1. We are not trying to make table tennis like tennis. But in fact tennis has some very good aspects from which we can learn. It also has some negative aspects that we must not follow. This applies to every sport and not just Tennis.

2. It is true that Mr. Ogimura said that we must not follow Tennis. But if you think about it he proposed to change the colour of the ball to Yellow (like tennis), then it was modified to Orange. he proposed the table to be Blue instead of green, but at that time also tennis had adopted the Blue court. he also introduced the special rubber floor in table tennis (Nagase Kenko) also like the synthetic tennis floor. Mr. Ogimura is also the first president of the ITTF to propose the larger ball of 44mm which was then used in Japan. Also Mr. Ogimura is the first president of the ITTF to push for more prize Money for players- just like Tennis.

So in fact even if Mr. Ogimura did not like to follow tennis you will notice that a lot of his innovations and ideas were already used in tennis. Why? Because tennis was and still is more successful than table tennis- which means that they do things better than table tennis. It also means that Mr. Ogimura was very clever and he adopted some of the successful elements from Tennis.

3. personally I have no complexes regarding Tennis. I look at it as I look at all other sports and I try to see why some sports are more successful than others. there are many reasons and also there are cultural and historical reasons, In China table tennis is very popular and tennis is not so popular. In my country Ice_Hockey is very popular but it is not so popular in Japan. therefore it is not a good idea to generalize.

4. What makes an activity popular? Ask yourself this question. of course this question can be answered differently by different people depending on their taste. But we at the ITTF must try and find some common elements that will make our sport more popular. Some of the elements that make an activity popular are as follows:

- Exciting


- Not too long


- Not too short


- Dramatic


- Human interest


- Role models and heros


- easy to understand


- easy to do


- visually attractive.

These are just some of the elements that could make an activity attractive (in general) there are also many more specific elements depending on each one's taste. That is why some people like some type of movie and others like another type, etc.

5. If we apply to table tennis the above points we will note that currently table tennis was:

- not very exciting (short rallies, stupid mistakes by the players, many errors, etc.


- matches in general are too long


- points are too short


- it is not dramatic until the final points or when a match is very close


- players are not well known and we do not know about them personally

(which means we need more TV coverage and more media coverage)


- we do not have enough role models and heros (we have some, but we need more- which means we need more TV coverage)


- The game is too complicated for the average person and spectator to understand (hidden spins on service, too fast, what appears to the inexperienced as too many easy mistakes, etc.)


- it is difficult to learn how to play and improve fast our sport needs to be more visually attractive to the spectator and the TV audience.

6. All the changes that the ITTF is now making are to improve the sport according to the elements I outlined in the above point. A larger ball (40mm) has improved the matches dramatically at the Osaka World Championships. Shorter games should increase the dramatic effect of the game, etc.

7. it is true that Japanese defensive (chopper) players are finding it difficult with the 40mm ball and with shorter games. But it is a question of adjusting their technique and changing their game to adapt to the new situation. I am sure that in the long term we will have more good defensive players but maybe their technique will be different.

8. Regarding the hidden service, we are the only sport that hides its service. This is not normal. Until 10 years ago even in table tennis we did not hide the service. Some spectators may even think that this is a way of cheating. It is not healthy for the image of our sport. A successful service should be based on skill and not on hidden deception.

In any case, I do respect your ideas and I agree with many of your points. Please keep me informed on any other research or surveys that you may conduct in the future and rest assured that the ITTF is trying its best to improve our sport and make it more popular to all.

Sincerely,

Adham Sharara , ITTF President

Dear president Sharara,

My name is Kazuhiro Toyama. I'm a high school student in Japan. I love table tennis and I'm always thinking about how to improve image of table tennis,?how to make table tennis more popular ? Now I would like yow to know my ideas.

I started to love table tennis when I saw Hiroshi Shibutani(chopper)'s play. My image of table tennis was two men hits a ball on a table' before I saw Hirosi's play.Therefore I think table tennis needs choppers. Their play attracts many people because it's really fantastic. I think recent revision of table tennis rules damages choppers greatly ? I agree on 11 points scoring system(when I don't tell about choppers). But I don't agree that servers change by 2 points. Tactics is really attractive for table tennis players.We think about combination of service and enjoy it. We can't enjoy it when servers change by 2 points.If it's 3 points not 2,we should enjoy it.

There's only a 1 point difference,but it's a big difference ? I don't agree on the revision that your opponent must see impact of your service.I think you have two reasons you adopt this rule.

First, when we serve service that is hidden by body, it's not good look to audience. I conducted survey on my friends (who doesn't play table tennis). Service that is hidden by body and backhand service, which service is good-looking ? 75% of my friends answered service that is hidden by body is. I think this is not the reason. You probably adopt this rule to make rallies longer. This is right, so I don't say this rule has no meaning.But I think this rule makes players all the same. I want to see a lot of players. And when this rule is enforced,we shouldn't construct tactics as now, because if we can't serve service that is hidden by body, we can't serve many up or long services(it's easy to be hit strongly). I think you make table tennis into tennis.According to Ogimura,table tennis is not a small tennis.. I agree on that.I think table tennis has two advantage that other sports don't have.They are spins and tactics.

We need our brain when we play table tennis. Of course other sports also need our brain, but we play table tennis near our opponents and there's much spin, so when we play table tennis we need our brain than other sports. Therefore I think rule that reduces spins or choice of tactics is not good. Please think more about participation. Participation is included in P4 Plan.

70% of answers to why you like table tennis are spins and tactics. I wrote some ideas that is different from you.But I really expect you (such as forbidding harmful glue)Please make table tennis more popular.I believe you will.

Finally I really thank you for reading.

Kazuhiro Toyama (high school student in Japan)