Vietnamese Women's Table Tennis: When Beautiful Rallies Are Not Counted by the Crowd

Vietnamese Women's Table Tennis: When Beautiful Rallies Are Not Counted by the Crowd I remember that afternoon. The arena was not crowded. The right-side stands were sparse, applause scattered like an early-season shower. On the table, two women were playing point by point. The rally lasted twenty strokes. I counted. Left, right, left, right, then a forehand topspin that flew close to the sideline, the ball touched the table, bounced, and the opponent could not reach it. The crowd clapped. Then everything went quiet. No one recorded that number of twenty strokes. The next morning, the sports bulletin carried a single line: the women's team won 3-1, with one photo taken at the medal ceremony. Twenty strokes of the ball, and one line of news. I have carried that gap with me for many years, through arenas from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, from domestic events to SEA Games and Asian Games. In women's table tennis, the distance between the beauty on the table and what gets written in the papers is a chasm. And I think the time has come to speak of that chasm with numbers, not with lament. People still ask me a very familiar question: what is there to watch in women's table tennis? I never answer with emotion. I answer with another question. Have you ever sat down and counted the strokes of a women's rally? If not, you have never watched women's table tennis. You have only watched a news item. The context here is simple and harsh. Table tennis is a sport that China has dominated almost absolutely in both men's and women's events for decades. In Asia, Japan and South Korea have built generations of women capable of touching the highest threshold, while Singapore once created a milestone by winning a bronze medal at the Beijing 2026 Olympics and a women's team bronze at London 2026. In Southeast Asia, women's table tennis is a field where Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia fight for every semifinal berth. But the notable point is not in the medal table. The notable point is that the higher you go, the more people measure table tennis by matches won, and the fewer measure it by strokes of the ball. In thirty years in the studio and forty-four years observing the industry, I have learned one thing. Women's table tennis is undervalued not because it is less attractive. It is undervalued because no one bothers to record it carefully enough. When there is no data, people assume there is nothing to say. And when there is nothing to say, people assume there is nothing worth watching. That is a closed circle, and it does not open by itself. It opens only when someone sits down, rewinds the tape, and starts counting. Twenty years ago, I thought I understood table tennis. I was wrong. Understanding women's table tennis demands a different kind of patience. In men's table tennis, the tempo is often pushed very fast, points come early, and viewers are easily swept up in the power of each shot. In elite women's table tennis, the match operates on a different logic: spin, placement, and persistence. I do not say this to embellish. I say it because I have rewatched hundreds of matches, and the numbers are there, waiting to be read. Take a concrete example. In an elite women's table tennis match, the proportion of rallies lasting five strokes or more is often significantly higher than in a men's match at the same level. Not because women play slower. Because women play more carefully. They build points by pushing the ball short, varying spin, and moving the opponent away from the central position. It is chess on a table two point seven meters long. And chess cannot be summed up in one line of news. One of the most overlooked things is the serve technique of female players. Serving in modern table tennis is a tactical act, not a formality. A short, backspin serve placed close to the net can force the opponent to lift the ball, creating a high ball to loop. A long, topspin serve aimed at the backhand corner can lock the opponent into a defensive position from the very first stroke. The world's top female players serve with accuracy down to the centimeter. I once measured it by drawing the ball's contact points on paper, and found that the same hand motion can produce three different types of spin. Three types. From one motion. Have you ever seen a news bulletin write about that? Then there is the forehand loop. In modern women's table tennis, the loop is no longer just a powerful shot. It is a shot with a purpose. Players loop to open angles, to force the opponent back from the table, to create space for the next stroke. The top female players do this with a control that I once described as enviable for any sport. The ball's rotation can reach hundreds of revolutions per second, and the hitter must decide within about a tenth of a second whether to loop, block, or push. A tenth of a second. That is a threshold the evening news never touches. Footwork is the same. In table tennis, footwork is not a minor detail. It is the foundation of every shot. A female player moves with crossover steps, side steps, and push-off steps, so that her body is always in the right position before the paddle meets the ball. I once spent hours reviewing the feet in women's semifinals, not the hands. There, you can clearly see who is an elite player and who is merely someone who hits well. Because the hand can get lucky, but the feet cannot. The feet must be trained. And the feet of the female players I follow have been trained to the point that every time I rewatch, I learn something new. There is one detail I have kept to myself for years. It is the sound of the ball bouncing on the table. Each type of spin produces a slightly different sound. Heavy backspin sounds low and short. Topspin sounds crisp and more resonant. If you close your eyes and listen to an elite women's table tennis match, you can still guess who is controlling the match. I know this sounds strange. But I have been in this profession too long to be ashamed of strange things. And I believe that anyone who spends enough time on a sport will hear what others do not. In Vietnam, women's table tennis has a history that is not thin. There have been Vietnamese female players who won medals in Southeast Asia and produced matches that made spectators rise to their feet. Mai Hoang My Trang is a name many remember. Nguyen Thi Nga too. But what matters more is the generations that followed them. At national youth events, I have seen fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls hit balls with a spin I did not think was possible. And I ask myself: how many of them will be remembered if no one writes about them properly? This is where I must be honest about myself. I have made mistakes. I once mispronounced the name of a female player