If you are a ‘beginner’ or new to the game of table tennis the first step you need to take is to ensure you have the correct equipment to play with. The basic equipment needed in order to play table tennis is two bats, a table tennis table with a net and a table tennis ball. If you have these items of equipment then two players can play the game as ‘singles’ or if you have 4 bats then four players can play ‘doubles’. In this article I will describe the table tennis equipment that is used in more detail.

Table Tennis Bats

The table tennis bat consist of a blade that can be made out of different types of wood such as ply, with 2 sheets of rubber- red and black on either side of the blade. You can either build your own bat by assembling the necessary equipment such as a blade, rubbers and glue otherwise you can buy a pre-made bat which already has the rubbers and blade preselected for you. For most beginning players a premade table tennis bat would be the best option to get started and as you progressively get better and have a wider understanding of the game and get to know which rubbers and blades would best suit your needs, then you can look at using custom made table tennis bats.

Table Tennis Balls

Table Tennis balls are given a star rating 1 to 3 which reflects the quality of the ball with 3 being the highest. Generally, 3 star table tennis balls are used in tournaments and because they are a durable ball they have a longer life span than the 1 star table tennis balls. However, because you pay for quality the 3 star table tennis balls are usually more expensive than their one star counterpart. However for the beginner a 1 star ball will be adequate to use.

Table Tennis Table

The table tennis table can be an expensive item to buy and should have the dimensions of height: 76cm, length 274cm, width 152.5cm along with the net height at 30cms. There are several table tennis table manufacturers but from my own experience if you want a quality table you should look to buy from a brand that specializes in table tennis equipment such as Butterfly, Nittaku or Stiga. If you store your table in a garage outdoors then I recommend protecting it with a durable table tennis cover as this will help to shield it from the elements and increase its longevity.