The New Zealand Table Tennis Association is affiliated to the International Table Tennis Federation and is eligible to compete in the World Championships. In 1963, at the 27th World Championships, held in Prague, an unofficial New Zealand women's team earned fourth place in its section. New Zealanders abroad have taken part in overseas championships on many occasions and three players – J. S. Crossley (1950), G. A. J. Frew (1954), and A. R. Tomlinson (1963) – have won the Scottish Men's Singles Championship.

New Zealand teams compete regularly in the Australian Open and in the New South Wales Championships, and representative teams visit at two-year intervals. On 16 September 1963 the first international women's contest between Australia and New Zealand was played at Sydney when Australia won by four matches to one.

Since the war the New Zealand association has arranged visits by famous overseas players. Among these may be mentioned Szabados and Anderson, Barna and Bergman (1948); Haegenaur and Leach (1952); the popular Rowe twins (1953); the Japanese world champions Tanaka and Ogimura (1957); and the Japanese women's team – Matsuzaki and Yamaizumi (1960).

National Championships

The New Zealand National Table Tennis Championships have been held annually since 1934, except for an interval (1941–44) during the Second World War. The championships include the following events: Men's and Women's Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles. Within this framework there are also championship divisions for boys and girls (under 18 years), junior boys and junior girls (under 16 years), and senior men and women (25 to 45 years), and veteran men and women (40 years of age and over). In addition, since 1953, the Arthur Meachen Memorial Cup has been awarded to the association whose players win the most points in the final events at the national championships. Since 1940 there has been a New Zealand Associations' Teams Championship competition in which men's teams compete for the Kean Shield, while the women's teams compete for the Herbert G. Teagle Memorial Challenge Shield. Since 1950 the Victor Barna Cup has been awarded annually in recognition of those qualities by which, in addition to technical skill, the prestige and reputation of table tennis are established. The cup is awarded to the association whose team competing in the annual teams championship satisfies the Barna Cup Judging Committee that it excels in the qualities of table etiquette, sportsmanship, appearance, and punctuality.

The following are the winners of the principal table tennis national championship events: