When the world’s top players take to the court at the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026 Presented by ACN, they will be armed with the latest bat technology.

All the carbon fibre and rubber is a far cry from what players used way back at the origins of the sport, from Victorian parlours through to the inaugural 1926 World Championships in London.

We enlisted the help of two top 50-ranked players – India’s Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Australia’s Finn Luu – to see how today’s stars got on wielding yesterday’s equipment.

Check out the film on our YouTune channel or watch below.