The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
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The Weekend Read
/ March 14, 2026
The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
Josh Safdie’s latest movie Marty Supreme spurred a renewed national interest in ping-pong. I played my way through New York City to try to find out more.
Joshua Levkowitz
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From the set of Marty Supreme.
(A24)
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.
I move to the next table to square off against Igor, a squat man in a tight blood-red athletic shirt. While we warm up, he inspects my borrowed paddle. During the first match, I successfully push the ball from side to side to win 11-6. Igor looks annoyed and protests that he cannot follow the orange ball. I shrug, unsure of how to answer his complaints about his own ball.
Around the room, there are eight tables with 20 men and two women jammed into the basement coming to blot the world out for a few hours and compete in the weekly tournament at Brooklyn Table Tennis Club. The owner, Nison Aronov, runs the tournament from a folding table in the front, shouting to players in Russian, Farsi, and English to direct them to their next match. The walls, ceiling, and floors are painted in various shades of blue, with lights overhead. “Today, a lot of players come,” he says, surprised at the number of bodies. “Not always like this.”
Between games, I look at the walls filled with photos and press clippings. Aranov points to a circled clue on a framed crossword puzzle from a July 2005 issue of USA Table Tennis Magazine: “Best Lobber in U.S.?” “That’s me,” he said, with his last name handwritten into the grid with a pencil.
I am playing in a table-tennis tournament this morning because, almost overnight, the sport seems to have reappeared in the American imagination, spurred, at least in part, by Josh Safdie’s manic film about a competitive player named Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), loosely based on Lower East Side hustler and hardbat legend Marty Reisman. Set in the lean years after World War II, the film makes a long-dismissed basement pastime feel newly urgent, fast, and serious.
The hype began far before the film’s official release on Christmas Day. In New York City, select guests were invited …
Same show, different day.
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Current Issue
The Weekend Read
/ March 14, 2026
The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
Josh Safdie’s latest movie Marty Supreme spurred a renewed national interest in ping-pong. I played my way through New York City to try to find out more.
Joshua Levkowitz
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
From the set of Marty Supreme.
(A24)
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.
I move to the next table to square off against Igor, a squat man in a tight blood-red athletic shirt. While we warm up, he inspects my borrowed paddle. During the first match, I successfully push the ball from side to side to win 11-6. Igor looks annoyed and protests that he cannot follow the orange ball. I shrug, unsure of how to answer his complaints about his own ball.
Around the room, there are eight tables with 20 men and two women jammed into the basement coming to blot the world out for a few hours and compete in the weekly tournament at Brooklyn Table Tennis Club. The owner, Nison Aronov, runs the tournament from a folding table in the front, shouting to players in Russian, Farsi, and English to direct them to their next match. The walls, ceiling, and floors are painted in various shades of blue, with lights overhead. “Today, a lot of players come,” he says, surprised at the number of bodies. “Not always like this.”
Between games, I look at the walls filled with photos and press clippings. Aranov points to a circled clue on a framed crossword puzzle from a July 2005 issue of USA Table Tennis Magazine: “Best Lobber in U.S.?” “That’s me,” he said, with his last name handwritten into the grid with a pencil.
I am playing in a table-tennis tournament this morning because, almost overnight, the sport seems to have reappeared in the American imagination, spurred, at least in part, by Josh Safdie’s manic film about a competitive player named Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), loosely based on Lower East Side hustler and hardbat legend Marty Reisman. Set in the lean years after World War II, the film makes a long-dismissed basement pastime feel newly urgent, fast, and serious.
The hype began far before the film’s official release on Christmas Day. In New York City, select guests were invited …
The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
Same show, different day.
Log In
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The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
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Magazine
Latest
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Politics
World
Economy
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The Nation
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Current Issue
The Weekend Read
/ March 14, 2026
The Great Table Tennis Renaissance
Josh Safdie’s latest movie Marty Supreme spurred a renewed national interest in ping-pong. I played my way through New York City to try to find out more.
Joshua Levkowitz
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
From the set of Marty Supreme.
(A24)
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.
I move to the next table to square off against Igor, a squat man in a tight blood-red athletic shirt. While we warm up, he inspects my borrowed paddle. During the first match, I successfully push the ball from side to side to win 11-6. Igor looks annoyed and protests that he cannot follow the orange ball. I shrug, unsure of how to answer his complaints about his own ball.
Around the room, there are eight tables with 20 men and two women jammed into the basement coming to blot the world out for a few hours and compete in the weekly tournament at Brooklyn Table Tennis Club. The owner, Nison Aronov, runs the tournament from a folding table in the front, shouting to players in Russian, Farsi, and English to direct them to their next match. The walls, ceiling, and floors are painted in various shades of blue, with lights overhead. “Today, a lot of players come,” he says, surprised at the number of bodies. “Not always like this.”
Between games, I look at the walls filled with photos and press clippings. Aranov points to a circled clue on a framed crossword puzzle from a July 2005 issue of USA Table Tennis Magazine: “Best Lobber in U.S.?” “That’s me,” he said, with his last name handwritten into the grid with a pencil.
I am playing in a table-tennis tournament this morning because, almost overnight, the sport seems to have reappeared in the American imagination, spurred, at least in part, by Josh Safdie’s manic film about a competitive player named Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), loosely based on Lower East Side hustler and hardbat legend Marty Reisman. Set in the lean years after World War II, the film makes a long-dismissed basement pastime feel newly urgent, fast, and serious.
The hype began far before the film’s official release on Christmas Day. In New York City, select guests were invited …
