In order to play a proper game of ping pong, it is important that you have the right equipments, which obviously means that you should have the right ping pong table. The length of the table is 9 ft and its width is 5 ft. The height of the ping pong table must be 30 inches. The table top is made of masonite or similar timber and is layered with a low-friction coating. The surface must be smooth and free of warps in order to ensure proper bouncing of the ping pong ball. The table is divided into two halves using a high net. The net is 6 inches in height. The standard color of the table is green and the lines are painted white. However, custom-made tables may have different color scheming depending on the player’s choice.
PING PONG BALL
According to the international rules ping pong is played with a light 2.7 gram ball having a diameter of 40 mm. The ball is normally white or orange having a matte finish and is made of high-bouncing air-filled celluloid. Deciding which color to play with depends on the color of the table and its surroundings. This may be well understood by the fact that on a green or blue table, white ball would be more prominent than it would be on a gray table. Stars on the ball are used to indicate its quality and the highest quality ball has three stars. This type of ball is used in most official competitions. Another important property of the ball is that it must have a coefficient of restitution of 0.89-0.92 and must bounce 24-26 cm high when dropped from a height of 30.5 cm.
PING PONG RACKET
In order to play ping pong a player must have a wooden racket covered with rubber on either one or both sides depending upon the grip of the player. Even though it is commonly called racket, other names of this include paddle, blade, bat etc depending upon the place where the game is being played.
BLADE
The wooden portion of the racket is called blade and is made up of 1-7 plies of wood, cork, glass fiber etc. It doesn’t really matter what kind of materials may be used, all that matters is that racket must consist of at least 85% natural wood which include Balsa, Limba, Walnut, Cypress etc. Although no restrictions have been imposed on the shape and size of the blade, the standard size is 6.5 inches wide and 6.5 inches long.
RUBBER SURFACES
Different surfaces may be used on the racket and are distinguished by different colors of the rubber. For example one side of the racket may have red rubber and the other side may have black rubber. These different types of surfaces provide different levels of spin or speed or no spin. A racket may offer a lot of spin on one side and no spin on the other side depending upon the surface used. A player has every right to inspect the racket of the opponent in order to see the type and color of the rubber used. A racket can not be exchanged for another racket at any point during the match as long as it is not damaged in the play.
