Basic Rules of Ping Pong

Series Summary

Table tennis, also called Ping Pong, is a sport which tests the players' hand-eye coordination and reaction time to the extreme. It is one of the most popular sports in the world in terms of numbers of players worldwide, and is played competitively in international tournaments. Table tennis was first played in England in the 1880s, likely as an indoor, miniaturized version of lawn tennis. Soon equipment was manufactured, and the name Ping-Pong was trademarked in 1901 by J. Jaques & Son Ltd., who later sold the name to Parker Brothers.

In this series of free videos you'll learn how to play table tennis. Expert Scott Browder shows you the basics, from how to pick a ping pong table, paddles and balls, to the basic types of shots you'll need to become a ping pong master. You'll learn the handshake grip and the pen grip, how to loosen up and stretch before a match, and how to hold your body and the proper form and stance for playing table tennis. He'll teach you how to serve, how to return a serve, and various types of shots, including the slice, the slam, and a variety of spins that will confuse your opponent and have the competition doubting their skills!

Video Transcript

"Now the basic rules are you put the ball in play with your serve. You get five serves, and once your five servers are over then you opponent serves five serves, and you usually keep track of points up to twenty one. Somebody can score on your serve, or you could score on your serve. It's not like volleyball where you have to be serving to get the point. You serve, the ball's in play, whoever gets the point gets the point. You keep track up to twenty one, and you have to win by two points. You can't win 21 to 20. Once it gets to 21 to 20 you usually go ad in, deuce, ad out. If I got the point at 21 all, and I'm serving again, then instead of saying 22 to 21 and trying to keep track of all the numbers, I would say my ad and then serve it. If I got the point then that would be two points, and I would win the game. That's the basic scoring system. Of course some of the other rules are that you have to let the ball bounce one time and then you make contact with the ball. If somebody hits the ball high and it's about to hit the table, you can't come in and hit the ball in the air and try to keep the ball in play that way. It has to hit your side of the table, and then the ball is in play for you to make your shot. If it hits twice then you lose the point. The other person has got the point. The ball has to hit the table. If the ball hits the side and just ticks, barely touching the table, it's still good. It's the other person's point. It's like hitting the line; the lines are drawn and you can see that there's actually a little bit of green outside of the line, but when you're playing ping pong if it hits the table anywhere on the surface, even if it's just so much as barely ticks the surface, it's still in play. You can try to play it if you can get down below it and try to get it back on the other side of the table, but chances are that you're not going to be able to do that. So if somebody ticks the table with the ball, it's usually a pretty good shot. They're probably going to win the point."