PAMELA LEBLANC: FIT CITY

Not your patio Ping-Pong

By Pamela LeBlanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, December 28, 2007

Inside Uncle Bob's Storage Facility on North Lamar Boulevard, a battle rages.

Susan Song raises her pancake-sized paddle. Boris Chernis narrows his eyes, then flicks a ball the size and weight of a marshmallow across a net toward her. For 19 volleys, paddles flap, balls whiz and tennis shoes squeak. And when the clicking and clacking pauses, Song pops another ball out of her pocket and a new rally begins.

And that's just at Table No. 3.

All across this cavernous room, fanatics are squaring off, turning a building once used to stash garage overflow into Austin's hottest table tennis scene.

To get here, they punch a code to open a gate that leads to the storage facility's parking lot. They enter a door, pass a band that's practicing in the neighboring unit, climb a staircase and press another code to get inside the hidden mecca of wooden floors, 14-foot ceilings and regulation Ping-Pong tables. This 6,000-square-foot room amid the storage buildings is home to the Austin Table Tennis Association.

"People don't realize there's a whole other class of people out there who take table tennis seriously, and it's kind of an underground deal," says Joe Burkhart, club president.

The nonprofit organization started at the University of Texas, but 15 years ago the university changed its policy so only students could play there. The club bounced around for 10 years, setting up shop at a church, a country music dance floor, and the back of an upholstery business before finding its current home at Uncle Bob's. Here, 10 tables are surrounded by low green mesh barriers for errant balls, an equipment sales counter and seating area. In one corner, a table tennis "robot" fires out balls so players can practice by themselves. The space is leased, but the club has plans to build a larger, free-standing facility on Burnet Road.

Karen Johnson, 52, hadn't played in decades when she found the place. "The first time I walked in here I said, 'This is it, my second home.' It's a religious experience," she says. Johnson won the club's Most Enthusiastic Player award at the club's holiday banquet last year.

She's one of about 35 people who pay $40 a month for unlimited use of the facility. Others pay a $5 daily fee and borrow club gear. Members span all skill levels, from newbies to life-long players. A challenge system allows players to rotate on and off tables when it's crowded.

Members include a range of heritages, from Chinese to Russian and Vietnamese to Korean. And unlike most physical games, 12-year-olds can compete against 70-year-olds, and men can compete against women.

"It's amazing how many different walks of life we have, all bound together by the love of table tennis," says Burkhart, 38.

Legend has it (and we love this story!) that British army officers played a precursor of modern table tennis when they used cigar box lids to bat wine corks over stacks of books. A more familiar version using paddles, balls and a net developed as a parlor game in England in the 1880s. Its popularity ebbed and flowed, but by the 1950s the game was wildly popular in Asia. In the United States, table tennis (usually called pingpong in recreational circles) has always been more popular in suburban garages than under the national spotlight. In 1988, table tennis debuted as an Olympic sport.

The rules of the game roughly follow those of regular tennis, except table tennis is usually played indoors, on a hip-high table with small paddles and a lightweight ball. Players smash a ball back and forth, scoring a point each time an opponent misses a volley, hits it off the table or lets the ball bounce twice. Games are played to 11 points.

Burkhart, a software developer for the state, likes the fast pace. "In a given night, you'll hit the ball 1,000 times," he says. "That's an amazing amount of repetition, and a great opportunity to hone skills and improve."

Patience is important because it takes time to develop enough skill just to keep the ball in play, much less win a point. The paddle and balls are smaller than other racquet sports, the spin on the light ball is extreme, and the playing surface is short and narrow. "The slightest miscalculation can end a point in your opponent's favor," he says.

The Austin club promotes table tennis as a sport rather than a casual patio game, although beginners are welcome. Some club players compete in national tournaments and are ranked among the best in the state.

For those who do take the game seriously, a quality paddle can cost $120 or more — $60 for the wooden blade plus $30 each for the sheets of rubber that pad each side. Those rubber sheets aren't so simple, either. Players choose what type based on what they want it to do. Some are sticky, some are slick and some are covered with tiny pimples, or pips, that absorb spin. Some players put different types of rubber on each side of their paddle and flip back and forth as they play.

Song, 41, trained five years in elementary school in Qing Dao, China. "Ping-Pong is the national sport there, like football or baseball in the U.S.," she says. "My mom just picked the sport for me because I'm tall. She thought it was safe because it was played indoors."

Training was rigorous, with practices before and after school nearly every day. Song's school regularly won the provincial championship and sent young players to the professional ranks. Song, however, stuck to academics, and gave up the sport until she rediscovered it after graduate school.

"Now I really, really like it," she says. "It requires high skill and good techniques and extreme coordination of the feet, legs, waist, shoulder, arm, wrist and hand at the same time. It's like piano — you need lots of practice."

Table tennis demands mental dexterity, and the ability to make split-second decisions. Song, an immigration specialist at a law firm, says it helps relieve job stress and hones agility. Her daughter and husband also play, both at the club and at home. "Our cars don't park in the garage, our Ping-Pong table does," Song says.

Chernis, 50, learned the game as a child in Russia. He now works as a software developer at Advanced Micro Devices. "I started playing when I was 8 and I'm going to be playing when I'm 80," he says. "I'm good at many different sports, but table tennis is my sport of choice. You're forced to act on top of your reflexes."

He plays two or three times a week at Uncle Bob's.

"For me it's like a country club of a sort," Chernis says. "Most people go to a club for beer and dancing. This place is a dance and beer, too."