Pingpong’s bounce

YOU don’t have to hide that paddle anymore. Pingpong is back -- assuming it was ever really “in.”

Like poker, the table game has found a fresh new following in the U.S. Not only is it an Olympic event and a darling of ESPN2, it has spawned DVDs, futuristic-looking tables, a glossy magazine and a movie currently in development. Professional players now earn sponsorships and compete in championship games before rapt audiences across the globe.

Around town, pingpong tables are cropping up in uber-hip artists’ lofts and galleries. It’s a secret passion of entertainment crews who unwind between takes with a few rallies. Other industry veterans hold an invitation-only summer tournament.

And if those weren’t measures of legitimacy, consider this: The game even has its own drug scandal and a pingpong hottie.

Not bad for a game often mocked as a creaky ‘70s artifact that requires little athletic prowess.

“It’s not the geeky sport anymore,” says Diego Schaaf, club manager of the Westside Table Tennis Club, which features pro-level tables and instruction three days a week inside a fencing center. “It’s kind of cool now.”

The game’s former weaknesses have transformed into strengths as new fans are attracted to its forgiving physical demands and everyone-stands-a-chance democratic underpinnings -- not to mention the goofy pleasure of saying the words “ping” and “pong.” Still, the game isn’t without physical and mental value.

Player Barney Reed Jr. (source of the aforementioned drug scandal) defends pingpong as a bona fide athletic endeavor, comparing pingpong skills to the martial arts. “The movements are the same except you’re striking at a ball,” he says. “It’s probably 70% mental, especially at the higher levels, because you have to outthink your opponent a few moves ahead.”

The mental and physical demands are readily apparent in champion matches. Since ESPN first aired pingpong in 2004, millions of viewers have witnessed champions dispensing each other with balls traveling nearly 80 mph and spinning at 20 to 30 times the rate of a tennis ball. An 11-point match can be over in mere minutes -- and rallies resolve with so many fast-moving strokes that the camera often can only focus on one player at a time.

Such matches helped elevate pingpong beyond its only-for-kids image -- a touchy subject with the sport’s ardent fans.

“Table tennis is a real sport,” insists Robert Blackwell Jr., founder of a Chicago-based company that’s behind most of pingpong’s expanded profile. “It’s actually the fastest sport in the world, from a reflex perspective.”

He’s found plenty of believers. Today, about as many Americans play pingpong as play slow-pitch softball -- 14.3 million last year, according to a Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn. survey. That’s up from 12.8 million in 2002.

It seems that by embracing its wonky past -- and putting a new spin on a game long considered child’s play -- pingpong is finally edging toward ironic cool.

A changing image

Pingpong itself hasn’t changed markedly since it was introduced in late 1800s England. At the time, it was called gossima, whiff-whaff, flim-flam or, the ever-onomatopoeic pingpong, named for the sounds the ball makes when hitting the flinty table and the springy paddle.

The game gained priceless prestige during the now-famous Pingpong Diplomacy of 1971 when an American team was invited to play in China. The event’s goodwill paved the way for Nixon to visit the next year, and is credited with helping pry open communist China to the West.

In Asian and European countries, pingpong is taken so seriously that governments sponsor athletes, training camps and competitions that attract thousands of fans worldwide. Though table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988, the U.S. has never taken home a medal.

The long-held American perception of pingpong as a kid’s pastime had choked the hope that it could mature into a top-level sport. That changed five years ago when the popularity of a quirky arts project inspired the sport’s first 21st century entrepreneur.

In 2000, Chicago scattered hundreds of pingpong tables across the city in a sort of interactive civic art experiment. The gusto to which his fellow Chicagoans picked up their paddles inspired Blackwell, then a tech company executive, to try building the game’s U.S. appeal.

“We wanted to make the sport, for lack of a better word, sexier,” says Blackwell, who subsequently founded Killerspin. His company has created high-style tables and TV programming, sponsored tournaments and a team that swept awards at the national championships in Las Vegas last year. The image makeover has extended to a planned Killerspin clothing line, crafted especially for the sport’s first sex symbol, Biba, a European champion they call the Anna Kournikova of table tennis.

