we need a stronger paddle.

Specialized equipment did not mean high speed camera.

That's it, you are no longer allowed to serve.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Supersonic-Ping-Pong-Ball-Cannon-Shoots-through-paddles

Supersonic Ping Pong Ball Cannon - Shoots through paddles has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims.

Needs more slow-mo.

Considering that this is the same thing as the paddle traveling at 900 mph towards a stationary ball, I'm surprised it wasn't the ball that exploded, but I suppose this has to do with the strength of domes/spheres.

How do you know it didn't?

and then the cardboard stops it?

This bit is what makes the top 15. I guess people didn't want to see the rest of the video where they explain how it works.

Probably so deformed that it rapidly loses energy after the initial impact.

I don't. Maybe it disintegrated on impact, but there's still a hole in the paddle.

While I don't think this is what happened in this video, pressurized air alone could punch a hole in a ping pong paddle. Surely those dorks at Mythbusters have blown shit to bits this way.

Reminds me of a story my retired-Navy uncle told me of a guy he served with that worked in the boiler room on a ship. As he was working on a high-pressure steam pipe he saw something fall to the floor. It was his thumb. An invisible jet of pressurized steam escaping a needle-thin leak in the pipe cut it off.