So you think table tennis is a low-key, low-stakes rainy-day game.

No way. There's a form of "doping" in pingpong.

It has nothing to do with ingesting banned substances. We're talking about doctoring the racket to get more spin and speed, more dips and curves for the celluloid sphere.

The substances go by various names — speed glue, booster or tuner. The world governing body of table tennis has eliminated some of the problem but has yet to wipe it out.

Matthew Syed, a two-time Olympian and three-time Commonwealth table tennis champion, lends insight.

"Table tennis has two distinct meanings," says Syed. "It's a mass participation parlor game that anybody can play. It's recreational. Then you have the elite, techno-crazy game. They are very different. So people are often surprised.

"But at this level, people are always looking for that edge."

— Stephen Wade — Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP

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EDITOR'S NOTE — "Eyes on London" shows you the Olympics through the eyes of Associated Press journalists across the 2012 Olympic city and around the world. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item.