Thank you for clarifying this... to a degree. Approval will not be withdrawn, however, just to remove any doubts or room for misunderstanding, there is a world of difference between still authorised and suitable for use in ITTF tournements. So, please confirm if

1. all plastic balls produced pre January 2016 will be allowed to be used in ITTF tournements post January 2016 or
2. no plastic ball produced pre January 2016 will be allowed to be used in ITTF tournements post January 2016 or
3. Some plastic balls produced pre January 2016 will be allowed to be used in ITTF tournements post January 2016 - and if this option is true, how will we know which ones

This is important because where the ITTF lead, national association invariably follow.

Thanks

The German association for example does not even take over the obligatory plastic ball use lower than league #2.

I cannot confirm any of 1-3

This means that approval is not withdrawn simply because we cross the date line.

no one has ever understood the arguments for this claim,

Ah. So Palio seamless = XSF seamless. I'll go get some perhaps..

Just out of curiosity - what's the difference between two and three star balls? I notice the Palion 2* don't have "ITTF Approved" on them, while the 3* do.

Iskandar

But you have already said the opposite a day ago:


"Approval is not withdrawn" is equal to "will be allowed to be used".

Why exactly did you say a thing and then deny it when asked directly?

#1 means: "will be allowed to be used" (you are right here), #2 means "will (or will not) be used in specific tournaments".

Shouldn't you be mandating that companies put an actual date of production stamp on the box so that buyers in the future will know what they are getting? By that, I mean an actual date, not some code where you need a secret decoder ring to know what it means. When 2016 comes, I for one would want to know that I was getting good balls, not some of the really bad ones that are being sold now with ITTF approval stamps. I have bought lots of these balls and have made a good-faith effort to adapt, but the problems, especially with the seamed balls I have seen so far, are really frustrating. My experience so far has been, to my profound surprise, that the current seamless balls are better.

Based on ITTF precedents, I am willing to bet any amount that it "will not be used" in any ITTF sanctioned tournaments by then even if "it will be still allowed". Shall we simply call it a "soft" ban instead of a "hard" ban?

Brand/Model---Stars--Avg Dia--SD Dia--Hi Dia--Lo Dia--Avg Wgt--SD Wgt--Hi Wgt--Lo Wgt----#--Seam?
Double Fish-------3-----40.19----0.034--40.32---40.12----2.73-----0.009----2.75----2.70-----49----Y
Double Fish-------1-----40.15----0.035--40.28---40.00----2.73-----0.017----2.76----2.67-----50----Y

XuShaofa Sports---3-----40.29----0.028--40.35---40.24----2.80-----0.051----2.95----2.74-----24----N
Palio-------------3-----40.21----0.027--40.30---40.16----2.78-----0.022----2.85----2.75-----24----N

Torsten, can you tell us a little more about the random testing of retail samples that you describe on page 11 of your presentation? In particular, has this testing already begun, or will it indeed begin before 9/21 (end of summer, 2014) as described in your document?

If any testing has begun, can you please tell us how many different brands have been randomly tested and if there are any brands that did not pass all ITTF published standards and are due to have their approvals suspended?

In my own non-professional testing of 8 different brands of poly balls, I've found 4 brands that did not meet ITTF published standards. Here's the results of my tests:
<Data sheet>
From the above results, we can see that:
Two brands did not meet the published standard for Weight Regularity of 0.03g--Cornilleau (0.037) and XuShoafa Sports (0.051).
Four brands surpassed the upper weight limit of 2.82g of any one ball--Palio (2.85 with 2 balls over), XuShoafa (2.95 with 4 balls over), Donic (2.84 with 1 ball over), and Cornilleau (2.89 with 4 balls over).
One brand was less than the minimum diameter allowed (40mm)--Donic (39.88).
One brand was over the Size Regularity limit of 0.06mm--Donic (0.065)

Now I realize that my personal tests are not official, and they were not conducted in a laboratory environment, but if the ITTF indeed found such results in their own tests, would those approvals face suspension as described in your document?

In particular, can you explain this statement in T3--Statistical "outliers" are ignored when calculating means and standard deviations, but all values within a normal distribution but outside the permitted limits are included. What determines an outlier? How many outliers are permitted in the samples tested?

Your presentation includes the following statement on page 11 in reference to the random testing program--Repeated failure to meet the tolerance ranges is resulting in suspension of the approval. What happens to the approval after one failure? Two failures? Three failures? Exactly how many repeated failures is one brand allowed?

Besides my lack of the proper scientific laboratory environment, is there anything else I missed in my informal testing, and my calculations of results from those tests, that will allow me to obtain more accurate results?

Thank you for participating in this forum and enlightening us on how this random testing program is structured, conducted and what happens to brands that fail random testing.

Larry