The urge to play a friendly game of pingpong with a friend is often quashed when you realize that you both lack a pingpong table. The game just isn’t as portable as, say, checkers, Twister or even horseshoes. (Yes, they’re heavy. But horseshoes still fit in a trunk.)
Sportcraft is changing this limitation with its Anywhere Table Tennis Set, a product that features this ingenious idea: an expandable net with easy-to-operate posts (you just press down to engage) that can attach to a variety of surfaces.
Granted, it won’t be a regulation table, but since nobody we know has sights on an Olympic gold medal, that shouldn’t present too much of a deterrent.
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We tested it — and enjoyed the game — on a 5-by-3-foot kitchen table and, for chuckles, a smaller 4-by-1 3/4-foot beverage cart. (A standard pingpong table is 9 by 5 feet.) The net can expand to 75 inches and will accommodate a table surface as thick as 1 3/4 inches. Two paddles and three pingpong balls are included, as is a nylon tote to hold all of the items.
The set does not include game rules, which are easy enough to find at sportcraft.com or, even better,
usatt.org
, the Web site of U.S.A. Table Tennis. (No, you aren’t playing on a regulation table, but it’s still nice to get a refresher course on the rules. You’ll also find a link titled “Unofficial Basement Rules” with tongue-in-cheek lampooning, such as: “It is OK to use a ball of any color, however, a ball color that matches your shirt is the best choice to use to help disguise your shots.”)
Anywhere Table Tennis is $25 on
sportcraft.com
, but we found it on several other Web sites for as low as $15. Shop around.