OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Xsf are now the defacto standard in my area. We can get the for less than cell, thanks mostly to a bulk deal organised by a local official. Most players think they play very well......I actually think they play better than cell! (Little less spin but more consistent bounce)

Controversial but.......was it actually a good change, in your opinion?

I would say yes.......when orange balls appear.

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Too early to call it, still lots of balls in the air, so to speak.

Our league have pushed XSF, but some teams still turn up with awful tibhar balls. Then you go to a Grand Prix event and TeesSport are the sponsors, so they have to use the Butterfly seamed balls which are pretty shoddy. Switching from one to the other in the space of a few days is hugely frustrating.

And yes, still no orange balls. Shambles.

I can see that Andy...but a question for you. If you only had XSF balls, how would you feel?

I agree about chopping and changing, and my first experience of plastic was Tibhar's offering of last year....I was ready to quit playing.

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

If we only had XSF, and there was an orange option, I would be super happy. Over the moon. We are slowly getting into a better position with Tibhar and Joola both having a rebranded XSF option now as well, so if either company sponsor an event the organisers could choose seamless now.

I could also cope with just seamed chinese balls (although that would be shame considering that the seamless are generally better IMO) IF they didn't go soft so quickly and start bouncing erratically.

The market is fragmented and ball choice isn't open - it's based on contracts and sponsorship (and sometimes ignorance). Who knows what the 3* butterfly german ball will be like? Another one into the mixer.

i have been switching between the XSF and the Butterfly chinese seamed ball over the last few weeks. After receiving the Nitraku made in Japan I had a brief hit with it along with a few club mates. Did notice that the intermediate level club mates played more consistently with the Nitraku made in Japan ball. Problem with the XSF ball is the high bounce. At the weekend at the vets we changed one or 2 of the XSF balls for a fresh one since the one we were playing with was slightly oval resulting in it being a little erratic.

Of the Teesport supplied chinese butterfly balls (which will be used this weekend in the ranking tournament) around 3 of the 12 balls supplied played poorly. Have to admit that if you have a good one I quite like playing with them. Compared with the Joola seamed balls they don't seem to be breaking as much.

For the seamed balls I have now gone back to using a slightly less stiff blaðe with a T05 on the FH. This is to get a better arc on the ball to compensate for the lower bounce. This is relative to the high bounce off the XSF ball where I found that using a more control orientated FH rubber works better.

So in summary the seamed and seamless balls have caused me and will continue to cause me a few headaches. I suppose if I was a better player I wouldn't be complaining since I should be able to adapt.
At the offset I was in favour of the XSF balls but now I'm discontent with them.
Not too sure if I can go back to using the cellouid balls but have high hopes for the nittaku made in Japan balls. It's unfortunate that our leagues wouldn't be using them and it's unlikely that any of the ITTA events will be using them either. Realise that on another thread they got the heave ho and there are mixed views if they lacked in spin compared with the XSF. They seem a little smaller than the XSF and feel like a nicer size.
Not too bothered if a yellow ball ever appears since I always preferred the white ball.
So for me the dust has certainly not settled.

Most of the poly balls I have used, seamed and seamless (Double Fish, XSF, Stag & DHS), have been pretty horrible. After about 5-6 sets the seamless balls got overly soft and became egg shaped and irregular, when they were new it played quite nicely but that didn't last very long, these were the XSF and Stag branded ones, of which the stag is a rebranded XSF I am leg to believe.

Of the seamed balls in one Vets team event we broke 3 in one match, the ones that didn't break got very soft and deformed to an irregular shape after about 5-6 sets of play.

That being said there are the occasional poly balls that play fine and holds up to a few matches of play before it starts to feel soft and deform. But that is the exception in my opinion and is still not good enough compared to the longevity of Celluloid balls currently when matched side by side in play. For my local club the Poly ball is still far to expensive and has a far too short lifespan compared to the celluloid balls we can still get.

This could just be the crappy Poly ball product shipped out to Oz or that I've been subjected too, but I've had very little good experiences using them in competition play both locally and at sanctioned tournaments using the Poly balls. I would expect quite some time before the ball is at a product quality close to the celluloid balls.