Biba, whose real name is Biljana Golic, looks like a cross between Jane Pauley and Rebecca Romijn. In her native Serbia, she was famous. Biba played on the national team back home and trained with her father, a table tennis coach. In 2004, as a freshman on a table tennis scholarship at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, she won several college titles and the continued interest of fans.

“In school, I have people coming asking me who I am. They saw me on ESPN,” says Biba, who is still learning the finer points of English. “If you are involved in table tennis on any level, they know who I am.”

At the urging of Killerspin’s Blackwell, she moved to Chicago nearly two years ago to become a Killerspin-sponsored player. Texas wasn’t so good for her image.

“The clothes were so ugly, it made me sick,” says Blackwell of the baggy, unisex uniform his star player wore at Texas Wesleyan. Now Biba is likely to slay opponents wearing Killerspin’s form-fitting tennis dresses and skirts. Even with a skilled, attractive blond adding to its allure, the game still needed edge, controversy, heat. It needed a drug scandal. It got it with Reed.

One of the more brash and outspoken players, Reed was suspended from competition for two years by the U.S. Doping Agency in 2002 after testing positive for steroids at a championship. Pingpong and steroids? It was an irresistible punch line that landed the pingpong, OK -- table tennis -- champion a spot on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” Even the most snarky late-night TV watcher couldn’t dismiss the high-level action that’s possible with pingpong.

Still, the sport fights for recognition.

“Table tennis is actually the best-kept secret in America,” says Reed, who says he’s been playing for 25 of his 27 years (Reed’s dad suspended a ball on a string to develop the toddler’s stroke). His transgression may have been the single biggest boost to the sport’s awareness.

“A lot of people call me the bad boy of table tennis,” says Reed, who was dubbed “King Pong” by Sports Illustrated. “But I want to get away from that because it hurts sponsors.” (Reed took his lumps, trained in Taiwan during his suspension, and now hopes to compete in the 2008 Olympics. Reed says that he didn’t realize the health-food store supplement androstenedione was banned for Olympic athletes, and that he was taking it to gain weight.)

Last year, an unannounced Reed appeared at the Oliver Invitational, an amateur pingpong tournament hosted in documentary filmmaker Jeff Scheftel’s Encino backyard. Reed wasn’t introduced as a highly trained pro when he took on the tournament’s undefeated champion, a very surprised Jonathan Schwartz, a stout, 36-year-old Beverly Hills filmmaker. Reed showed him, and the rest of the 200 awed partygoers, the lightning-fast moves and precision that distinguish champion-level table tennis.

Suddenly, pingpong had potential. It even looked cool

But there’s no further proof of desirability than going Hollywood. “Balls of Fury,” a crime comedy caper in development with New Line Cinema was cowritten by Ben Garant, the same guy who cowrote “Herbie: Fully Loaded.” For the more highbrow, John Sutton-Smith, a pingpong-playing writer and friend of Scheftel’s, is completing a screenplay about the pingpong diplomacy that helped bring President Nixon to China in 1972.

Even shoe maker Adidas has gotten into the act, reissuing its first-ever pingpong shoe. The $60 court shoe is now part of the Adidas Originals collection.

Creative energy

Even though pingpong has achieved a level of popular acceptance, it hasn’t lost its geek-worthy credentials.

College-age players are discovering places such as the Westside Table Tennis Club, a spacious hall where $7 buys as many rounds as you care to play. The club not only attracts top players from across the globe, it’s become a fun, cheap date for scores of twentysomethings who trickle in on Fridays and Saturdays.

Pingpong is popping up among artistic tastemakers who embrace its universality. As a sport, it’s kind of like a blank canvas. The visual arts consortium, Raid Projects, even staged a pingpong tournament earlier this year as a counterpoint to its cutting-edge programming.

