Choosing your sport | The Spectator Australia

Which sport would you recommend to your child?

When it comes to football, most footballers retire by the age of 30, with some sustaining lifelong injuries. When it comes to competitive tennis, most players overextend one side of their body and sustain shoulder, knee, ankle, wrist, and of course, tennis elbow injuries. If you like soccer, hitting soccer balls regularly for decades can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE); and let’s not talk about netball and knees and ankles or rugby associated with John Hopoate and neck braces. If you love cricket, few cricketers allow you to play beyond the age of 38.

In short, table tennis should be high on the list of recommended sports for anyone aged 4 to over 90 years old. It can even be medicinal.

Competitive table tennis is a low-injury, intense fitness workout and a highly intelligent game. Physician and brain imaging expert, Dr. Daniel Amen calls it “the best brain sport”. It’s even gender neutral – one of those rare sports where women and men compete on an equal footing.

I never beat 87 year old George Chen in 7 years of TT competition but playing against him was like playing against kung fu. His charisma and skill literally made his opponents’ games fall apart. There are other George Chens who bring up to 70 years of experience to their matches, mostly beating other more experienced and agile opponents.

It is the second most played sport in the world with an estimated 300 million players. China has a staggering 85 million regulars, but despite what you might think, the game doesn’t come from there. It was invented by David Foster in England in 1890.

Until recently, table tennis was our national family sport and a great way to meet family and friends, unlike other sports where all genders and cultures mixed and enjoyed together. Authentic Australia had a TT table in the garage and a Hills Hoist in the back yard.

1970, when seat belts were not compulsory and drunk driving was the order of the day. 1,061 people died on Victorian roads, compared to 1,123 in 2021. It turns out that many of the same skills developed for table tennis also work for driving a motor vehicle. These include developing complex focus, framing acute awareness, cognitive peripheral vision, and learning to read trajectories. I would suggest that these skills need to be exercised fairly regularly. Such progressive thinking was in the mind of legendary football coach Ron Barassi as he led his Carlton team to the Premiership with TT skills, as did (in my opinion) greatest footballer of all time – Alex Jesaulenko – when we once played TT.

In fact, table tennis medicine is gaining recognition. It speeds up reflexes, develops and sharpens optical focus, strengthens a number of neuromuscular circuits, and has numerous physical and mental health benefits. According to a study by Kenichi Inoue, MD, of Fukuoka University, Japan, there is good evidence that TT helps Parkinson’s patients. It has also been found to be effective against dementia. Science is starting to tell us that the game is a lot healthier than we thought, but we need more study and a lot more funding.

Table tennis is a brain and body sport, but beyond dance, strategy and physical chess, it’s a brilliant neurological workout – it requires your eyes to focus heavily on the trajectory of a small ball and somehow have the spatial framework to view it over it hit net with surgically accurate placement within the confines of the table. Experienced players can also read and correctly anticipate the spin.

Complex judgment is required for each shot. The brain can also apply the ability to subtly adjust the intensity of the grip and the precise angle of the racquet. Much of this happens instinctively or unconsciously – all within a split second. Another part of the brain enforces self-restraint, something that often challenges even the most talented players. There are so many neurological circuits at play even before the body is mentioned.

But table tennis is currently in trouble in Australia. TT Victoria has few employees, NSW none; only volunteers. Victoria doesn’t even have a designated TT center. Table tennis centers in regional and outer suburbs have better facilities than inner Melbourne.

In 1997 the Albert Park Table Tennis Centre, a busy venue for six decades, was demolished to make way for the Melbourne Grand Prix. But instead of securing the construction of another table tennis center, TTV took the fool’s carrot and moved to MSAC; the entire table tennis community is still paying for this crap.

In fact, MSAC treats table tennis as a second-rate resident. Basketball and volleyball are better revenue generators, and the state table tennis competition is drowned out by screaming basketball and volleyball people from the adjacent court sharing the stadium. Facilities are not purpose built – lighting and floors are well below standard.

But TT Victoria is now back in the black after a huge debt scare and CEO Gen Dohrmann is doing his best to get more people aware of the game and out of their garages.

Melbourne still needs a dedicated table tennis center and table tennis requires significant funding, world class facilities and research to do justice to the second most popular sport in the world. No other sport would benefit society like TT.

Dean Frenkel is a two-handed table tennis player