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If you want a detailed recap of the table tennis action at the Paris 2024 Olympics, I highly recommend our article covering every major story coming out of table tennis at Paris 2024.

Before the event, most people would have guessed that China would top the medal table by winning all 5 available Gold medals. Despite all the drama and controversy, that’s exactly what ended up happening.

Here’s what the final medal table looks like:

Swedenwill undoubtedly be the happiest nation with an incredible 2 Silver medals. They were spearheaded by Truls Moregardh as he pulled the greatest upset of all time to knock out Wang Chuqin in the Men’s Singles. He inspired teammates Anton Källberg and Kristian Karlsson in a gripping Men’s Team event as they almost pulled off an unbelievable victory against China.

Japan’sSilver and Bronze medals also represent a good return for the proud table tennis nation. Tomokazu Harimoto almost managed to knock out Fan Zhendong in the Men’s Singles, whilst Hina Hayata stormed to her individual Bronze medal despite suffering a wrist injury. Their Silver medal in the Women’s Team event was rightly deserved thanks to having strong players in all 3 positions.

North Korea were perhaps the surprise package of this Olympics, although it perhaps should not have been a surprise considering their rich history in the event. With just 3 athletes attending, it was the doubles pairing Kim Kum Yong and Ri Jong Sik who consistently impressed when reaching the final of the Mixed Doubles event. Pyon Song Gyong also performed admirably, winning 3 of her knockout Singles matches.

South Korea have a group of talented female players with a strong mix of experience and youth, so it was unsurprising to see them pick up Bronze in the Mixed Doubles and the Women’s Team events. Shin Yubin was the star, playing 14 matches and winning 10 of them. At just 20 years old, she’s going to be fighting for podiums for many years to come.

France returned their best total medal haul ever with 2 bronze efforts at their home games. Felix Lebrun announced himself as a future world champion, with the 17-year old delivering devastating performances with incredible mental fortitude for someone so young. His brother Alexis also brings an exciting style, although he was definitely overshadowed by his younger brother this time around. It’s important for me to close by mentioning Simon Gauzy who used all of his experience to push the young brothers across the winning line for their Men’s Team bronze. French fans should be very excited about the future.

David’s been playing Table Tennis since he was 12, earning his first coaching license in 2012. He’s played in national team & individual competitions, although he prefers the more relaxed nature of a local league match! After earning his umpiring qualification in England, David moved to Australia and started Racket Insight to share information about the sport he loves.

Blade: Stiga WRB Offensive Classic | Forehand: Calibra LT | Backhand: Xiom Musa
Playstyle: The All-Rounder

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If youâ€ve been watching superstars like Truls Moregardh, Felix Lebrun, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, and Hina Hayata, itâ€s quite likely youâ€ve been inspired to play table tennis.

Maybe youâ€ve picked up a paddle with friends / colleagues before, or you used to play as a kid. Maybe youâ€ve never hit a shot in your life. Everyoneâ€s welcome to start playing TODAY.

Table tennis is one of the most accessible and welcoming sports in the world, with regular players of all skill levels. If youâ€re over the age of 10 (which is quite likely), youâ€re probably not going to make the Olympic squad, but that wonâ€t stop you having loads of fun.

Let me explain 6 ways you can get involved with table tennis.

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Find Somewhere To Play With Friends

If youâ€re totally new to the sport, a good place to start is reading our beginner’s guide to table tennis. Thatâ€ll get you up to speed with the rules.

Then, you need to grab a friend (or friends) and find yourself a table. Most towns and cities around the world have access to a table either in a local park, sports center, or social club.

Most national table tennis organizations provide a list of places to play, such as the UKâ€s table finder or Australiaâ€s club finder. If youâ€re in the US, we have a guide to finding places to play table tennis across the USA.

Alternatively, just hit up Google for any places that will rent you a table by the hour.

Even better, check if there are any ping pong bars in your nearest city! Famous ones include Bounce in London, and SPIN in New York.

Bounce in London is a fantastic table tennis bar.

If youâ€re not sure about playing consistently, I highly recommend renting paddles and balls. Keep in mind that a vast majority of rented equipment is of terrible quality though, so this is temporary until you buy your own paddle.

Speaking of buying your own paddle, here are my favorite pre-made paddles for beginners. I mostly recommend the Killerspin JET400 as a great balance between price and performance. Iâ€d recommend investing in your own paddle as soon as youâ€re sure you want to play more than once.

Get Some Basic Coaching

Thereâ€s a huge gap between a total beginner and an amateur local club player. An equally big gap exists between those club players and the local premier division players. Oh, and another huge gap between them and professionals.