“When you finish talking art, you can knock a few balls around,” says codirector Max Presneill, who added a table to the Brewery space a few months ago to aid social interaction among artists. Creative people gravitate to it, particularly those in entertainment.

Scheftel and Sutton-Smith, who is writing the pingpong screenplay, frequently sparred on a table at the Recording Academy garage.

“You can go play for 10 minutes and go back to work,” Sutton-Smith said. “It’s physical, yet there’s a Zen-like quality to it.”

The story is the same all across town. Cast and crew routinely endure the hurry-up-and-wait that plagues film sets, photo shoots and recording sessions and gravitate to ubiquitous pingpong tables on studio lots, concert arenas and sound stages.

This city is full of closet pongers -- that’s code for people who are pretty good players. The list reportedly includes rapper Tone-Loc, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Robert Zemeckis, Robin Williams, Adam Sandler, and because of his “Forrest Gump” pingpong scenes, Tom Hanks. Ever since Sandler got a shot off of Reed during his Conan stint, word is out: Hip people play pingpong.

When sculptor and architect Edy Sykes moved into his new loft near Silver Lake, he and a buddy bought a pingpong table to get a little exercise.

“Nobody had played in years,” says Sykes, but they quickly became consumed with it. “Now we’re shopping for the proper table tennis shoes.”

Most weekends, upwards of a dozen people flock to his loft, where the transplanted New Yorker has discovered a vast network of new friends and fellow players.

“It’s like some kind of social Olympics,” he says. “We have some Austrians, Chinese, Swiss. They’re little gaggles.”

Some of his guests had played on school teams and helped motivate Sykes to improve his skills.

He and a few friends have gone to the Santa Monica College gym where recreational and serious players alike can pay $6 to use any of the 18 professional tables. Coaching is included.

“I noticed a huge improvement in my playing,” says Sykes. “Just watching the people play was really informative. You quickly pick up on all the footwork and the best position to the table.” Having a spacious gym helped too.

“When you play in a loft,” he says, “there are all these obstacles -- lamps, sculptures. It doesn’t feel like you can cut loose.”

It doesn’t seem like much work chasing a 2.8-gram celluloid ball across your half of a 9-by-5 foot table. That’s why pingpong is ideal for cooler-than-thou gatherings.

When New York’s Paper magazine staff decamped to a Melrose Avenue art gallery to create a special L.A. edition last year, editor Kim Hastreiter sanctioned the presence of three indoor sports: foosball, air hockey and pingpong.

Hastreiter, who is known as a fashion oracle, declared that pingpong is “not dorky. It’s definitely cool.” Several pingpong players demonstrated the game’s adaptability: Many kept rallies going, without ever putting down their beer bottle.

“The thing about pingpong, you can have fun with it at any level,” says Amal Flores, 37, a home accessory designer with a well-worn pingpong table in his Westside loft. Ever since he bought a table five years ago, he and his friends have discovered the many possibilities of pingpong, including beer pong, a drinking game for doubles.

“It’s a low-skill version of pingpong,” says Flores, “which is what people like about it.”

For all but serious players, the game requires little training, said Santa Monica College pingpong coach Ichiro Hashimoto.

That’s not to say players can’t improve their skills.

“We used to run three miles thinking that would help our long-term stamina,” he says. “Turns out, it doesn’t.”

So the best approach? Play, and play some more. Hashimoto suggests a minimum of two hours a day, three days a week, just to maintain your skills.

Professional players, who practice for two or three hours a session, three times a day, concentrate on refining a playing style, developing speed, coordination and endurance, and learning strategies and refining strokes. Some may build strength with high-repetition weight training.

Beyond that, pingpong is a thinker’s game. In seconds, players have to anticipate how to return and launch each ball that can spin with different speeds and directions.

Still, despite the speed and precision required for top play, players are still seeking validity. The holy grail -- mainstream credibility -- always seems to be just around the corner.

“When they put tournaments on ESPN 2, I was like a proud father. Look! This isn’t a hobby! It’s a sport,” said Scheftel of Encino, who marveled at the players’ speed and precision. “They’re really, really good!”

