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Ping-pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States (US) and People's Republic of China (PRC) in the early 1970s, that began during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan as a result of an encounter between players Glenn Cowan and Zhuang Zedong. The event marked a thaw in Sino-American relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon in 1972. The event has been seen as a key turning point in relations, and the policy approach has since been carried out elsewhere.
Deng Yaping is a Chinese table tennis player, who won eighteen world championships including four Olympic championships between 1989 and 1997. She is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.
Wang Liqin is a retired Chinese table tennis player. As of January 2014, he is ranked 12th in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). He began playing at the age of 6 and was picked for the Chinese men's national squad in 1993 when he was only 15 years old. He holds three majors. He has been ranked #1 by ITTF for 25 consecutive months, from September 2000 to September 2002, which is the second-longest period for being consecutive #1 of the world as of January 2011. At the end of 2013, Wang Liqin retired from the national team.
Laszlo Bellak was a Hungarian and American table tennis player.
Danny Seemiller is an American table tennis coach and former professional player. He was the United States Olympic head coach and is the current head coach of the South Bend Table Tennis Club. He has an unorthodox playing style called the Seemiller grip, which he is famous for inventing in the 1970s.
David Zhuang is a professional Chinese-born American table tennis player.
Robert Garnett "Buddy" Blattner, known also as "Bud" Blattner, was an American table tennis and professional baseball player and radio and television sportscaster.
The term boggan may refer to:
Eric Owens is a professional American table tennis player. Owens began playing and competing in tournaments nationwide at the early age of six. Owens won every major National Junior, and Junior Olympic title. Owens won several major titles, including the US National Championships and North American Championships. He was on the US National Team competing in six (6) World Championships, three (3) Pan-American Games, winning a Gold and Bronze Medal. Owens was inducted to the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015.
Gao Jun is a Chinese American table tennis player.
Sean O'Neill is an American table tennis player and coach. He began playing table tennis in Virginia at the age of 8 with this father, Patrick, who was a nationally ranked junior player from Toledo, Ohio. O'Neill went on to win every US National Age Championship title, including the Under 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, and Over 30 events. In addition to the age events, O'Neill won the US National Men's Singles, Men's Doubles, and Mixed Doubles Championships.
Richard Theodore "Dick" Miles was an American table tennis player who won 10 national championships between 1945 and 1962, more than any other player. After his playing career ended, Miles wrote an instructional guide and continued in his sport by playing match games and doing trick shot performances. In its obituary The New York Times called him "perhaps the greatest table tennis player the United States has ever produced".
Ichiro Ogimura was a Japanese table tennis player, coach, president of the ITTF and former World No. 1 who won 12 World Championship titles during his career. Ogimura was also a key figure in the Ping Pong Diplomacy events of the early 1970s, as well as being instrumental in Korea playing as a unified team at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships.
Gertrude "Traute or Trude" Kleinová was a three-time world champion table tennis player, winning the women's team world championship twice, and the world mixed doubles once.
Table tennis in the United States is regulated by USA Table Tennis. USATT Historian Tim Boggan has written a volume of books entitled “History of U.S. Table Tennis” to give the readers a brief overview of how the sport of table tennis came to be. There are a total of 19 books in the series. Table tennis was initially considered an alternative to lawn tennis at parties and events. However, the rapid rise in popularity of table tennis reached worldwide and caught attention in the United States. In 1993, the official governing body of the United States Table Tennis Association was created. The sport was not named ping pong since that name was already taken from by the Parker Brothers. The non-profit corporation version of the United States Table Tennis Association truncated their name to “USA Table Tennis”.
Erwin Klein was a male table tennis player from the United States, who was a four-time US Open Table Tennis Singles Champion. His nickname was Chubby. He won a gold medal in the Mixed Doubles event at the World Table Tennis Championships in 1956.
Thelma Thall “Tybie” Sommer is the only living American woman to have won two World Table Tennis Championships.
Shui-Ling "Lily" Yip is a Chinese-born American table tennis player and coach.
Angelita Rosal, also known as Angie Rosal Bengtsson, is a former American professional table tennis player and coach. Born of a Sioux mother and Filipino father, Rosal is inducted both in the Indian Athletic Hall of Fame and the United States of America Table Tennis Hall of Fame, the first female to be so honored. She was particularly successful in doubles, winning four US titles.
Dal Joon Lee was an American table tennis player. He participated in four world championships in the 1960s and 1970s and won six consecutive U.S. Open Table Tennis Championships.
