The Great Table Tennis Renaissance

It’s 10:30 am on the first Sunday of the new year. I am standing at a ping-pong table, accessed through the parking garage of an unassuming office building in Midwood, Brooklyn. Across the table is Stephen, a lanky Russian-speaker from Sheepshead Bay, with a white tuft of hair and wearing black joggers. He told me he hasn’t played in 10 years. Still, he makes me pay when I hit to his forehand, bashing a winner to my back right corner. I zero in on the 3×3 hologram of the profile of a Bengal tiger behind him before my next serve to win the match.