What is the best way I can detect if a ping pong ball has hit the ping pong table?
Having played ping-pong (badly) I think a microphone would be able to count ball/table impacts quite well. The 'click' sound is much higher than that of hitting the paddle, so you might be able to differentiate on that basis. You might consider a two microphone/transducer arrangement- one coupled to the table and one not touching the table. If you get a simultaneous signal on both, the ball has hit the table. If you get only one signal (from the not-touching microphone) then the ball has hit a paddle. This also gives you the option of getting some timing information.