Table tennis

Table tennis was devised in England as an indoor sport in the 1880s. The table is divided by a net and players compete as either single or doubles, as in lawn tennis. Each unit of play within a game is termed a rally and is begun by a service. The player who wins a rally is awarded one point and the first player to score eleven points with a lead of two points has won the game. A match may consist of five or seven games. The world governing body is the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) which was founded in 1926 and is based in Lausanne with 226 member countries. Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988.