Ideas For Table Tennis Games

The last 3 years I got my twin boys started on playing table tennis. We've had a blast playing and they have gotten to the point where I have to play hard to beat them.  They are now 13 years old And they have a neighborhood friend thats their age as well and he has caught the fever. Are there any other games to play other than straight points to 11 that they might enjoy? .........or training activities that I could do with them? Thanks and we enjoy your site!

Mike Burdette

Hi Mike,

It sounds like you are going to be hard pressed to stay ahead of them. It's great you are thinking about other games and training routines for them. This will really help them improve. The other thing that will be really beneficial is to join a club if there is one near you. At a club they'll get the opportunity to see a lot more styles and levels of player.

A lot of training drills can be turned into games to make it more fun. The simplest is a game to see how many balls you can hit on in a row without making a mistake. This can be done as a general rally or you can practice a particular stroke from our Strokes & Technique lessons to work on.

If they get really keen with their training they can try some of the drills from our Training Drills PDF. If you've got any questions about these drills then let us know.

Serving is another really important aspect of the game. To get the boys to focus on their serves, you could play a game where the server is allowed a double fault. This allows them to go for a really spinny serve and not worry if they miss it.

If you join in with the boys, there will be 4 of you. In this situation you could play 10 all games. You separate into 2 teams of 2. 1 person from each team is on the table at a time and the other 2 players are on the bench. The two players on the table play a game starting at 10 all so it could be over in 2 points. The winning team of the game gets 1 point. You could play up to 11 or 21 or whatever. The loser sits down and is replaced by their team mate. This is a fun variation.

Let me know if these ideas help.