Facts/Trivia/Information

Nice update about the future of robots that can play table tennis.

Thanks to Derc for passing this along.

April 23 is World Table Tennis Day. No celebrations nearby but many events around the world.

This post updated 4/17/25 to update initially faulty charts.

Reddit u/DannyWeinbaum recently posted some interesting charts about how quickly USATT members improve their skills over 10 years. Check out the link for explanations.

USATT rating development curves grouped by final eventual rating

Median USATT rating development curve over time across all players

USATT rating development curves grouped by tourneys/year

Don’t forget to vote today!

Just found an incredible source of table tennis history in a series of PDFs. The website isn’t much to look at, but the PDFs are nicely done with great images. As of this post, there are four PDFs. Direct links keep changing, so grab/read them all here.

Google’s Deepmind robot arm has dramatically improved its table tennis skill level. Still not able to beat advanced players, but amazing to see how far they’ve come.

Translations

Caoutchouc = Rubber
Liege & maille = Cork & knitwear