OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi haggisv

I've spoken to Torsten on a number of occasions now. You might want to change the way his name is spelt. It's actually Kueneth - they appear to have missed the "E" out when they printed this document.

Cheers

In German it is spelled with a u with an umlaut (two dots over the u), which denotes "ue". Not sure we can make that symbol on the website. Maybe not a huge error. If he was offended I doubt he would be taking time to patiently answer our questions

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

Somebody who is offended just because an English-speaking forum does not take the "umlaut" - such a person really is in trouble with him-/herself ...
So, please do not spend your time to "correct" that, and it's good to hear that my time here is helpful.

Umlaut? Like this? ü

Iskandar

Thank you, fixed!

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One thing that is hardly mentioned in the plastic ball discussion is that apparently the IOC put pressure on the ittf to change to plastic balls. There is some information to be found about this but nothing conclusive.

Regarding quality control on the various brands of plastic balls: currently quality control is pretty much none existent. Any ball that is produced and remotely looks like a ball is shipped out no matter how hard, soft or round it is.

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Competition bats:
Win-tec power def Tibhar 5Q sound Power Update 1.8 * Spinlord Agenda ox
TSP Balsa 3.5 Tibhar Genius+Optimium sound 1.8 * Grass D-tecs ox

Put to rest:
Galaxy T10 Bluefire M2 2.0 Palio Ck531a ox
Victas Koji Matsushita Tibhar Genius+Optimium sound MAX * Spinlord Dornenglanz ox
Donic Defplay Senso Tibhar Aurus Sound Black max * Grass D-tecs ox

Check out my quest for my new blade here: http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=23241
Current standings:
Butterfly Matshushita powerdefence * Joola Chen Weixing * Nittaku KVU * Nittaku Shake defense* Tibhar stratus power defense * Victas Koji Matsushita * Yasaka Sweeper * Win-Tec power defence

Some 4-star balls available here...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Champion-Sports ... 1c46f8f01e

"ITTA Approved"......

Iskandar

Yes - but so what? It is not an ITTF approved ball, the brand "Champion" does not even have any ITTF approved non-celluloid ball.
The person offering it is claiming that the balls are approved by the "International Table Tennis Association" - which does not exist. So this person simply has no clue (or does not want to have) what he/she is doing. But suppose the offer is not a fake, then it is approved by the Irish Table Tennis Association (ITTA) for their national play. I would admit that I wonder why, but if they like to, they could approve whatever fantasy brand they want for their own purposes. It is not covered by ITTF's Technical Leaflet at all.

Torsten, I am really concerned about the low bounce of the Chinese seamed balls relative to celluloid, seamless balls, and the Nittaku balls that are made in Japan. From my experience, it really has an effect on play, and not a particularly good one. It is the thing that players here dislike the most. However, here in the US, the stocks that are being were mostly made in June. Is this a concern to ITTF and to your knowledge, are Chinese-made seamed balls showing any improvement in this? A little extra weight does not bother me, the size is not hard to get used to, but the low bounce is incredibly annoying.

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

Torsten, can you make a comment on the video series made by Debater here on a particular brand of seamed plastic ball? In particular how close to the actual official testing regime they are?

Here is the topic on OOAK:

http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26817

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Thanks for asking this question Retirever, bear in mind the date of any sample testing done by the ITTF - from a comment made elsewhere by Torsten, our random sampling was done before the ITTF started random sampling under the temporary amended specifications so it's important to consider which "batch" of balls were tested and how often they've "changed" since their original approval.

To give a bit of background, I've included a number of quotes from Torsten in the video series, quotes which were taken from pm's between us (with Torsten's permission) when I was discussing the results with him. He provided a fair bit of feedback on them including a couple of ITTF results and expressed his opinion about the difference between lab testing and home testing. I also copied Torsten in to a pm which had a description of all the videos so Torsten is aware of how the video series ends and the conclusions we reached. This pm included an offer to provide links to the vidoes so they could be viewed before being released.

If you're reading this Torsten, please don't reveal the conclusions about the videos yet to be released - once they are, feel free to add to them. I also pm'd Adham Sharara with links to the first 7 videos but that pm has never been opened. Understandable - he's a busy person and I'm sure replying to pm's is not a priority.

@Debater
1. I will of course not reveal any statements prior to your video releases.
2. As I knew before, because we were discussing the planned content of the videos, this is a great work you have done; and although I will not be able to look at all the videos shortly, I am sure that they all offer fair comments. I did not respond to your very last PM, because there was nothing to add for me (i.e. , no concerns).
3. As your post is also a reply to Retriever, you saved me some work. Thanks very much for that.

@Baal: I will deal with that question tomorrow, I don't want to comment it too short to be useful.

Now coming back to this.

I can confirm that in our tests both Chinese seamed ball brands showed a bounce slightly below the middle of the spec, i.e. 250mm, however being well in. Yes, if you transfer the deviation to this or that playing surface, it may be upscaled from ca. 0.5cm to something you may see and feel. As long as the standardized result is well in, ITTF will not go against it. But of course it is our task to ensure that it stays well in, which is done by the random testing currently running. (By the way, expecting the results for the first half or full dozen brands during November.)

I don't doubt at all that for you and your fellow players it is the bounce that matters. On the other hand, we also receive feedback that the size is much more important and the bounce is not hard to get used. The next feedback says, roundness is the biggest issue. Summarizing what we get, for every property of the ball there is a group of players for whom this property is the most important. Which is totally OK and is their right to claim it. Therefore, the only solution is to change as little as possible in all the specs. As we all know by now, that was the tricky one: Preserving the combination of all the specs with different material. To do so, the tolerances needed to be used pretty widely. So, "bad news" is that some brands will probably keep a bounce below average; good news #1 is that along with the durability improvements leading to optimized material, manufacturers will possibly indeed get back to a little more "centered" properties, and #2 is that there is no change in the plan to remove the current extra 3mm lower tolerance by Jan 2016.

Many thanks for your continued contribution in this thread Torsten.

My main issue with the bounce of the plastic ball is the variation across all approved balls. We have a situation now where the seamed plastic balls bounce lower than celluloid, and the seamless bounce higher. While my personal preference is for the higher bounce of the seamless balls (this feels more natural to me in play, for whatever reason), the current state of affairs is that I can turn up to an away venue for a match and be expected to use any approved ball. The sheer range of ball characteristics make this an incredibly frustrating prospect. I can only hope that the promised return to tighter tolerances will narrow this range.

Also - orange balls. Where are the orange plastic balls?

Torsten, My optimistic reaction to this would be that you must have tested balls of later manufacturing date than June and that have improved bounce from the ones we are playing with. The alternative is that after they managed to pass your less stringent test and got approved, they somehow regressed and started making something terrible. There is simply no way that the ones we have been seeing are bouncing "slightly below" the middle of the spec. This is clear from Debater's video. I supposed it depends on what you mean by slightly. We can see and feel it on Tibhar Smash 28 tables, so the tables are not the problem. So I will retain some hope that somewhere between June and now they have managed to make a ball that is not garbage and that is what you have tested most recently. Roundness has been a problem. Bounce has been a problem. Durability has been a problem. In my extensive experience at this point, these particular issues are unique to Chinese seamed balls. Seamless balls and the one Japanese seamless ball do not have this problem. Please be vigilant about the bounce height!!!! Also, could you give me some information on when the balls were manufactured that you say have bounce height only slightly below spec?

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