Marty Supreme

In 1952 New York City, Marty Mauser works as a shoe salesman at his uncle Murray's shop while also competing professionally as a table tennis player. Marty dreams of winning the British Open and defeating defending champion Béla Kletzki to bring American attention to the sport. He also pitches selling orange novelty table tennis balls bearing his name to his friend Dion and Dion's businessman father, and is having an affair with his married childhood friend Rachel Mizler. Marty demands $700 for his London trip, but Murray refuses, citing concern for Marty's mother and wanting him to keep his job. After hours, Marty robs the shop's vault by threatening his coworker Lloyd at gunpoint.

In London, Marty, unhappy with the players' barracks, instead stays at the Ritz Hotel, where he seduces former actress Kay Stone and meets her wealthy husband, pen magnate Milton Rockwell. Marty defeats Kletzki in the semi-finals but loses the final to Koto Endo, a deaf Japanese player using a sponge racket. Rockwell offers Marty an exhibition match against Endo in Tokyo before the World Championships, but Marty declines upon learning he would be expected to throw the match to appease Japanese audiences. Rockwell tells Marty that he is already a vaudeville performer, since he is touring internationally with Kletzki as a novelty act for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Back in New York, Marty is arrested for stealing from Murray but escapes. He reconnects with Rachel, who is pregnant and who claims the baby is his. While staying in a run-down hotel with his friend Wally, a taxi driver, Marty discovers he has been banned from the World Championship unless he pays a $1,500 fine to the International Table Tennis Association (ITTA) for fraudulently expensing his Ritz stay. Marty's bathtub collapses through the floor, injuring mobster Ezra Mishkin, who pays Marty to take his dog Moses to a veterinarian. Marty instead hustles patrons at a New Jersey bowling alley with Wally to raise the money. The bowlers later attack them at a gas station but Marty and Wally escape, damaging the taxi and setting the station on fire. Moses runs away during the scuffle.

Rockwell returns to New York, having financed a play to relaunch Kay's career. After having sex with Kay, Marty steals her necklace, but after an attempt to pawn it, he learns it is costume jewelry. Rachel comes to Marty with a black eye claiming her husband Ira has beaten her, prompting Marty to assault him. Marty and Rachel stay with Dion, who reveals he had produced the novelty balls but Marty failed to follow up. Marty and Rachel steal Dion's car and attempt to find Moses to extort money from Mishkin, but flee after being shot at by a farmer who has taken Moses in. Dion throws them out for stealing and damaging his car and discards the novelty balls. Marty learns Rachel faked her injury to manipulate him and leaves her. Rachel tells her husband Ira the baby is not his, and he throws her out of the house.

At the opening of Kay's play, Marty apologizes for stealing her jewelry. Though she sees through him, Kay tells Marty to meet her that night in Central Park, where she gives him a valuable necklace to pay his fine and travel. Marty and Kay begin having sex in the park but are soon caught by police, and use the necklace to bribe the officers into releasing them. Kay offers him another necklace, but receives a poor review during the afterparty for the play and breaks down, leaving her indisposed. Marty then begs Rockwell to revive the Tokyo exhibition offer, and Rockwell agrees on the condition that Marty submit to a humiliating public spanking.

Before Marty leaves, he and Rachel are kidnapped by Mishkin after Rachel attempts to con him with another dog. Mishkin forces them to take him to the farmhouse where Moses was found. A shootout leaves the farmer, Mishkin, and his men dead, and Rachel wounded. Marty discovers the money is mostly worthless clippings. He takes Rachel to the hospital as she goes into premature labor, and then leaves for Tokyo.

In Japan, Marty is told he is too late to enter the World Championship even if he pays his fine. He loses the exhibition match as planned, but when Rockwell plans to further humiliate him by making him kiss a pig onstage, Marty announces that the match was a sham and demands a real rematch, to which Endo agrees; Marty narrowly wins. Refused passage home by Rockwell, Marty flies back with U.S. Army soldiers, reunites with his mother at the hospital, confesses his love to a recovering Rachel, and breaks down in tears upon meeting his newborn son.