on live television, not once but three times in the same analysis segment. I was so flustered that I looked at the list and read it wrong. And I learned one thing from that mistake. Every time I mispronounce a player's name, I do not just correct the name. I correct the way I see women in sport. Because when we call someone by the wrong name, we are silently saying they have not yet mattered enough for us to remember. And I do not want to be the person who says that. That is why I have set myself a rule for many years. Before writing about any female player, I must watch at least three original interview videos to be sure of the pronunciation and to understand the person behind the paddle. Because data is not just numbers. Data is how we give a person back the right to be known as she truly is. People often ask me why I bother. They say: you are sixty, why sit counting the strokes of a women's table tennis match that no one watches? I ask back: why stop? Age has not made me see women's table tennis less clearly. If anything, it has made me more patient. It has taught me that a sport does not need a packed arena to have value. It only needs someone who knows how to watch. But I do not deceive myself. I am not naive. Women's table tennis has real problems, and we need to call them by name. The first is funding. Funding for women's table tennis in Southeast Asia comes largely from the state and a small number of businesses. There are not many professional tournaments for women, and therefore few chances for female players to make a living. When a female player cannot make a living, she must leave the table to look after her life. And every time one leaves the table, a whole generation behind her loses a role model. The second is media. Not because the media does not want to cover it. Because media runs on attention, and attention runs on numbers. When views for a women's table tennis match are a fraction of a men's football match, newsrooms choose men's football. This is not wrong commercially. But it is wrong in terms of memory. Because if we only record what is watched most, sports history will be left with only half of humanity. This is where I want to go against the grain, counterintuitively. Many people believe women's table tennis needs to be saved by boosting views, audiences, and coverage. I do not think so. I think that before increasing views, we need to increase depth. Commercial value and competitive value do not automatically move together. We can fill an arena by turning a match into an entertainment event. But without sufficiently deep analysis, the audience will come for the applause, not for the strokes. And when the applause ends, they will leave. Conversely, if we teach the audience how to count strokes, how to read spin, how to understand why one serve decides an entire point, then competitive value will itself generate sustainable attention. That is what I believe, and that is why I write. I do not write to appeal. I write to record. I know I am not the only one doing this. There are colleagues across Asia quietly doing the same. They record women's matches, they measure indicators, they build their own small databases. And when those databases grow large enough, they will become the foundation for a new generation of commentary. A generation that does not need to shout to be heard. A generation that only needs to open the data sheet and let the truth speak. I have said that I do not write about history, I am preserving it. With women's table tennis, that is true to the letter. Because the history of women's table tennis is not in traditional halls. It is in the personal notebooks of coaches. It is in amateur, blurry footage shot on phones. It is in the memory of those who sat in an empty stand on some afternoon and counted twenty strokes. If we do not record it, those twenty strokes will vanish. Not be lost. Vanish. Those are two different things. Something lost can be found again. Something vanished cannot. I write this at sixty, with an old computer and a long list of matches I have not had time to rewatch. I do not have enough time to watch them all. But I have enough time to begin. And I think that, with women's table tennis, beginning late is still better than not beginning. So what will change? I dare not promise. Sport does not change because of one article. But I believe in something smaller. I believe someone will read this, turn off their phone, and rewatch a women's table tennis match online. They will count. For the first time in their life, they will count. And when they count twenty strokes, they will see what I saw that afternoon. That women's table tennis does not need to be saved. It needs to be seen with eyes that know how to see. People still ask me why, at sixty, I still shout at the screen when a female player hits a beautiful ball. I do not answer. I just move on to the next match. Because those who understand do not need an explanation, and those who do not yet understand deserve one more match. And if you ask me whether women's table tennis has a future, I will say yes. Not because I am optimistic. Because I have seen it. I have seen fifteen-year-old girls loop the ball with a confidence I did not have at their age. I have seen female coaches quietly taking notes on every match. I have seen young spectators stay after the match ends just to read the score sheet again. Those seeds are growing. They only need soil. And the soil, in this case, is informed attention. Player portrait: Mai Hoang My Trang is a face long associated with Vietnamese women's table tennis, leaving her mark through regional tournaments. Nguyen Thi Nga is another name of Vietnamese women's table tennis in the era of international competition. Players like them do not just hit the ball. They open the way for those who follow through their very presence at the table. I cried when I mispronounced a female player's name three times on air — but those tears were not from shame. They were because I realized I had spent too many years reading other people's names without truly remembering them. Since that day, I remember. I remember each one. And I write about each one. Because in women's table tennis, a name remembered correctly is already a small victory on a table two point seven meters long. 212 views at the age of 51 taught me more than thirty years in the studio. That day I understood that viewers do not need an expert. They need someone standing beside them, looking at the screen together, showing them where the beauty is. With women's table tennis, I have done that for years. And I will keep doing it. Until no one has to ask why women's table tennis deserves to be watched. 90 days, 156 matches, and a 12-part series — I do not write about history, I am preserving it. Women's table tennis deserves to be preserved in full like any other sport. No more. No less. Just full.