Longest Table Tennis Match: Marathon, Match and Rally Records
Guinness lists a 132-hour singles marathon. Compare it with a competitive match reported at 7–7½ hours and the famous two-hour point from 1936.
Guinness World Records lists the longest table tennis singles marathon as 132 hours 31 minutes, achieved by Danny Price and Randy Nunes in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA, on 20–26 August 1978. That is 5 days, 12 hours and 31 minutes. It is an endurance record—not the duration of an ordinary tournament match. Guinness’s singles-marathon record is the relevant category.
The answer changes if you mean a competitive match or one uninterrupted rally. Those measure different things and should not share a single leaderboard.
The records, separated by category
The Guinness listings below were checked on 19 October 2026; Guinness notes that new records are not always published online immediately.
| Category | Duration | Players and setting |
|---|---|---|
| Singles endurance marathon | 132 hr 31 min | Danny Price and Randy Nunes; Cherry Hill, USA, 20–26 August 1978. Guinness |
| Historic competitive singles match | Reported as 7–7½ hours | Michel Haguenauer against Marin-Goldberger; 1936 World Championships, Prague. The match was ultimately decided by a coin toss. Contemporary report and later history |
| Guinness longest rally | 15 hr 49 min 35 sec | Emil Ohlsson and Fredrik Nilsson; Malmö, Sweden, 18 April 2025. Guinness |
| Famous World Championships point | 2 hr 12 min | Alojzy Ehrlich against Farkas Paneth; first point in the Poland–Romania men’s team fixture, Prague, 1936. ITTF history |
A rally is the period when the ball is in play. A scored rally produces a point; points make up games, and an individual match consists of a best-of-odd-number series of games. These distinctions come from the ITTF laws reproduced by Table Tennis England. For common match formats, see how many games are in a table tennis match.
What was the longest competitive match?
The Haguenauer–Marin-Goldberger match at Prague 1936 is the historic marathon to distinguish from the Guinness endurance attempt. The archived Table Tennis Legends account calls its seven-and-a-half-hour duration a world record and recounts Haguenauer’s explanation: after losing the opening two games while attacking, he switched to pushing, and the third game alone took three hours. With the match still unresolved, the players eventually tossed a coin; the Romanian won. Historical account
There is an important precision limit. The contemporary April 1936 issue of Table Tennis reports seven hours, with the games tied 2–2 and Marin leading 5–3 in the fifth, before the players were compelled to toss for the match. Accordingly, “reported as seven and a half hours” is more defensible than treating that duration as an exact, independently timed modern record—or claiming it was completed through normal scoring. Contemporary report
The Ehrlich–Paneth story concerns a different contest: two hours and twelve minutes for the first point, not the whole match. The ITTF’s history places it in the men’s team competition and notes that a 20-minute limit per game was imposed the following year among measures encouraging attacking play. ITTF history
Why modern games do not simply stop after ten minutes
Today’s safeguard is the expedite system, not a ten-minute match limit. Under the 2026 ITTF laws, it starts after ten minutes’ play in a game unless at least 18 points in total have already been scored. Both players or pairs can also request it earlier, subject to that exception.
Once introduced:
- Service changes after every point.
- The receiver wins the point upon making 13 correct returns in a rally.
- Expedite remains in operation for the rest of the match.
If expedite is not already in operation, a game at 8–8 after ten minutes triggers it, while one at 9–9 does not: 9–9 already totals 18 points. The game continues rather than being awarded to whoever leads. Laws 2.15.1–2.15.6