Estee Ackerman, from Long Island, New York aged 11 is from an orthodox Jewish background and as it is her religion she had to decline a table tennis match because the fixture landed on the day of the Sabbath which is far more important to her and her family and as a result she has been disqualified from the tournament.

in an interview she said this: “Of course I’m disappointed. I practised and trained for six months for this. Ping pong is important to me, but my religion of Judaism is also very important to me.”

Her father also fully supported her decision and said : “I believe everyone in life has certain things that they love to do, maybe they love to cook, they love to play golf, they love to work, but the Sabbath, unless you’re a doctor or a fireman – you have to save people’s lives – the Sabbath takes precedence over all these things.”

Isaac Newton primary school won Grantham Primary Schools Table Tennis Team Competition and as a result will now represent there county Lancashire. Continue reading →

School kids from a secondary school located in Wembley formed a table tennis team and have won the Jack Petchey Foundation Contest.

The girls from Wembley High Technology College in East Lane all aged 15 were crowned champions of the under 16 London West regional final of the Jack Petchey Foundation.

The girls will now represent school in the London-wide finals on January 19.

One of the girls Janeal, said: “I have been playing table tennis for six years and I play at school. It’s fun and it always challenges you because every match is never the same.

“You can learn to umpire and also make friends. It’s inspiring. I would like to continue to play and also improve and get further in this sport.”

Alex Waring who is an official at Bolton Sports club saved his team mates life after Barrie Fleet collapsed after winning a table tennis match, the hospital later revealed that he suffered from a heart attack.

Alex Waring who had been trained in first aid gave Mr. Fleet who is 67 mouth to mouth resuscitation whilst another staff member called 999.

He was then rushed immediately to North Manchester General Hospital, where doctors feared the worst for the 67 year old as he stayed in a coma for 5 days.

Fortunately he has now returned home where he is resting when we caught up with him he had this to say “I feel so relieved to be past the worst of it and I really owe Alex a pint or two for saving my life.”

For Alex we understand this would have been a moment of panic so we asked him about this horrible ordeal and he had this to say “At the moment, I’ve got a lot of short-term memory loss and I’ve been told to rest for three or four weeks until I can have a test to assess the impact on my heart.”

Most people in Portugal do know that their table tennis is the top 3 best in Europe but they might not know now as they do not have enough money to keep itself up and running.

The table tennis federation in portugal was given 9.00 Euros to hire a coach but that’s not enough to hire one for a year. Overall portugal table tennis team gets 500,000 a figure with 5% cut this is pretty low compared to volleyball team that gets 2.6 million and judo 1.3 million.

The money goes quick as well paying for the hall around 286,000 on fixed costs and to fly the team to international countries for events. The four top Olympic players are not even training in Portugal they have moved to Germany Italy and Austria.

There are around 3,200 table tennis players in Portugal and they need some hope that the government cares about their sport

A club has raised £700 for new bats, balls and hall hire after doing 24 hour sponsored table tennis games. There was a reeager in the team that recently made headlines after returning from cancer.

Two people that have pushed them self were Rhianna and Spencer Hurd who did 12 hours each, the player were only permitted for a 30 minutes rest that is after 3 hours. There was also a face to achieve the most successive shots in a rally, which was won by Andy Bray and Adam McKay with 1,732.

The 29 year old tennis player has been put in the three man Great Britain team from London 2012, he has a good history behind him with two years in French league and no having a one year contract with a Ger Continue reading →