So the best thing you can do to kickstart your table tennis career is to invest in some group or individual coaching.

Whilst you can pick up some instructions from sites like ours, and from YouTube, itâ€s never going to be the same as real life coaching sessions. Even if you just have a few sessions to get your grip, serve, and 4 basic strokes right, youâ€ll see a massive skill improvement very quickly.

Here are some of our best resources that will be helpful for you:

Example diagram we’ve created to help learn the 4 basic shots

Join A Local Club

Now youâ€re 100% ready to join a local club.

Some clubs are very beginner-friendly, and will run introductory courses themselves. Others might be more elite training clubs with limited table capacity for beginners. Do a small amount of research and maybe reach out to the club before you head down for the first time.

As a general rule, most clubs are incredibly friendly and welcoming. Table tennis players love to see new people playing the sport. Clubs are often very social, with everyone chatting in between training / matches.

As is human nature though, not all clubs are run the same. Donâ€t get disheartened if you donâ€t find your sporting home at the first club you visit. Try a few different clubs and join the one you feel most comfortable at.

Need to find a club? Try google, or even sites like Meetup or EventBrite.

Volunteer Your Time

You donâ€t have to play the sport to get involved. Local groups and clubs are always on the lookout for volunteers who can help out.

Whether thatâ€s acting as a hitting partner for juniors, organizing club nights, fundraising, finances, managing the website/social pages, umpiring, or coaching, everyone is welcome to our sport.

The next generation of players like Ma Long, Timo Boll, or Truls Moregardh probably havenâ€t started playing yet. They need grassroots volunteers to help get them into the sport and support their development into superstars of the future.

Nobody can become a professional without a large support network of players and non-players who volunteered their time building the structures that developed them as a player.

Get Yourself A Table Tennis Table

You could easily spend $5,000+ on an amazing home table tennis setup if you have the space at home.

Not everyone has that kind of money though, so itâ€s great that there are plenty of high-quality budget options as well. Our home setup guide also covers a full setup for less than $1,000.

Budget tables start at around $200 but are terrible quality. Make sure the surface thickness is above 15mm and itâ€s not too difficult to move around, which is normally found in tables at $450 and above. If thatâ€s too steep, check out your local facebook marketplace or gumtree.

If you havenâ€t got anyone to play against at home, itâ€s not a bad idea to purchase a cheap(ish) robot for $250. This will give you plenty of time to practice your strokes and improve super quickly. Robots are great, but they arenâ€t a complete replacement for real people.

For example, you canâ€t buy a robot that will replicate Truls Moregardhâ€s outrageous Snake shot in the Olympic Final.

Watch More Table Tennis

There are a few places you can watch table tennis broadcasts, with online streaming the main format as matches arenâ€t often available on TV channels.

Instead, the main recommended place to watch events, streams and match highlights is at which is managed by the global table tennis governing body.

World Table Tennis is a great YouTube channel to keep up with table tennis news

Alternatively, there are some great table tennis YouTube channels that are worth subscribing to including Olympic commentator Adam Bobrow.

Weâ€d also love to welcome you to the online table tennis community at forums like r/tabletennis, Table Tennis Daily and OOAK.

David’s been playing Table Tennis since he was 12, earning his first coaching license in 2012. He’s played in national team & individual competitions, although he prefers the more relaxed nature of a local league match! After earning his umpiring qualification in England, David moved to Australia and started Racket Insight to share information about the sport he loves.

Blade: Stiga WRB Offensive Classic | Forehand: Calibra LT | Backhand: Xiom Musa
Playstyle: The All-Rounder

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Wow. What a breathtaking Olympic Singles week that was across both the Menâ€s and Womenâ€s events.

On the Menâ€s side, we saw the Gold go to China, but the Silver heading to Sweden as Truls Moregardh produced one of the biggest Olympic shocks of all time by knocking out Wang Chuqin before pushing Fan Zhendong hard in the final.

On the Womenâ€s side, we saw continued Chinese domination of table tennis as China took both the Gold and Silver medals. Chen Meng prevailed over the in-form Sun Yingsha for her 2nd Olympic title, a feat completed by so few in history.

Here are the 5 things we learnt from the event (from a coach and long-time table tennis fan).

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The Chinese Menâ€s Team Are Beatable

For the first time since 2004, the Menâ€s Singles final wasnâ€t contested by two Chinese players.

It was the first time since 1992 that the Chinese failed to take home 2 medals in this event.

Thatâ€s how monumental Truls Moregardhâ€s victory over Wang Chuqin was, with the favorite being knocked out in the Round of 32. Truls embodied the spirit of the only non-Asian Gold Medal winner in Menâ€s singles, Jan-Ove Waldner, to produce some electric displays to reach the final.

