OOAK Table Tennis Forum

For what it's worth, it took me a full 8 weeks of playing three times a week before I felt comfortable with 40+ balls, and even now I don't like Chinese seamed balls. I use Tenergy, so I'm not able to say anything about how tack rubber would work with it.

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

So just keep using the Celluloid ball. Stock up on them if you are afraid they will disappear (they won't anyway). I don't get why people get worked up over what the ITTF does. It's only one league. They changed the balls they used in their tournaments, so what?. They don't allow frictionless LPs either but I still use them! The ITTF doesn't own TT. WE do!

This is very naive. Using the plastic ball at the top level (which the ITTF do run, unfortunately) means that it will trickle down the various levels. Sticking with cell in a specific league will result in the better players not wanting to play as the level above will likely be using plastic.

Sure, use cell on street corners in China, or in your basement, or anywhere. But you can't expect an organised league with links to national associations to use cell. That would be doing players who want to progress to higher levels a huge disservice.

But any good player should be able to, and be willing to play with celluloid, as well as with or against any type of rubber, in my opinion. And just because the ITTF is the current biggest league,doesn't mean the rest have to follow what they do.

Good players can use cell, this isn't really about skill level though. It's about structure and best use of training time. There is a chain in place leading down from the ITTF, through the national associations, down to local level.

My clubmates and I would much prefer to use cell, and have plenty of cell balls left. However, we all train with plastic because we have important league matches each week, and we HAVE to use plastic for those. Our league is affiliated with Table Tennis England, and they have a plastic mandate to advance, and we are only allowed to use plastic.

So why do TTE push plastic? Because the next levels up (British League, GP, National level) use plastic and it's a waste of time playing and adjusting to balls which aren't going to be used at those higher levels. And the higher levels are the most important, obviously. We have a few national players in our club and they will not use cell because it is a waste of their time, and can only do negative things to their game if they then play nationally, for ranking points, the next week. They want to use the type of ball they will be using during their high-level, crunch matches.

Of course, anyone is free to play with whatever they like. But players who are part of that chain of associations are unlikely to want to use cell because as the importance of their matches increase, so does the likelihood of having to using plastic. The only players who still use cell in my area are very low level players who don't care about advancement. Why train with and use a ball which you are 100% not going to be able to use during your crucial match play?

My point is that the ITTF does not own TT, and we (and other leagues) should stop following them like sheep. If playing in tournaments is so important to you, and they require using plastic balls, then train with plastic balls. But it is still my opinion that any player that is considered good should be able to play with any type of ball or rubber and adapt very quickly. I use plastic and cell both (I mix in some Butterfly 40+ among my various cell ball brands ), and I don't change rubbers for them. I just adapt and get good with it, and let my opponents do the adapting to whatever style of play comes out of my adaption!
Don't let the ITTF dictate your sport like this. If you like the cell ball, you like frictionless LP, whatever, use it and have fun. When it comes time to play a tournament you will be able to use plastic if you have even one once of skill.

Iron Lee said:


I agree that as a reasonably serious table tennis player I should be adaptable to such things as plastic balls, high & low friction tables, light conditions, humidity etc.

However when you talk about who owns TT, unfortunately it is the ITTF. The moment that you play in anything to do with organised table tennis, you are indirectly under the auspices of the ITTF. The ITTF sets the laws of table tennis for the basic tenets of the game. It then goes further and sets the regulations for international competitions of which the plastic ball is but one. The trickle down effect then guarantees that national competitions which involve players on the international stage will subscribe to these, essentially unchanged, with a few exceptions. Then regional and eventually club competitions follow suit.

There is scope for a nations, regions & clubs to override the ITTF regulations for international competitions. In a small way up until relatively recently the US allowed hard bats with rubbers not on the LARC to be used in open tournaments. I believe that ETTA also relaxed some rubber rule in some of their competitions.

Unfortunately, because there is some difference between cell ball and plastic ball (and between various plastic balls), players are driving the agenda almost from the bottom up with regard to the ball issue. Contracts between ball manufacturers and TT organizations have often meant that the plastic ball in use at events has been sub-optimal, and with different ball manufacturers contracting for different events has meant that a single best (?) poly ball has not been able to be settled on, and players need to practice with the ball for the next event they are playing in, and the information of which ball is to be used being pretty crucial at the higher levels. I won't go into which is the best ball as I have only seen one plastic ball and not even hit with one yet.

