People are asking whether Roger Federer's tennis skills would translate to ping pong - and the answer is clear

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Roger Federer.

• Roger Federer is widely regarded to be the greatest male tennis players of all time.
• A Quora user has asked whether Federer would have been just as successful had he pursued a career in ping pong when he was younger.
• Numerous rule changes in table tennis and the dominance of Chinese athletes in ping pong would have prevented Federer from ruling the sport, according to Quora users.

Roger Federer is widely considered to be the greatest male tennis players of all time.

His accomplishments make for lengthy reading. He has the most men's singles titles at Wimbledon (eight), the highest grass court match win percentage (87.23%), and the most weeks spent as the ATP world number one (308).

But how would he have fared if he had picked ping pong rather than tennis?

That is a question recently posed by a user on Quora - and the answer is clear.

Federer's physical prowess and technical qualities have been essential in his quest for dominance on the tennis court, but he has mental assets that could be transferable skills in other sports.

He is highly determined individual with a champion's focus that could have seen him compete at a high level had he chosen an alternative sport, such as table tennis, when he was younger.

But could he have been the best, like some say he is in the tennis world?

Quora user Martijn Grimme said Federer "could have been a great player because of the universal skills needed for both sports, how good? No one knows - but not the greatest of all time in table tennis."

According to the users who responded to the question, there are a number of reasons why he would not have dominated in ping pong like he has in tennis:

Simply put, Federer is not Chinese

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Roger Federer,

User Larry Thoman, who claims to have worked in the table tennis industry for 27 years and been a competitive player since 1971, gave the most upvoted response highlighting the training limitations in Europe compared to the possibilities in China.

"It is universally accepted that the best place for developing into a world class table tennis athlete is in China," Larry Thoman said. "The training environment there is regarded as several steps above what is available anywhere else in the world."

Chinese athletes dominate the International Table Tennis Rankings. There are currently three Chinese competitors positioned in the top five modern day ping pong players. Nobody is ranked higher than Zhendong Fan while Xin Xu and Gaoyuan Lin are fourth and fifth respectively.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2012 London Olympics, and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, China won every single one of the gold medals up for grabs in ping pong. Athletes from Europe did not win a single gold during that era - a time when Federer, a European, was winning Grand Slam after Grand Slam in tennis, including a gold medal at the 2008 Games.

"For Roger to maintain a top 3 ranking in table tennis, he would have to outcompete the best players that China produced during that same era, and he'd have to have developed his skills and abilities in a sub-par training and competitive environment," Thoman said.

Ping pong has changed in the last 20 years

Thoman also said numerous changes in table tennis over the last 20 years has prevented one player from dominating.

These changes include:

1. The size of the ping pong ball being enlarged from 38mm to 40mm
2. The scoring system going from best of 5 x 21-point games to 7 x 11-point games
3. Serves changing from 5 per player to 2 per player
4. The material of the ball changing from celluloid to non-celluloid plastic

Tennis has not experienced such changes and competitors have therefore not had to adjust accordingly.

"Besides the big disadvantages Roger would have faced because of the differences between European and Chinese training environments, he also would have had to successfully navigate the many changes in table tennis that happened during his era," Thoman said.

"There really are no table tennis players that developed during the days of the 38mm celluloid ball that stayed at the same high level for very many years after the switch to the 40mm ball."

There is one way Federer could dominate at ping pong

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Roger Federer.

Federer is at his best on a grass court. He has won the Wimbledon Championships a record eight times and has skipped the clay season this year so he can be as fit and fresh as possible for the 2018 Wimbledon tournament.

With that in mind, Quora user Prashant Joshi, a software engineer, found a way Federer could make a seamless transition to ping pong - and that is to line the table with grass.

Joshi joked: "Try placing a grass sheet over a tennis table and you might see Federer winning there."