Table tennis balls

The use of table tennis balls as a juggling prop was popularized by the European circus star Gran Picaso in the 1960s and '70s.http://www.circopedia.org/index.php/Picaso_Jr These balls are usually juggled by spitting them from the mouth and catching them again in the mouth or with the hands. There are also some jugglers who bounce multiple table tennis balls on a single paddle.
: Video: 5 ball bounce juggling using paddles
==Table tennis ball jugglers==
full|right|300px|Tony Fercos from the Fercos Brothers Untamed IllusionsWilli Balladini was the first person to juggle table tennis balls with his mouth, in 1940.http://ezine.juggle.org/2014/12/03/juggling-firsts-part-three-rings-hoops-and-miscellaneous/ Jugglers who performed with table tennis balls in the 1980s include Tony Fercos and Valente & Valente in Europe, Wally Eastwood, Dick Francohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSkuWY5nu10 and Rod Laver in the United States, and Arturo Alegriahttps://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.obituaries/ZdO4j6-8If0 in Mexico. More recently, Gran Picaso's son Francisco Tebar Honrubia has taken up table tennis ball juggling, performing with the stage name Picaso Jr. in both Europe and the United States. Other table tennis ball jugglers include Roberto Carlos in Mexico and Ivan Pecel in the United States.
==World records==
Table tennis ball juggling world records with publicly available video evidence:
====Spit from and caught in the mouth====
*3 table tennis balls: 60 catches by Tony Fercos in 2012 (video)
*4 table tennis balls: 17 catches by Francisco Tebar Honrubia in 2011 (video)
*5 table tennis balls: 14 catches by Tony Fercos (video)
*6 table tennis balls: 6 catches by Tony Fercos in 2012 (video)
Unverified claims:
*2 table tennis balls: 304 catches by Jiang Guoying in 2014 (claim)
*3 table tennis balls: 76 catches by Francisco Tebar Honrubia in 2011 (claim)
*4 table tennis balls: 100 spits by Tony Fercos (claim)
*5 table tennis balls: 20 spits by Tony Fercos (claim)
*6 table tennis balls: 18 spits by Tony Fercos (claim)
*7 table tennis balls: 7 catches by Tony Fercos in 1987 and Wally Eastwood (claim)
====Spit from the mouth and caught in hands====
*7 table tennis balls: 50 catches by Roy Chacon in 2010 (video or video)
*8 table tennis balls: 8 catches by Tony Fercos (video) and Rod Laver (video)
*9 table tennis balls: 9 catches by Tomas Aguilar in 2015 (video)
====Bounced on a paddle====
*2 table tennis balls: 404 hits by Ivan Panchenko in 2018 (video)
*4 table tennis balls: 27 hits by Francisco Tebar Honrubia in 2007 (video)
==References==
Category:Props
Category:Ball juggling
Category:Forms of juggling