A tubular table tennis ball storage and discharge magazine formed with a lateral discharge opening and positioned gravitationally to feed the balls to the opening, the magazine having elastic retainers at the opening to hold the advance ball poised for selection.
A system for managing table tennis balls facilitates retrieval of stray balls, stores them and dispenses them conveniently to a player as required. The system has two main components: a ball retriever, a.k.a. the BallSnatcher, and a storage rack, a.k.a. the BallFeeder. The tubular retriever can hold a column of balls and is deployed in a hand-held manner in a vertical orientation from a standing position. The retriever is fitted at its bottom end with a ball trap including (a) a flexible coaxial constriction ring defining an expandable entry opening that when lowered over a stray ball captures and retains it in the retriever tube, and (b) a flexible coaxial guidance flange extending outwardly and downwardly to provide initial guidance in retrieving a stray ball. The tubular storage rack is mounted below the playing surface of a game table at a low angle; an open upper end is located along one side of the table where it can receive balls in an easy transfer from the retriever, while the opposite lower end is fitted with an endstop/dispenser, located at an end of the table convenient to a player, that retains the balls in the rack and dispenses them one at a time as required for play. The storage tube is sized to receive the open top end of the retriever for ball transfer; furthermore, the retriever can inserted telescopically into the storage tube and left conveniently stored in this manner, ready to be easily pulled out for deployment.
A table tennis ball delivery device adapted to be secured to or adjacent the side of a table tennis table for directing a ball to a player upon the activation of a switch by the player. The device includes a chamber for carrying a supply of table tennis balls, a ball transfer mechanism for selectively advancing an individual ball from the chamber to a location over a flexed or cocked delivery spring oriented such that upon activation of the switch by a player, the spring is released so as to strike a ball and launch the ball to the player. The ball transfer mechanism is coordinated with the spring cocking and release mechanism so as to position another ball over the delivery spring and re-cock the spring immediately upon the launching of the ball to the player.