If all you want to do is have a hit with a few friends, then you can choose what rules you want to use or ignore. In addition, I believe that there is a club in the US that has unsanctioned tournaments where the entry form spells out the departures from ITTF & TT USA rules, I think in the realms of friction & aspect ratio of long pimples & allowing the inspection of bats prior to play.

With reference to the thread subject, I hope that "tacky" is not dead with the poly ball as i currently use GeoSpin Tacky

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

This isn't about skill, or lack of, it's about the advantage a player gains when fully adjusted to their environment., and the practicalities of a playing calendar.

I have a league match on Wednesday, followed by a Grand Prix event on Saturday/Sunday. I have literally no time in between those days to train or adjust between two different ball types. If I had to use cell in the league match, I would probably refuse to play because it does me no good for the Grand Prix, hence pressure exists on the league to move away from cell or people will simply refuse to play in favor of the more important event. This isn't idle speculation, this happens right now and is a big motivating factor for lower level organisations to force the switch through.

At lower levels, moving between balls is a hassle, and can make a big difference without having the time to adjust. At the higher levels, every tiny thing makes a difference and differences in timing, bounce, spin and durability add up to something. I can't imagine a serious amateur actually wanting to spend time with a different ball in the run-up to a big event. Why would they? If one player is fully adjusted to a ball type, and one is not due to celluloid commitments, then there is a disadvantage at work there, perhaps only a small one. It would be like a serious player using a totally different bat the week before. Fun, maybe yes. Sensible? I would actually say the higher the level of play the more important it is to standardise on ball type because small advantages can be the only thing separating two players, right up to professional level where it doesn't matter so much because of the vast amount of time they have to train when compared to amateurs who have jobs/families.

It's one thing to mess around and have fun - go for it! Have a blast! But being less prepared than your opponents in your next big event might not be so much fun.



It isn't dead, you'll be fine.

I agree completely... Tacky still offers exactly the same pros and cons with the plastic balls as it did with the celluloid balls.

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Below is a comment from a guy on his facebook page who is trying to break into the top 100 of the UK Seniors - he did a podcast with Ben Larcombe not so long ago.
He got into some muddy waters with it. I was told that he had to resort to an apology but I didn't see it in the comments.
I actually agreed with him.
I find it difficult to switch between the various balls. Place where I play have handed out Nittaku premiums to the team captains. Hopefully it will 'catch on' since it suits my play and I feel it gives me an advantage over playing seamless. For me celluloid is a thing of the past.

I also agree. Some of the hard Chinese sponges seem not very good, however.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Sorry about putting that line in my post actually relating to the thread subject.

I will certainly NOT be changing my rubbers because of the new ball. I didn't when 38mm ball went to 40mm (for various definitions of "40" )

I may almost be as anti-EJ as Carbonman.

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

I get what you're saying, but I still think any pro player would have no problem even DURING a match if you said, "here use this cell ball now". They've all used them for years.
Anyway for me I use both plastic and cell because I play street table tennis where there is players using both and also any types of rubbers. All types of "illegal"serves too, but it's all fair because everyone is doing it. Part of being good IMO is being able to adapt quickly. Anyway it doesn't matter, do what you want. I'm not against that!

I think they would, actually. I've watched a lot of matches online involving world-class players where the games hinge not on one player out-hitting or out-angling the other but on small errors (some of them forced but often not) - clipping the net, just missing the edge.. and the player who loses ends up doing this again and again. Small changes to equipment can precipitate this - the one I recall involved Filus and Ovtcharov, where Ovtcharov had, at a practice table before the match, broken his "optimized for play against defenders" bat. It threw him off, the match went all the way to the seventh game. Ovtcharov eventually got his strokes back by flipping his racket around (given he uses the same rubber on both sides you wonder how this made a difference, but it did, even if it was psychological). Changing the ball in the middle of a match would probably precipitate a fair number of net balls and long balls. It's not that the balls are good or bad, it's that they're just that little bit different.

Iskandar

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!"

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The ****ing ball was IN!!!