these new tables—in use in world competition for the first time--there are also technical ones.

One question asked by the uninitiated might be, “On these very different-looking tables, is the bounce of the ball the same?” Answer: “Yes, because the weight, the slight mass, of the ball is inconsequential.”

Another question might be, “Supposing a player can’t keep his (her) balance and braces himself by putting some of his weight on his table end. Will it, like a teeter-totter, whether it be noticeable to the eye or not, become unbalanced? Answer: No, it will remain as steady as before.”

How do I know? I don’t. But the ITTF Equipment Chair since 1967 does.

Only, if you want to ask Dr. J. Rufford Harrison of the U.S. such questions, you’d better catch him at these World Championships, for after an unprecedented 34 years in this important ITTF Chair, he’s finally retiring.

“What two people will succeed him?” That’s the way one fellow put it as Rufford takes his honored place on ITTF President Adham Sharara’s elite Advisory Council. Answer (not such an odd one after all): one man, equally human and well-prepared—Od Gustafsen of Norway. We wish him the best of chemistry with one and all.

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