Random Table Tennis Player Generator

So you drew a table tennis player

You wanted a table tennis player and the tool up top gives you one, or several if you raise the number, from a list I put together by hand, spanning the men's and women's games and reaching back across the eras. A pull might be a Chinese superstar, a European legend, or a fine player from a country you would never associate with the sport.

The tool is the simple part. Table tennis is worth explaining properly, because almost everyone has played it and almost nobody has any idea what the actual sport looks like.

Not the game in your garage

You have played table tennis. You have not played this. The gap between the game people knock about at a party and the sport these players compete in is probably wider than in any other discipline on earth. At the top level the ball leaves the bat at speeds that give the opponent a fraction of a second to read it, decide, move and respond, standing several feet back from a table that is only nine feet long. The reaction times involved are at the very edge of what a human nervous system can do, which is why elite players look, on television, like they are cheating.

And it is deceptively athletic. Watch a top rally and you will see players moving their whole body weight from side to side, driving from the legs, changing direction repeatedly in the time it takes you to blink. The bat weighs almost nothing and the ball weighs less, so all the violence in the sport is generated by technique. When the tool hands you a name, it is handing you someone with reflexes most athletes would envy.

Spin is the whole game

Here is the thing that separates real table tennis from the garage version, and it is the key to understanding everything you watch. Speed is not the main weapon. Spin is. The rubber on a table tennis bat is engineered to grip the ball and impart an enormous rate of rotation, thousands of revolutions per minute, and that spin dictates where the ball goes after it hits your opponent's bat, not just where it goes on the way to them.

So the sport becomes a duel of deception. A player can serve a ball that looks identical to another serve and behaves completely differently, because the spin is different. Get it wrong and your return flies off the end of the table or straight into the net, having barely been touched by your opponent. Topspin makes the ball dip viciously and kick forward. Backspin makes it float and then die. Sidespin makes it curve. Top players hide the contact with their body, change the spin at the last instant, and read their opponent's wrist rather than the ball. That is the real contest, invisible on a first viewing and, once you can see it, impossible to unsee.

Penhold and shakehand, choppers and loopers

Table tennis has a richness of personal style that few sports keep. Start with the grip. Most players hold the bat like a handshake, unsurprisingly called the shakehand grip, which is balanced and gives a strong backhand. But a great tradition, especially in China and Japan, holds it like a pen, pinched between thumb and forefinger, pointing down. The penhold grip gives a wickedly fast forehand and a wristy, unpredictable serve, at the cost of an awkward backhand, and its masters solved that with a technique of flipping the bat to use the back side. The old penhold greats are among the most beautiful players to watch.

Then there is what a player actually does. Most modern professionals are loopers, standing close and attacking with heavy topspin. But the sport still produces choppers, defensive players who back away from the table and float impossibly heavy backspin returns, absorbing attack after attack and waiting for the mistake. A chopper against a looper is one of the great contrasts in sport, patience against violence. So when the tool draws you a player, there is a real personality behind the name: a grip, a stance, a way of solving the problem.

Ma Long, Waldner, and the greats

The greatest player in the history of the sport is generally agreed to be Ma Long of China, the most decorated table tennis player there has ever been, a double Olympic singles champion whose completeness across every phase of the game left opponents with nowhere to go. Before him came the icons: Deng Yaping, the tiny, ferocious Chinese woman who dominated the 1990s and won four Olympic golds despite being told she was too short to succeed.

And then there is the one who mattered most to everyone outside China. Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden, nicknamed the Mozart of table tennis, was so gifted and so creative that he became a genuine celebrity in China itself, the foreign player their own crowds cheered. He won the Olympic title and beat the Chinese at their own game for the better part of two decades. Today the sport is led by names like Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, while Japan, Germany, Sweden, Brazil and Nigeria all produce players good enough to trouble anyone on their day. Draw one of the legends and you have pulled an artist. Draw a name you do not recognise and you have almost certainly pulled someone who could beat every person you have ever met, simultaneously.

What a random table tennis player is good for

• Discovering the actual sport. Pull a name and go watch a rally on video. Almost nobody who has only played in a garage knows what this looks like.
• Quiz and trivia prep. A random player, especially a European great or an old penhold master, is a strong question for any fan.
• Dream matchups. Pull two players from different eras and argue the tie, a chopper against a looper, Waldner against Ma Long.
• A prompt for the club. Coaches can draw a player as a style to study for the week.
• Fantasy and assignments. Handing players out for a draw, a bracket, or a friendly pool.

Table tennis questions

Who is the greatest table tennis player of all time?

Ma Long of China is the usual answer, the most decorated player in the sport's history and a double Olympic singles champion. Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner is the most celebrated non-Chinese player ever, and Deng Yaping dominated the women's game in the 1990s.

Why does spin matter so much?

Because the rubber on the bat imparts thousands of revolutions per minute to the ball, and that spin decides how the ball behaves off the opponent's bat. Reading and disguising spin, rather than sheer speed, is the real contest at the top level.

What is the penhold grip?

It is a way of holding the bat pinched between thumb and forefinger, like a pen, rather than in a handshake grip. It is traditional in China and Japan and produces a very fast forehand and a deceptive serve, though the backhand is harder to play.

Can I pull several players, or narrow the pick?

Both. Raise the number for a few at once, with none repeating in a single pull, and use the text boxes to narrow things, such as a starts-with letter or a keyword the name has to contain.

References

1. International Table Tennis Federation. ittf.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, table tennis. britannica.com