Table Tennis for everyone, everywhere

As an International Sport Federation, the ITTF is the governing body of table tennis worldwide and one of the fundamental missions is to promote the sport globally to be played in each corner of the world. How to do it? How to make table tennis accessible to everyone? This has been done through the ITTF Development Program since 1999, but now there is a new approach.

The ITTF is developing a "table tennis for all" programme with the aim to make the sport popular, universal and inclusive. The term “all” means more people, but not only that, also different kinds of people in terms of age, gender, social status, culture and physical ability.

The ITTF main celebrations will be in New York City, USA and Aarhus, Denmark on 6 April, in honour of the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP), and World Table Tennis Day (WTTD). More information about these events can be found in WTTD events. 

In addition to these celebrations, stakeholders all around the world are organising small and big events to join this global celebration. Table tennis events can be done in different ways and may combine some of these activities:

• Games
• Short exhibitions
• Participants challenging elite players (1 or 3 points)
• Tournaments in wheelchairs
• Playing music, live or recorded
• Choreography with table tennis strokes and dance
• Lottery with table tennis equipment

You can find more ideas for planning table tennis events in the WTTD toolkit.

• For more information about table tennis tournaments, visit the ITTF website.