OOAK Table Tennis Forum

LKT rapid soft is an excellent quality soft rubber. It is slow but gives gives good touch, spin and control on hard and fast carbon blades.

Why soft rubber on a hard blade might be a bad idea.



As usual, YMMV.

Iskandar

With celluloid ball I guess he was right. I'm not sure about the plastic ball. Most chinese top players play with stiff carbon blades nowadays to compensate for the lack of speed of the plastic ball.

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brokkie

There's not really that much difference between the plastic and celluloid ball, not enough to want to change to a soft rubber/hard blade setup from hard rubber/soft blade. All the Chinese players are going for even harder sponges to compensate for the new ball, by the way..

Iskandar

Chinese are changing becos they are able to HIT the plastic ball HARDER than they could with the lighter celluloid and still have it have enough spin to dip down to the table ?

Cell ball used to spin so much you couldn't just keep the return low no matter how much you tried. With plastic ball the deformation at bounce is extensive and non-linear. So hitting the poly-ball harder makes it bounce weirdly on the other side and stay low. And the spin keeps it on the table despite travelling faster now.

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Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

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No, it's because they LOOP the ball with the correct technique and are able to make full use of the hard rubber and are thus able to get enormous speed and spin out of it. This is why they prefer hard rubber to soft, it's capable of producing more speed and spin if you can generate the power to do it. (If you can't, then maybe softer rubber might be better...)



You're describing the old 38mm ball. Back then a lot of the top pros used anti because slow brush loops were especially difficult to return. The change to the 40mm ball changed things a lot. There is a difference between the 40mm celluloid ball and the 40+ plastic ball, but it isn't anywhere near what you describe. I can actually spin the new 40+ ball so hard it's impossible to return, but that's because my opponents are all around my level and don't know how to do it... (Did it several times this afternoon, was playing with a XSF seamless.)



"Non-linear" behavior and weird bounces would make it harder to control, I find the opposite. The new ball does seem to react more to sidespin, but you do learn to compensate. You do have to hit it a little harder to get the same speed and spin.

You do seem to be adamant about lots of things..

Iskandar

Im not disagreeing that Chinese have the best technique for looping. I am saying even though they COULD hit harder back with the 40 cell-ball, they didn't probably becos it was harder to control at higher speed and higher spin. Now poly-ball is making it EASIER for them to getaway with extremely HARDER ( adding HUGE speed and HUGE spin ) quality shots while not suffering for the reduced percentage of success as with the cell-ball. So now for even more SPIN + SPEED the ball isn't doing more spinning or speeding but it is staying on the table more often than not. ( This is my opinion so please feel free to share a much better explanation )

Ever since poly-ball got in the game, I am observing that flat-hitters and passive block/push players are doing much better than the ones going for full-loops and Anti/LP route. SP players are definitely benefiting but the players in my club I don't think have better results after the poly-ball.

There is still some uneven bounce with seam and seamless poly-ball especially when hit hard. It is apparent to me ! Im on the new Red-box Yinhe 3*-star seamless poly-ball now. Weird low-bounce, sudden slowdown, etc. Perhaps you are using better quality ones than what I am using

I am still a beginner level player. So the observations may not reflect the same way of the higher level players YMMV of course

_________________
__________________________________________________________
Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

==========================================================

Well, sure. It's still possible to hit too hard and send the 40+ ball off the end of the table, too.. In fact, it's very easy to hit even a 44mm ball off the end of the table. But you find people here complaining about not enough spin, etc. Especially, you see defensive players complaining. If the flat hitters and blockers are doing better it's because it's easier to control the ball since it's slower overall, but you don't really tend to see many flat hitters and blockers at the tops levels, so I haven't really noticed. In any case, the difference is quite minor in my experience. It IS different, but not nearly as much as the change between the 38mm and 40mm balls. You do have to hit harder to get the same ball speed, this is why the top players have gone up in sponge hardness. The rubber manufacturers are all taking full advantage, too, new "40+" rubbers everywhere that are the older rubbers made a little faster.

The "weird bounce" is probably the propensity of the 40+ balls (especially the seamless ones) to jump sideways due to sidespin. It's disconcerting at first but you get used to it.

Iskandar

This is where you lost me. So it isn't spinning and it isn't faster, but at the same time it both?



That's one factor. A bigger factor (especially for defenders) is less spin while playing a blocker/flat hitter.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

Ahhh I am not very good at this explaining thing What I meant was that even though Top Chinese players are now trying to add even more spin and even more speed, the ball isn't reacting as much as it used to and THEY ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT !!! Other players are not even going to be able to achieve the same results with "better" equipment. So this poly-ball has made the advantage for the Chinese players even bigger instead of giving more advantages to the lower level players.

_________________
__________________________________________________________
Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

==========================================================

So, the top players are better at it, and that's why they win? I agree, it's a shocker.

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Other setups:
SDC Custom Blade/Butterfly Dignics 80/Butterfly Glayzer
BTY Viscaria/Tibhar K3/Tibhar K3

But the whole point of the poly-ball was to make everyone equal again ??? Right ? Slow the game down so Chinese can't win everything all the time ? Instead they are wiping the floor. Unless someone like Miu Hirano comes to "ding" the Chinese bell.

_________________
__________________________________________________________
Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

==========================================================

The ball size went from 36 to 38, 38 to 40. And now 40 to 40+.

I don't think it has to do with the Chinese dominance. This trend started years before the Chinese won the first gold.

Passionate about TT

No, the whole point of the plastic ball was to avoid exploding shipping containers.





Of course, a lot of people who post here don't believe that!

(Note the 3 star DHS balls... must've cost a fortune..)



36??? Really? When?? (I think it was some inch size back in the 1930s...)

Iskandar

Ah. 1926 rules of table tennis:

3 The Ball: The ball shall be spherical. It shall be made of celluloid, pale in colour; it shall not be less than 4 1/2ins nor more than 4 3/4ins in circumference; it shall not be less than 2/27ozs nor more than 2/25ozs in weight.

http://www.old.ittf.com/museum/ColinEvolution.pdf

"it shall not be less than 2/27ozs nor more than 2/25ozs in weight." How the heck do you measure 2/27 of an ounce? Did they sell little 1/27 oz weights? 1/25 oz. weights, I can imagine... And are these ounces Avoirdupois or Troy?

Iskandar