- 1960's - In the early 1960's, the loop drive was invented and become popular around the world.
- 1960's - From around 1965 to 1971, China under the rule of Ma Tse-Tung disappears from world table tennis events.
- 1961-1965 - Zhuang Zedong of China wins 3 Men's Singles titles in a row at the World Championships, each time over compatriot Li Furong.
- 1960's - In the early 1960's, Xhang Xi Lin of China uses a "Yin-Yan" bat with normal rubber on one side, and long pimples on the other - the first recorded instance of successful combination bat play.
- 1971 - China returns to International Competition at the 1971 World Championships.
- 1971 - The US Table Tennis Team takes a "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" trip to China, in a world first effort to use sport to establish and improve diplomatic relations.
- 1971 - Jean-Paul Weber of France uses the first anti-spin rubber in the World Championships in Nagoya, Japan, and enjoys some success with its use.
- 1971 - The first Commonwealth Championships are held in Singapore.
1970's - 2000's - the Age of Speed Glue & Technology
- 1970's - Table tennis players discover that using bicycle tyre repair glue to put rubber on a blade dramatically increases the speed and spin that can be produced. This discovery is often credited to Dragutin Surbek of Yugoslavia, and Tibor Klampar of Hungary. This discovery is called speed glue.
- 1970's-1989 - China is the dominant force in both men's and women's events on the world scene, winning multiple events at all world championships.
- 1980 - John Hilton of England wins the European Championships using a combination bat of normal rubber and antispin, twiddling the racket and playing aggressively.
- 1980 - The first World Cup event is held in Hong Kong.
- 1982 - The initial World Veteran's Championships is conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden.
- 1980's - In 1985, the two color rule is adopted to reduce the effectiveness of combination rackets.
- 1988 - Table Tennis becomes an Olympic sport, in Seoul, South Korea.
- 1989-1993 - Sweden breaks the Chinese stranglehold in Men's World Championships, winning the 1989, 1991, and 1993 Teams Events, and producing the 1989 and 1991 World Men's Champions (Jan-Ove Waldner and Jorgen Persson respectively). China continues its dominance in female ranks.
- 1995-present - China reasserts its control over the Mens Team and Mens Singles events at the World Championships.
- 1997 - Jan-Ove Waldner wins the Mens Singles title at the World Championships for the second time, this time without the loss of a single game!
- 2000 - A brief blip in the Chinese men's dominance occurs when the aging Swedish trio of Jan-Ove Waldner, Jorgen Persson and Peter Karlsson combine to steal the Mens Team title in a thrilling final.
- 2000 - The ITTF increases the ball diameter to 40mm.
- 2001 - The ITTF changes the scoring system, moving to 11 point games, and using a best of 5 games or best of 7 games match.
- 2002 - Table Tennis becomes a Commonwealth Games Sport, at Manchester, England.
- 2003 - Werner Schlager of Austria breaks the Chinese stranglehold on the Men's Singles World Championship title, saving several match points along the way against opponents in Wang Liqin and Kong Linghui. He meets Joo Se Hyuk of South Korea in the final - Joo is the first defensive player to make the Mens Singles final since the Eberhard Scholer of Germany in 1969 (Scholer also lost in his final, to Japan's Shigeo Itoh).
- 2000's - In the early 2000's, frictionless long pimples become popular among many players, in an attempt to negate the the power and spin produced by modern technology and speed glue.
- 2006 - The intended banning of frictionless long pips and speed glues with toxic organic solvents is announced by the ITTF.
- 2007 - The ITTF withdraws its approval of all table tennis glues, following a health incident involving a speed glue user in Japan.
- 2008 - The use of speed glues with illegal VOCs is banned for all ITTF junior competitions as of January 1. Machines that test for illegal VOCs are introduced to check for rules infractions.
Return to Beginner's Guide to Table Tennis/Ping-Pong
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