Analysis
Long reads, opinion and original data on table tennis around the world.
AnalysisHungary is scrapping TAO, the sport subsidy table tennis was never allowed to share
Hungary once won every title going. As the new government replaces the tax scheme that built football's stadiums, the sport it never covered is counting its forints.
AnalysisEnglish table tennis still runs on leagues built in the 1930s, and it shows
England hosted the centenary World Championships this spring. Beneath the arena, the club game that made the sport here is older than ever, and the people who play it are too.
AnalysisBoosting: how table tennis's open secret outlived the speed glue ban
Players have complained for more than a decade that rivals treat their rubbers with banned oils. The story runs from a Japanese sponge bat in 1952 to officials taking rackets apart after matches.
AnalysisWhere table tennis prize money goes, from Bergmann's Wembley to WTT
A first-round loser at a WTT event earns a far larger share of the champion's cheque than at Wimbledon. The catch is in where the money is placed on the calendar.
AnalysisThe Lebrun effect: has one family changed French table tennis?
Félix and Alexis Lebrun's Olympic medals sent France's table tennis clubs a flood of new players. Two seasons on, the casual players are drifting away, and the competitors keep coming.
AnalysisHow much do the top players play? Eleven counted every WTT match since June
Five of the 20 players in the two world top 10s are missing from WTT Champions Frankfurt. Eleven counted every WTT match the top 20 have played since June, and the busiest players on the tour are mostly not the ones who have been injured.
AnalysisWhy no two table tennis tables play alike
China's players called the tables at the first US Smash too slippery, and a month later Wang Chuqin found Yokohama's too slow. The laws allow more variety than most fans realise, and they always have.
AnalysisWTT's money, part two: where it comes from, and what the 2025 accounts show
WTT made its first profit in 2024, and the wider ITTF group recorded a $14.4m loss in 2025 as it took on more of the cost of running events. The published accounts show where income and costs have grown and how the revenue mix has changed.
AnalysisWTT's money, part one: China's money, and where it goes
China supplies the crowds, sponsors and television audiences that make the professional circuit a major sport. Tournament income there is shared between local organisers and WTT, and the published accounts do not break WTT's revenue down by country.
AnalysisJapan's choppers keep an old art alive as defence disappears from the men's game
Honoka Hashimoto won both her matches against China in this month's Asian team final by chopping. The style once produced world champions, and it has all but gone from the men's ranking.
AnalysisWhy the men's world top 10 has got four years younger while the women's has aged
Sora Matsushima became the youngest men's world No 1 this month, and the players around him are younger too. Among the women, the change has gone the other way.
AnalysisExported talent: why a quarter of the women's world top 100 learned the game in China
Han Ying's exit in Montpellier was a reminder of how many of the world's best women grew up in Chinese table tennis. Among the men, almost all of those who did still play for China.