You can reacquaint yourself with the rules and purchase gear online too, so you'll have a competitive edge on your friends and look cool and snappy. Yes, there is specialized gear for table tennis beyond a plain T-shirt and shorts. A custom-made paddle, also known as a bat or a racket, can cost as much as 5100, and you might want a paddle cover to keep it protected. If you haven't played in Nears, you'll be surprised to learn that a glued-on laver of spongy rubber has replaced the pimpled hard rubber or sandpaper of your youth. My friend Ethan, who just turned 60, growled when I told him his trusty old sandpaper bat was pass and also, since the mid-1930s, illegal in tournament competition.
Bright orange is today's hot color.
As of last year, by a nearly unanimous vote of the International Table Tennis Federation, the standard ball is 40 millimeters in diameter and weighs 2.71 grams. That makes it 2 millimeters larger and .2 grams heavier than the old ball. Spin is easier to read on the big ball, too, an important plus for me because I wear glasses. It felt totally natural after one week, like, hey, this is what the ball was always supposed to be. Seemiller, a five-time U.S. Men's Singles champion, coached the L'.S. Men's Team at the Sydney Olympics and runs table camps in South Bend during the summer and between Christmas and the New Year.