IS TENNIS BETTER THAN TABLE TENNIS?

Erik Wolk
Sports literature
Mr. Brocato
11.29.2008

What’s random
Hello people, so this is the second weekly column for SI and, the last time I talked about running competitions, this time I will talk about the things that you can see in the headline, obviously. So, the only thing I can say is, you can either love it or you can hate it, and if you hate it, I can just say: grow up.

You know, I am a busy man and if someone else tells me I can’t afford to play tennis, I can’t do anything. I am talking about money, ladies and gentlemen. It is too expensive to play tennis in winter. But I write this article to compare table tennis and tennis in terms of expensiveness and how some people like it or not.

“I like playing tennis especially and sometimes play ping pong, too. But I hate when people say it is the same. It is not. It is different about the grip. In tennis you have to hold the racket hard, but in table tennis it is easy,” said Nikol Kovarova, a student in the Czech republic. I can just fully agree with that quote. It is obvious that some people think about it as a stereotype. Know what I mean? Every sport is different, every single one, in its way.

Tennis is much more famous than table tennis and I wonder why. More people like to talk about professional tennis in America, Europe, Asia, just everywhere. It is also more played, it is more watched on television, for instance in the Olympics. But no one tells why it is more famous or better. Why are people more interested in Nadal than the Chinese players which can play table tennis on an extremely high level?

If you look at the very professional table tennis players, like Lin Ma or Timo Boll, who is a German ping pong champion, who learned how to play “Chinese” table tennis in China, you would see why I am writing about ping pong. They stay like a mile behind the table and hit the small white ball so hard and fast that nobody can even see it. So fast it is and you know that people, I am sure you already saw table tennis many times in the Olympics, which is just once in four years, but who cares? I want you to understand that table tennis is an awesome and unique game, exactly as tennis is too.

I am a huge fan of tennis and table tennis too, I actually love every sport, but these two sports are my favorite and sometimes it is really a pain for the wrist to change these two games. It is to be considered that people maybe like tennis more because of more movement. Some people think that ping pong is boring, because they just stand on the spot. But the joke is, you have to move a lot at the table if you really understand how to play it competitively. I know that, because I paly both games competitively.

I admit that I like tennis better as many people in other countries in the world, but not because people talk about it more, but because I do what I want, right? The best Czech tennis player is Tomas Berdych right now, in table tennis I have no idea who the favorite Czech is. Maybe me? Kidding. But if I am considered to represent my country, I stand behind the opinions I say in this article.

Do you know Marat Safin, the Russian tennis hero? He is actually a big party man too, nobody knew it, huh? He said at ESPN he wants to retire after the loss in Paris, what a bummer. He is not allowed to give up,ok? Just tell him that, if you can. I appreciate it.

Tennis and ping pong are both games where professional players use their mind a lot, too. If you look at Nadal, who looks on the court as a Rambo killer with the strength of Schwarznegger and on the street he is a shy girl. What I mean, tennis is deceptive overall. The players sometimes too.

So, I hope you rather liked it today because if not…. Whatever. I can’t do anything except writing so it is the way it is. Another article will obviously appear next week, otherwise it wouldn’t be a weekly column, right?