Speed of a Table Tennis Ball & Comparison with other sports

Published on 06 March 2020 2 minutes 2 minutes

Table Tennis is a sport where speed, spin, reflexes, agility and variety of techniques makes it enjoyable to play. But many people who see the sport and fast smashes often say that it is the fastest racket sport or even the fastest sport. In this articles, lets debug the speed of a Table Tennis ball.

Fun Fact : The sport originated in Victorian England, where it was played among the upper-class as an after-dinner parlour game. It has been suggested that makeshift versions of the game were developed by British military officers in India in around 1860s or 1870s, who brought it back with them. Source - Wikipedia - Table Tennis

Speed of a Table Tennis Ball

Table Tennis ball is very light and weights around 2.7 gms!!! But that doesn’t mean the ball can’t go fast. A shot by a Professional Table Tennis player, Faster shots go in between 50-70mph. It also depends on who is hitting the shots and type of shot. The distance of 2.74 meter is covered at a speed of 50-65mph which definitely explains why the speed is so fast and hence extremely fast reflexes are required for table tennis..

Guiness book of world record holds for 116Kmph or 72.0791 mph

In 2003, 112.5kmph or 69.9miles per hour New Zealander, Lark Brandt - Table Tennis Ball Speed by Jay Turberville

In a video, Dimitrij Ovtcharov has hit a smash at 122 kmph or 75.8073 mph. Link to original post from TableTennisDaily

Ball Speed Comparison of Table Tennis with Other sports

Sport	Speed (mph)	Speed (kmph)
Badminton	306.336 mph	493 kmph
Golf	211.01766 mph	339.6 kmph
Jai-Alai(Pelota)	188 mph	302 kmph
Squash	176 mph	281.6 kmph
Tennis	157.207 mph	263.4 kmph
Soccer	131 mph	210.8 kmph
Hockey	108.8 mph	183.7 kmph
Baseball	108.1 mph	174.0 kmph
Cricket	100.227 mph	161.3 kmph
Table Tennis	72.0791 mph	112.5 kmph