OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Your guess might be partly right in general, but as you can see from the last Pipsy's post, he just "assumes" and "hopes" now, in contrast to his categorical statement made in the first post. Unfortunately, he has just made another categorical statement "Even if it isn't, in a while there will no more supply of celluloid balls". Anyway, what we can conclude is that there is no such a rule change in Belgium.

As for having 2 different types of balls in the same league, if we look at the situation in Germany we find easily that the plastic ball is very rare in leagues, except for the 3 highest ones, where many players also play internationally. About 99,9% (my estimation) use celluloid balls. This should be the reason indeed to BAN PLASTIC in those leagues, where there are no internationally playing people, which means almost everywhere. There is no need to sacrifice the interests of the vast majority of players.

But what do you do with the upcoming youngsters? They train with celluloid adn whole of a sudden (after a certain level) they need to play with plastic.

What to do with our highest graded tournaments? They'll install the plastic ball as well. What to do then for all amateurs who are used to celluloid participating in those tournaments?

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My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

I suggest banning plastic balls by national associations, maybe except for the highest leagues and the national championships.

This would reduce the harm to the TT community caused by the certain ITTF decisions we are very well familiar with. This is the crucial point. Either we get total harm or less harm or very little harm, until the ITTF reverse their policy, which is preferable of course.

People who become relevant at some point to the high international level will have to adjust, this is clear, but keep in mind that those are most talented players, so I do not see any significant difficulties.

What's your problem, man?

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That's not going to happen except maybe in the minds of the delusional. The fact is, plastic balls have been legal for a very long time. ITTF shills also claim that celluloid balls will remain legal too and supposedly will continue to be made, which should surprise no-one given the fiction of a world-wide ban on celluloid production. I personally think it would be ridiculous to have a different standard for national/international events and local leagues, but at the same time, I would very much prefer that local leagues not adopt crappy balls no matter what they are made of. Now with a lot of experience with a large number of different types, I can say with complete certainty that not all plastic calls are crappy, unfortunately the crappy ones comprise nearly all of the ones that are being used in competition, and that includes Joola, Donic, Nittaku SHA, and Tibhar -- all of the ones specifically mentioned on this thread. That fact upsets me when there are alternatives. More generally all of the plastic balls with seams currently made in China are crappy without exception. I can go along with Smartguy at least part of the way, in that I would much rather see your leagues stick with celluloid than provide any encouragement to the continued of those particular substandard balls. On the other hand, I would like to see the seamless ball makers rewarded for actually creating a good product*, and taking the risks and making the investment to do it. Nittaku Japan Premium 40+ has a lot of good properties too, but they are a bit too expensive at the moment. So I really think you might want to consider those.

* they are good because they have a high consistent bounce, they are not expensive, they tend to be very round, bright white and quite visible, and highly durable (so much so that they are an economically better choice than most celluloid balls). They share the property of all 40+ balls in being a little slower and a little less spinny but it is very easy to adjust to.

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

I am familiar with your opinion, but still there is a significant number of forum reports describing all plastic balls as crappy, more or less. I am familiar, of course, with the postings praising at least some of plastic balls, most of them coming from you.

The crucial point is that where players are really free to choose, the overwhelming majority choose celluloid balls, Germany is a good example, but also Belgium, as we can see from the postings above. However, some tournament organizers, private or not, can be financially motivated to choose plastic balls against the interests of the majority. This is why plastic should be banned by national associations like USATT in the first place to protect the players' interests, where the leagues are rare and competitions take place mostly at tournaments.

Mine is certainly not an isolated opinion, not at this point. It is becoming quite widespread in thread after thread. Your statements about who has and have not adopted plastic balls have been proven incorrect before, certain when you talked about the US, but I will accept what you say about Germany and Belgium. Going forward, we will see what happens there. The unfortunate thing is that as far as I can tell, every European manufacturer has adopted the worst possible plastic balls, so I think celluloid would definitely the right choice if those are the only manufacturers that can be used. Seamless balls and Nittaku Premium are simply not as well known in Europe. As for tournaments that are financially motivated to use a particular ball, the USATT is at the top of the list! They have a deal with Nittaku. It is called "sponsorship", it is part of the reason we are able to have tournaments.

I would have preferred to stay with celluloid mind you. But national organizations are not going to ban plastic balls. It's just not going to happen. My position is that if it is going to be plastic balls, then it should be the good ones, not the bad ones.

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

Really? At least in Germany, according to a forum report which has remained unchallenged, there has been an extensive marketing campaign to sell seamless balls, you are familiar with it from our previous discussions.

You are also familiar with the fact that Nittaku Premium Plastic was the official ball at the recent European Championship. It has not helped though, apparently.

The simple fact of life is that where people can choose freely, like I said, they choose celluloid balls, despite immense efforts of some people to persuade them to do otherwise. The national associations should act accordingly to protect their members' interests.

Well, I was perfectly happy with celluloid, so if that happens, great.

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

I would love to hear an convincing argument that would encourage them to take action. Even then, most of the smaller association will not speak up against the ITTF, so the chances of making a different would be very slim. The German or Chinese associations might be the only ones that can influence the ITTF via other means, so they will need to take the lead...

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Adjusting isn't that big of a deal. I'm heading to the U.S. Nationals next week with only two days of practice with the plastic ball they will be using. I might get a third day in tomorrow and hopefully a lot of practice time on Monday the day before the tournament. I'm not particularly worried about the ball differences.

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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
Hardbat: Nittaku Resist & Dr. Evil

Given the time and effort put in by the ITTF to ramrod the plastic ball through and given the likelihood that manufacturers have sunk a lot of cost into developing plastic balls, it is very unlikely that the ITTF will reverse their course.

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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
Hardbat: Nittaku Resist & Dr. Evil

Not sure what you are reading, but there is widespread agreement that XSF and NP40+ balls are good quality, doing well in both performance and durability.

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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
Hardbat: Nittaku Resist & Dr. Evil

The Nittaku Premium 40+ has had very limited availability in the U.S. - even with our upcoming National tournament. I assume Europe is having similar supply problems. Direct orders from Japanese websites show no shipping untill late December or next year. Supply seems to be the biggest problem. After that, it will be price unless it comes down closer to $2 per ball.

The first seamless balls were poor and DHS parted ways in their partnership to make them. That has slowed down the speed at which the seamless ball is being sought after. Right now the best marketing for it has probably been word of mouth as players discover how poor the seamed Chinese balls are and how good the second generation seamless balls are.

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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
Hardbat: Nittaku Resist & Dr. Evil

Can't seem to find the ball thread that mentioned that they went through several balls in one session. This is very rough but I just worked out that we have gone through a box of 100 balls at our club in 6 months. This is approximately 20 weeks of 85 matches per night. In addition we hosted a shield of 264 matches plus 20 practice nights. So thats about 2000 matches plus practice nights which equates to about 20 matches per ball. This also allows for ones being hit up into the lights that don't come down and people 'accidently' taking the odd one home.

Once again, I can't remember the quoted figures but I recall it was much lower than this.

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