□About 100 years ago in England, a group of young people were playing their traditional sport - tennis outdoors. A sudden drizzle interrupted people's entertainment...
This group of tennis fans who longed for bright sunshine and green shade were trapped indoors. They had to sit around the dining table, looking at the smoky rain and mist in the courtyard, and helplessly passed away the boring time in music and whiskey. . A young gentleman looked at the table absentmindedly, playing with the tennis racket in his hand intently. Suddenly, he stood up, moved slowly around the dining table, and made waving movements from time to time, as if he was thinking about something, and then he drank all the wine in the glass.
After some preparation, this smart gentleman designed an interesting device: he turned the large dining table into a miniature tennis court, separated by a net in the middle and surrounded by The high net prevents the ball from falling off the table. He named this kind of table tennis "Gosima".
However, tennis is an outdoor sport after all. When the racket and ball are transplanted indoors intact, it will inevitably cause some trouble. Therefore, some people began to think about reforming the equipment.
Early rackets were mainly made of wood. The board was made hollow and both sides of the board were pasted with sheepskin. The shape of the entire racket was an oval with a long handle, which looked smaller than a tennis racket. A lot, and a lot lighter. The early balls were solid and made of rubber or cork. In order not to damage the furniture, the solid balls were often covered with a layer of soft and strong wool.
Table tennis soon became a fashionable sport and became popular among the upper classes in the West. The development of equipment has also been affected by fashion. The handles inlaid with silver are engraved with exquisite patterns, and the rackets are increasingly finely crafted, even comparable to elegant works of art.
As table tennis was completely developed out of tennis, the original competition rules and technical playing methods still follow the habits of tennis competitions. When serving, you can serve the ball directly to the opponent's table, or you can serve the ball to your own table first and then jump to the opponent's table.
The style of play at that time was mainly chipping, catching, and rubbing. There was almost no offense like now. In order to enhance the intensity of competition, people have designed some rules for the game, but these rules are very arbitrary. Some are divided into 10 points or 20 points, and some are divided into 50 points or 100 points. In this way, a highly entertaining sport that both women and children can participate in spreads from the upper class and is accepted by the common people.
At that time, the common name for this sport was "TableTennis", which means "table tennis". There is another saying that it is named after the sound made by the ball hitting the table and paddle. This is also the name "table tennis" that we Chinese are most familiar with.
In 1891, an Englishman named Charles Baxter applied for a commercial patent for "table tennis" and obtained the British patent license No. 19070. Table tennis was officially launched.
□In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. At this time, in the Forbidden City, the Empress Dowager Cixi saw a foreign tribute film for the first time at her 70th birthday party. It was also in this year that table tennis was introduced to China from Japan.
Shanghai, as an important trading port in China at that time, had more new things emerging than other cities, and people were quite fond of those weird foreign gadgets. There was a stationery store on Daxin Street, Sima Road, Shanghai, which is now Fuzhou Road. The owner of the store, Wang Daowu, often went overseas to purchase stationery. Once, he accidentally saw a table tennis performance in Japan. Out of professional sensitivity, he bought several sets of table tennis equipment and brought them back. At this time, the table tennis racket had evolved into a new form. The Chinese at that time did not recognize it, let alone how to use it, so the initial sales were not smooth, which made Boss Wang very depressed.
In order to open up the sales of table tennis, Boss Wang, who was thinking hard, had a sudden idea. He put up a table in the store and asked his staff to play a "demonstration performance". As a result, he unexpectedly attracted a lot of people. Onlookers, those few rackets were also sold quickly.
In the eyes of the Chinese people at that time, this foreign novelty could stretch arms and posture just within a square and a circle, and the two people were several feet apart without any physical conflict, which was very useful. It is a gentleman's style; when the ball comes and goes, you push and I give way, which is also in line with the etiquette of reciprocity. Therefore, after witnessing this gentlemanly game with their own eyes, it is naturally much easier for the Chinese to accept it.
Perhaps from this moment on, the Chinese began their table tennis journey.
On July 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, and World War I broke out. This brought table tennis, which had been well developed in Europe, to a halt. In the 1920s, with the promotion of Ivo Montague and others who later became the chairman of the ITTF, table tennis, which had been neglected for a time, became active again in the UK. However, it was discovered at this time that the word "table tennis" had been registered as a business name by others, and the original British Table Tennis Association lacked representation, so the original organization was disbanded, and the "Table Tennis" Association was re-established and registered. trademark. So the name "table tennis" became the official name. The ITTF still uses this name, perhaps out of habit, but China still uses the name "table tennis", which is named after the sound. Only when translated into English, it remains "TableTennis".
