Brian Doogan reports from the World Championships in Manchester

THEY'RE calling it the biggest event ever to be held in Britain, a grand claim for a ping pong tournament.

The 44th World Table Tennis Championships are in their second week and Manchester's G-Mex Centre has been heaving.

There were 108 countries who accepted invitations to the tournament and 106 have turned up. Yesterday, they attracted a capacity crowd as the men's team championship reached its climax.

The venue resembled a mini-Wimbledon with an abundance of outside tables, sectioned off, surrounding the centrepiece - an isolated table closed off by four towering grandstands. What was taking place on the tables was an eye-opener.

China was playing France and the sheer pace and passion had me hooked.

"It's not ping pong, is it?" jibed Andrea Holt, the 26-year-old from Ramsbottom, Bury, who is the British women's number-three ranked player and opens her account in the singles tomorrow.

Well, we'll not quibble over words but it's certainly not what I expected.

"The atmosphere here has been great all week and we're hoping that it continues over the Bank Holiday weekend.

"Hopefully it will help the game to make an impact in this country.

"It's difficult to compete with football and cricket but this might give the game a start." It's a sport that almost seems unfair to expect humans to play.

Unless you have the reflexes of a panther, the athleticism of a sprinter, the concentration of a school swot and the stamina of a thoroughbred horse, you can forget about excelling in this game - at this level anyway.

The speed of thought required makes it seem necessary for players to by-pass the sending a message from brain to arm.

They just react.

"It's a very strenuous game," said Andrea.

"To maintain your position at the highest level takes unbelievable commitment.

"It's so psychological."

Maybe for this reason the Chinese dominate.

There are seven titles at stake in the world championships - five individual and doubles - and two years ago China took them all.

Even when they're behind, Chinese players seem psychologically to be in control.

Yesterday their men had little trouble in establishing the ground rules against France, running out emphatic 3-1 victors.

To the flag-waving, red-clad contingent from Asia, this was something to get excited about.

Every point their countrymen won was met by a roar that might have carried all the way back to Peking.

For a nation hardly renowned for excitedness, table tennis sure has the knack of bringing the Chinese out of their shell. "They are passionate about the game in the way the English are passionate about football," said Yonghua Dong, an urban pollution researcher at Middlesex University who also writes sport for China's "People's Daily" overseas edition.

"This is a special occasion (the World Table Tennis Championships) that gets us really excited.

"Hardly any other sport steams us up.

"Table tennis is so popular in China. It has a long history - it originated in England but the Chinese adopted it and developed it to suit their style.

"That's why we've been successful at it for so long.

"You don't need much space to play the game - we're not talking about a playing surface the size of a football pitch.

"Also Chinese players are dedicated to table tennis.

"It is their goal to get in the provincial squads which lead on to a place in the national squad.

"They are professional about the game."

In fact, they play a different game to just about everybody else.

When they are involved the rallies are spectacular with one player pinned firmly on the defensive while the other attempts almost to drill the light, white ball through the table. Through variations of floating, spinning or looping the ball back, the player on the back foot draws your allegiance.

It seems little short of heroic when he returns the ball to the table, almost as if he is being pummelled and not the ball.

"This one's a real fighter," said Dong as Liu Guoliang made his way to the table for the third match of the men's team final.

"He goes for every point, the result doesn't affect him.

"If he loses the first game, he plays exactly the same way in the second.

"He can't be discouraged."

Liu Guoliang, and his Chinese team-mates - not to mention their ecstatic fans, helped to turn this cynic into a convert.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.