APOTHEOSIS OF PING-PONG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11872, 25 January 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

APOTHEOSIS OF PING-PONG.

FIGHT FOR THE TABLE-TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP.

The game of ping-pong has attained its highest vogue. In the enlivening northwestern gallery of the Royal Aquarium at Westminster there was begun on December 11 a public tournament "for the table-tennis championship of London.

Hundreds of ping-pong players gathered there to take part in or to watch the games. For three hours in the afternoon and three hours in the evening the rackets darted and the little white celluloid balls " ping-ponged" through the air. It was the first public tournament of its kind, and it brought to light the fact that there are table-tennis fclubs all over Loudon, and table-tennis players all pver England. Nearly fifty ladies and 200 gentlemen have entered., Among them are noted lawn tennis players, like Mr. C. P. Dixon, of Cambridge University; and Mr. Launceston Elliott, the amateur strong man, was one of the keenest critics of the play. The tournament is being played 011 the American system. The players are divided into sections and each member of a section plays a game against every other member, and the section winners will play for the championships on Saturday. The method of counting is not the same as in lawn tennis, such as many ping-pong players adopt, but by single points, twenty points being " game." • The casual ping-pong player may be content to play on an ordinary dining-room table with a polished top, but the tournament players are provided with table tops painted a dull dark green, with a |-inch white line round the edge. The first day proved, if it needed proving, that a table-tennis tournament is very much more exciting than championship billiards. There is nearly as much variety of stroke as in lawn tennis, although the volley I is "barred."

But the substitution of wooden for vellum bats and very fast play may grieve the oldfashioned ping-pong players of six months ago. With the wooden bat the euphonious musical accompaniment of " ping-pong" gives place to a sharp succession of "tick—tocks," ay the ball flies like a shuttle between the players.