Cerebral and low-impact, pingpong may not be America’s idea of a sport. But for its fringe-dwelling fans, it’s the anti-sport sport. And that’s cool.

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Where to play like the pros

Valli Herman

You don’t have to play on a battered old table. Recreational and serious players can play on professional-grade tables in spacious surroundings at these and other clubs in Southern California.

* Gilbert Table Tennis Center, inside Westside Jewish Community Center, 5870 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles. Open play 4 to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Fees are $7 per person; private and group lessons, $17 to $40. On-site pro shop and robots available. www.gilbertpingpong.com or (323) 933-3751.

* L.A. Table Tennis Assn., 708 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel. Open play 6 to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Friday; noon to 8:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Fees are $150 annual membership; $20 monthly; $5 daily; children’s lessons are $50 a month; private lessons by appointment are $35 an hour. (626) 975-3054.

* Pasadena Table Tennis Club, Pasadena Senior Center, 85 E. Holly St., Pasadena. Open play 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Daily floor fees, $6 for adults; $4 for seniors; $10 additional for group lessons. www.alphatabletennis.com.

* San Gabriel Valley Table Tennis Club, 11522 E. Meeker Ave., El Monte. Open play 3 to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Fees, $5 per day, $15 a month, $100 a year. www.paddleattack.com or (626) 617-0600.

* Santa Monica College: noon to 9 p.m., Sundays, in the campus pavilion, at 17th and Pearl streets, Santa Monica. Fees for adults, $6 with classes or $4 without; children, $4 and $2; events.smc.edu/sports.html or call (310) 434-4315.

* Westside Table Tennis Club, 11775 Exposition Blvd. (inside the Fencing Center), West Los Angeles; 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday; 4 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, with club tournaments, group and individual lessons available. Daily floor fees are $7 per person; $10 additional for Tuesday and Saturday group lessons. www.alphatabletennis.com or (626) 584-6377.

For more information about USA Table Tennis-affiliated clubs, go to www.usatt.org.

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Valli Herman

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Paddle power through the years

Late 1800s: Indoor amusement called gossima, flim-flam or pingpong -- played with wooden paddles and cork or rubber balls -- begins in England.

1900: Pingpong is revolutionized when the celluloid ball and the rubber-coated racket are introduced.

1901: Parker Bros. registers the trade name Ping-Pong with the U.S. Patent Office and begins decades of promotions.

1926: International Table Tennis Federation is founded to standardize equipment and rules.

1933: U.S. Table Tennis Assn. founded.

1971: Pingpong diplomacy begins when a U.S. Table Tennis team touring in Japan is invited to play in China, the first officially sanctioned Sino-American cultural exchange since the Communist takeover of China in 1949.

1972: Calling it “the week that changed the world,” President Richard Nixon visits Beijing, marking a thaw in U.S.-China relations.

1975: Atari’s pingpong-based video game, Pong, is released in an at-home version at Sears.

1980: ESPN becomes the country’s first around-the-clock sports network. Table tennis tournaments are among its early programming, paving the way for later, expanded broadcasts.

1988: At the Seoul games, table tennis becomes an Olympic event.

1994: Pingpong gets a moment of fame in “Forrest Gump,” when Tom Hanks, playing the title character, defeats the Chinese national team in pingpong.

1996: U.S. sends a team to China to commemorate the 25th anniversary of pingpong diplomacy.

1997: ESPN2 broadcasts its first table tennis match, the China Table Tennis doubles final from Fujian.

2000: The International Table Tennis Federation adopts international game rules: The players with the best of five games played to 11 points, with a two-point margin, wins.

2001: Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. launches Killerspin, a specialty table tennis equipment company, which also promotes the sport.

2002: A top player, Barney Reed Jr., tests positive for steroids. He’s suspended for two years, retroactive to the July 2001 North American Championships.

2005: Reed plays Adam Sandler and Conan O’Brien on O’Brien’s talk show.