Visualized analysis of hotspot issues of table tennis based on the prospective of VOSviewer

Aim. This paper deals with the most important issues of table tennis to analyze the distribution of the main fields, authors, and institutions related to table tennis in China and optimize its study. Materials and methods. Data source. The data is downloaded from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and 16 types of sports core journals (released in 2021) are selected from CNKI. It is retrieved with the keyword “table tennis”. The papers on table tennis searched from CNKI are from January 2001 to December 2020, with a time span of 20 years. There is a screening of the literature to retrieve 677 of them published in the domestic sports core journals. Study process. The data obtained was processed with the statistical tool Excel and the visual analysis tool VOSviewer. Results. Reliable data were obtained from the rating of sports journals in terms of the volume of publications, current research topics, authors, and the issues under study in general. Conclusion. The colleges and universities are the most important battlefield for the analysis and study of table tennis sport, and the core institutions are Beijing Sport University, Shanghai University of Sport and so on. The study outcomes are featured with a significant regional difference. There are abundant outcomes in Beijing and Shanghai, but it is almost a blank in the central and western regions.