Add on the trouble Fan Zhendong had against both Japanâ€s Tomokazu Harimoto and Moregardh, then you have a potential recipe for a shake-up of Menâ€s table tennis for years to come.

Thanks to u/pscj on Reddit

Both Truls and his fellow podium-standing European, Felix Lebrun, bring something a bit unique to the table with their non-traditional styles of play. This should inspire a huge amount of confidence in players around the world to lean into their unique style rather than conforming to traditional technique.

You just have to watch the final to see how impactful the chop block (blocking a ball with side/back spin) was against Fan, with the shot being rarely seen across the professional Menâ€s game. Truls made it work time and time again as he nearly upset the odds.

All that being said, Fan Zhendong will still be taking the Gold medal back to China. He avoided the ignominy of losing 2 Olympic finals like his mentor Wang Hao (who lost 3 in a row), and cemented his legacy as one of the all-time greats of modern table tennis.

The men might be beatable, but they arenâ€t beaten just yet.

In Contrast, The Chinese Womenâ€s Team Are Unbeatable

Hereâ€s what I said before the tournament even started (in our Paris 2024 draw/brackets/results article):

“Thereâ€s an exceptionally high chance of Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng meeting each other in the final, and they wonâ€t be in any mood to put that at risk.â€

Sun Yingsha didnâ€t drop a single game until the final, scoring 232 points to her opponentâ€s 129. Chen Meng started slowly against Swedenâ€s Linda Bergstrom and the Netherlandâ€s Britt Eerland but still comfortably won those matches 4-1.

There was never a shadow of a doubt that the Gold and Silver medals would belong to China. Even Bronze-medal winning Hina Hayata of Japan lost 4-0 (11-6, 11-8, 11-6, 11-2) against Silver-winning Sun Yingsha.

The only real surprise was Chen Meng beating her compatriot with a repeat scoreline from the Tokyo Olympics.

Even though Chen was entering as the reigning champion, she had been looking short of ideas in losing multiple times to Sun over the last couple of years. As the dominant force, and a huge fan favorite, the match was expected to be Sunâ€s procession to Olympic gold.

Instead, Chen joins the greats Zhang Yining and Deng Yaping as multiple-Gold medal winning athletes in the Womenâ€s Singles. What an incredible achievement.

The French Have 2 Future Stars On Their Hands

Every time I watched the tournament, the arena appeared to be full of fans cheering on athletes of all nations. However, as is often the case with table tennis, it was commonly the Chinese fans cheering the loudest whenever their representatives were playing.

That shifted dramatically as Felix and Alexis Lebrun started winning matches and putting themselves in medal contention.

Whilst Alexisâ€s defeat at the hands of Brazilâ€s Huge Calderano in the Round of 16 put the brakes on French dreaming temporarily, it was to be his 17-year old brother who avenged his brotherâ€s defeat by beating the same opponent 4-0 in a dramatic bronze medal match.

The French crowd played a huge role in reversing recent form between the Frenchman and Brazilian, with Felix having never taken a game off Hugo before. The “thrill from Brazil†Calderano seemed rattled as Felix dominated from the first to last point, earning Franceâ€s first Olympic table tennis medal since 1992 (Jean-Philippe Gatienâ€s Silver).

With the two Lebrun brothers, France has two worthy successors to players like Simon Gauzy and Emmanuel Lebesson. Theyâ€ll be challenging for world titles aplenty over the years to come.

Iâ€ve no doubt theyâ€ll be even more successful if the French public get behind them just like they did for Felix as he put on a Bronze-medal winning masterclass.

Olympic Broadcasters Should Be Ashamed

I have two major grips about the Olympic broadcasters (globally) and their treatment of table tennis as a sport.

The first applies primarily to the USA broadcaster Peacock who decided it was fully appropriate to show table tennis as a 4-way split screen using low-quality streams. The audio coverage came from just one of the screens, with no way to watch individual streams.

The Olympics is one of the major opportunities for table tennis to gain popularity across the general population and accelerate new players into watching / playing the sport.

Thatâ€s why itâ€s incredibly disappointing that one of the worldâ€s biggest and richest markets broadcast table tennis in a way that makes it terrible to watch.

Most people who actually wanted to watch the table tennis event have resorted to using VPNs into Australia where at least Channel 9 has free-to-air streams of all four tables. Try asking a casual viewer to do that.

Thanks to u/whostheme from Reddit

The other major problem has been a lack of interesting, engaging commentators. When you compare table tennis to tennis, this is one of the biggest differentiators. Tennis commentary brings in excellent broadcasters and sporting stars who share unique perspectives on the on-court action.

Table tennis, on the other hand, has just a handful of strong commentators (shout out to the excellent Adam Bobrow) who canâ€t commentate every match, and arenâ€t available across most broadcast streams.

That leaves a lot of silent matches, or matches commentated by people with limited knowledge of table tennis. As a sport, we need to bring people in and help educate them about whatâ€s happening in the match – the strategy, the spin, the history – so poor commentary leaves yet another huge missed opportunity.

Will lessons be learnt? I doubt it.

Service Rules Are A Huge Problem

For those unaware, serving in table tennis has a few simple rules:

• Players must throw the ball up vertically at least 16 cm (around 6 inches) without imparting any spin onto the ball.
• The ball must be struck whilst falling down, above and behind the end line of the table.
• At no point can the ball be obscured from the opponentâ€s eye-line, including by a hand or clothing.
• The ball must hit the servers side of the table before hitting your opponents side anywhere on the table (in singles) or diagonally across (in doubles).

The most obvious issue new players discuss is that professionals rarely throw the ball up ‘vertically†however in reality this has very little impact on the serve as long as the throw is mostly up rather than across.

The real issue thatâ€s had a spotlight shone on it from this Olympics is the ball being obscured at the point of contact.

This rule is incredibly important because the spin imparted on the ball is only determined by the direction of the racket at the point of contact. To try and deceive opponents, most players from casual to professional will move the racket in multiple directions during the serving motion.

Professionals are very good at this. Most normal people would have an exceptionally hard time just knowing what spin is on the ball, never mind actually returning the serve.

All of this means that itâ€s incredibly difficult to spot the spin on the ball without also seeing the exact contact point (hence the rule). Yet we saw multiple occasions where players complained about their opponent hiding the contact point behind their hand and/or body.

The most high-profile example of this was Truls Moregardh pointing out Wang Chuqinâ€s illegal serves in their Round of 32 clash, with the referee choosing to award Truls a yellow card for “time wastingâ€.

The root cause of the issue is that umpires simply canâ€t see whether the contact point is visible to the opponent unless itâ€s an extreme example of an illegal serve. From their vantage points at the side of the table, neither the umpire nor assistant umpire could be confident making that call.

With the decreasing costs of technology in sport, it feels like only a matter of time before a “hawk eye†style system becomes common at professional tournaments to help umpires out.

Bonus: Wang Chuqinâ€s Racket Controversy

In a moment of Olympic controversy, Wang Chuqin (the favorite for Menâ€s Singles Gold) had his racket stepped on and broken by a clumsy photographer just moments after he had won the Mixed Doubles title.

In his next match, he was knocked out of the Menâ€s Singles by a dominant Truls Moregardh. Unsurprisingly, the internet became awash with conspiracy theories. Was the photographer a Swedish plant? Or just someone who didnâ€t want China to win Gold?

The reality is the most likely scenario, which is that an unlucky photographer took a poorly-judged step in the scrum to get a medal with the Gold-medal winning doubles pair. Wang will lament placing his racket down in a place where that was even a possibility, something most club members try to avoid.

Credit to u/Thallium54 for grabbing this screenshot (Reddit).

Iâ€ll give him a pass this time though, he was celebrating winning an Olympic Gold medal after all.

Did it then have an impact on his ability to play against Truls? I think this is a massive stretch and a poor excuse for underperformance.

The top players have multiple identical rackets (and some with slightly different characteristics) and have trained hard using rackets each with miniscule performance variations. Any impact in actual performance is 100% down to a mental lapse instead of an equipment downgrade.

If you want to win a Gold medal, you need to be mentally strong. Wang Chuqin is experienced enough to handle swapping out identical equipment, so maybe it really was just the fact he came up against a better player on the day.

The real blame belongs with his coach, Xiao Zhan, who decided to make a big deal of the broken racket mere seconds after the Gold-medal winning moment. A bit of emotional intelligence would have told him to hide the racket and deal with the problem privately when the atmosphere was less emotionally charged. Perhaps then Wang would have been less psychologically affected by the equipment loss.

David’s been playing Table Tennis since he was 12, earning his first coaching license in 2012. He’s played in national team & individual competitions, although he prefers the more relaxed nature of a local league match! After earning his umpiring qualification in England, David moved to Australia and started Racket Insight to share information about the sport he loves.

Blade: Stiga WRB Offensive Classic | Forehand: Calibra LT | Backhand: Xiom Musa
Playstyle: The All-Rounder

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