OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I played with the new ball for the first time last week. My first impressions? I absolutely hate it! I hate the way it looks, like those super cheap plastic balls you get with kiddies TT sets, which hardly bounce - you know the ones. I hate the way it sounds, like two Lego men having sex. And, above all, I hate the way it plays. It simply is not possible to place the same amount of spin on the ball, which means that you're compromised if you relied upon spin to score points on serve or to set-up your third ball attack or loop, chop, push, hook, etc.

Serves, which should have gone into the net or swayed off to the side, were all returned with the greatest of ease. And it wasn't just weak serving on my part, because returning was stupidly easy too; returning serves from good players with the best equipment. Then there's the bounce. I don't think that the ball bounces lower full-stop, although it may. I think it's more the case that the ball, being bigger heavier and less receptive to spin, curves less when you apply heavy top spin, so the angle at which it bounces from the table is more shallow and less steep. This was frustrating because it meant that what the ball did was different than you would expect based on watching what your opponent did.

The only players, I think, who will prefer this ball are the ones who like to spam out drives from mid range on both wings all day long. With less spin to worry about and less variation in bounce, there's nothing to stop them. Even Smashes now can be driven or flicked back with greater ease due to slower ball speed. Snails will probably like it too, their lack of reflexes no longer being the barrier it was.

So why the change? I heard that it was for environmental reasons. But making the ball heavier means using more plastic, which is bad for the environment, right? Also, longer rallies so more exiting for television? I don't think that watching two players die from exhaustion is going to make for great television. In the past, it was skill that won matches. Now it will probably be stamina. When I was playing at my club after one esspecialy boring rally, the wretched thing landed in the bin. "Clearly an act of God", I said. "Let's leave it IN there!"

I like this guy!

I wonder which plastic ball he used?