Do you have to be fit to be a pro table tennis player?

[lightspin]

I went to college with a kid who had so much money he probably could hire Ma Long and Liu GuoLiang to be his personal coaches and then hire a province team to be his practice partners if he wanted. He did fairly well during matches and I asked him if he wanted to try to go pro after college. He said "I can't stand these fat and out of shape guys serving me off the table or standing there and blocking me all over the place. If I got them on a tennis court I could make them run until they die of a heart attack. So no, if I wanted to be a pro in anything I would choose tennis."

He is right. Athleticism has absolutely nothing to do with how good you are until maybe you are top 10 in the world. The most important factor by far is how early you get proper training.

 

[zeio]

No for the most part. Table tennis is politically-correct without the need to even try.

2021/2/3
https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...d-what-we-know-from-science.24815/post-338481

Table tennis is a reaction sport, contact-less, delicate and precise, requiring intense mental concentration and short burst of energy. It is unique even among racket sports where players essentially play on 2 surfaces. Because of this extra dimension/obstacle/variable, table tennis is perhaps one of the most politically-correct sports, in that a fat-ass could beat a 6-pack, a punk could cream an adult, an old fart could outsmart a young gun, a female could subdue a male, but I digress.