More than ten years after table tennis was introduced to China, it began to appear in a few big cities. In 1916, the Shanghai branch of the China YMCA, founded in 1908, located at No. 599 Sichuan Middle Road, Shanghai, first opened a table tennis room and established a public table tennis entertainment venue with 9 tables.
At that time, ordinary citizens had no chance to enter, and table tennis was just a new entertainment for rich children.
□Who could have expected that Sun Runsheng’s instinctive move not only changed his life, but also successfully opened the door to the modern sports industry of the Chinese nation.
In 1916, at the Union College in Tongzhou, old Beijing, a young man walked out. His name was Sun Runsheng.
At that time, Sun Runsheng was just an inconspicuous poor student. During the after-school games at school, he could only watch helplessly those children from rich families holding high-end and novel sports equipment
game. Finally one day, he suddenly had a sudden idea and wanted to make a basketball by himself. Despite the difficulties, Sun Runsheng still came up with his own way. He first bought the ball from the market, took it apart when he got home, and then sewed it back together. Then, he bought cowhide and used a dough stick to drive the leather at home. The ball was made. The quality was not very good at first, but he gradually succeeded.
In addition to being self-sufficient in making sports equipment, Sun Runsheng could also sell the excess to the public. Gradually, he found that the sports equipment he made was selling well, and he immediately came up with the idea of ??opening his own factory. , however, due to lack of financial and technical support, it cannot be completed for the time being.
In 1918, the Shanghai Branch of the Chinese YMCA initiated the establishment of the "Shanghai Table Tennis Federation" in the clubhouse. For a time, enthusiastic Chinese people established some table tennis organizations and established many teams. Some Chinese people called for physical fitness to serve the country, so this sport has been launched in big cities across the country such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and other places.
At this time, Sun Runsheng had graduated from Union College and was teaching at Nankai Middle School in Tianjin. He had never stopped exploring and pursuing sporting goods. Just when his life as a teacher was going smoothly, Sun Runsheng made a decision that surprised all his colleagues, and it was also a decision that changed his own destiny - he wanted to resign and start a factory. Sun Runsheng relied on the few hundred yuan he saved to open an early-stage factory in his home, Wuma Gong, Hebei District, Tianjin.
Sun Runsheng opened a sporting goods factory, which was a miracle at the time. In the early days of setting up the factory, he drew up a couplet: To meet the needs of society, to manufacture sporting goods, to make people healthy, and to sell sports equipment. So he took the first character of the couplet, filled with young people's enthusiasm, longing and anxiety about the future, and wrote the two characters "Lisheng" as the name of the factory. Obviously, Sun Runsheng has seen the future of the development of sports and sporting goods.
Sun Runsheng’s action finally created China’s earliest national sports industry. Interestingly, such a national sports industry was born in an era when the nation was weak.
Although the table tennis rackets produced at that time mainly imitated the shape of imported rackets and were made of simple wood, and the feel and weight could not be compared with imported rackets, but for the Chinese people, they finally had the opportunity to Buying cheap wooden rackets for fun and competition is a blessing.
□In 1923, in order to increase its influence, the Shanghai branch of the Chinese YMCA held the first table tennis competition for the society in Shanghai.
The competition was conducted in a confrontational manner, with 11 people participating. The winner was the one who won 6 sets first. There were so many enthusiastic responders that the competition was an unexpected success.
In December 1926, the newly established Provisional ITTF convened the first ITTF Congress and entrusted the England Table Tennis Association to host it at Memowall Hall, Fulington Street, London, England. "First European Championship". Since then, "table tennis" has been included in regular European sports competitions.
In early 1935, the "All-China Table Tennis Association" was officially established in Shanghai. In January of the same year, ITTF President Ivo Montagu invited China to join the ITTF via telegram and hoped that China could participate in the 9th World Table Tennis Championships to be held in London, England in February. However, the Chinese Nationalist Government was busy with the civil war. , and the newly established "All-China Table Tennis Association" lacked funds, so it was unable to make the trip.
In July 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out. But the war did not make the Chinese surrender. In some areas, various sports, large and small, are still carried out vigorously among the people, war zones and even behind enemy lines. Table tennis has simple equipment and does not require high venues. It will soon become the preferred sports for entertainment and fitness of China’s military and civilians.
Twelve years later, Japan's aggression and the Kuomintang's rule became history.
The surging enthusiasm for building a new China has become a huge driving force for the Chinese people, and this driving force has unexpectedly pushed table tennis to the top of the world.
For the Chinese a hundred years ago, they would not have imagined that an imported foreign thing would actually take root in the land of China and grow with luxuriant branches and leaves.
Tennis on the table is a witness to history. Now it is still the pride of 1.3 billion Chinese people.