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CORNILLEAU Hugo Calderano FOCO OFF+
FH: ANDRO Hexer Powergrip 2.1
BH: ANDRO Hexer Powergrip 2.1

I don't think the dust has quite settled yet, other than the fact that now the majority of players are competing with one form of 40+ or another. I think people have had plenty of time to get used to seamless balls and people generally are happy with them, and they still offer many advantages when you consider the entire picture. It is true that they actually bounce higher than celluloid in contrast to all the other plastic balls, and some people may not like that, but I think it is better to err on having too high of a bounce than too low. Also, some of the European companies are selling seamless now, which I think is a major development. I agree that they can get a little wobbly if somebody whacks when hard against a wall. In general, though, they are very durable.

The reasons I think the dust has not quite settled yet are:

(1) The Chinese seamed balls probably have not yet reached their final state of perfection. My impression is that they have made some improvements compared to the ones made 12 months ago. I still prefer seamless and NP40+ but maybe there is reason to hope that we will eventually get Chinese seamed balls that don't have the ridiculously low bounce and that are more durable.

(2) Nittaku has not solved their production/distribution problems and their Premium 40+ ball is not yet sufficiently available. I like them when I can get them but their price is absurd. They bounce more like celluloid than any other ball.

(3) I am not quite sure what Butterfly is going to be doing over the long run. Also, what can we really say about the Weener ball?

So there are still a lot of questions and the playing properties of the various 40+ balls made in various factories are still much more different than we ever had with different brands of celluloid balls. I think all of us so far can agree about this. The various types of 40+ balls are still too different.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

I was mostly converted by the XSF until I started playing with the Stiga Optimum seamed ball. It plays much more similarly to the celluloid ball, and definitely carries more spin than the XSF. It has a more celluloid-esque bounce too. It's not perfect though - too many abnormally-shaped balls.

The Butterfly G40+ comes out soon (end of August?). Hopefully that is similar to the Stiga. If it is, I'd prefer to use that than the XSF... but as the entire league seems to have purchased the XSF, it's going to cause problems in terms of people wanting to use different balls to match their style of play etc.

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My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtazeX ... oICGS9bqNg
Join the OOAK Discord!: https://discord.gg/Yw2hYUdz3g

[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

After playing with the Premium against 6 or 7 different players (as well as trying the XSF/Stiga balls), the unanimous conclusion was that the Nittaku ball is far and away the worst. The sound is absolutely horrible too.

_________________
My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtazeX ... oICGS9bqNg
Join the OOAK Discord!: https://discord.gg/Yw2hYUdz3g

[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

Wouldn't the Stiga be another incarnation of the DHS?? (Same as Tibhar, Donic, etc.)

Iskandar

Yes, and the early ones we used were shockingly bad. They were used at the Blackpool Grand Prix earlier this year and 200+ balls broke, resulting in a forced switch to a different ball on the sunday (they ran out). Low and erratic bounce, go soft quickly, worst ball I've used so far.

For me the dust has settled (I'm training with XSF exclusively), but there are still a couple of problems with the XSF:

(1) no good training balls: they are "eggs". This can be corrected by training with the 3* balls (they don't break anyway).
(2) no orange balls: if XSF starts producing these, they'll conquer the market entirely (hint to sandy ).
(3) the ball has the tendency to collect dust and to become humid during a rally if the environment is humid.

For me it is still as dusty as ever.

Played a tournament weekend before last using NP 40+. Was looking for another tournament in September that I played a number of years ago-they are using orange celluloid-totally scrapped any desire to play. NP 40+ are still hard to get although I now have a large stock. I know of no local tournaments using the XSF family of balls which I prefer and play with almost exclusively.

The ONE thing I do like is that there are no orange balls. I did not realize how much I hated all those different shades of orange. I am probably alone but I hope orange never comes back.

I doubt that you're alone, but you need to think of the bigger picture. I much prefer to play with white balls myself, but venues are thin on the ground and we lose a few every year. With an orange ball we have more venue options simply because we can play with white walls (squash courts are a good example). So I want orange plastic balls for the health of the sport rather than for personal reasons.

Yeah, that's a good point. We train with 3* but did buy a bag of 1* XSF for our juniors and they are horribly out of round.