How it unfolded
It started with a shuttle bus, not a match. During the 31st World Championships in Nagoya in late March 1971, American player Glenn Cowan missed his own team's bus after practice and climbed aboard China's instead. Three-time world singles champion Zhuang Zedong broke the awkward silence, handing Cowan a silk embroidery depicting the Huangshan mountains; Cowan responded the next day with a T-shirt bearing a peace symbol. When a photograph of the two together ran in newspapers worldwide, Mao Zedong ordered the American team invited. The U.S. delegation entered China via Hong Kong on April 10, becoming the first American group to receive an official invitation from the Chinese government since 1949. On April 13, a friendship match was held before roughly 18,000 spectators at Beijing's Capital Indoor Stadium. Given the gap in skill, the Chinese players managed the score to keep the match close. The next day, Zhou Enlai received the delegation at the Great Hall of the People, and the same day, Washington announced an easing of the trade embargo it had held against China for more than two decades.
Why it still matters
This is a rare case of a sporting event actually moving international relations. The visit was followed by Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing and President Nixon's visit in February 1972, opening the way to normalized U.S.-China relations. "Ping-pong diplomacy" became a generic phrase for improving relations through sport, and table tennis gained a symbolic international standing out of proportion to the sport's size.