OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I ordered XSF balls from that seller on Aliexpress. They arrived relatively quickly and seem authentic as far as I can tell. I have no other XSF balls to compare them to, but they seem to match the playing characteristics detailed by many here. I bought 18 balls and paid $18 including shipping to the U.S. I have no complaints.

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Blade: Victas Koji Matsushita ST
FH: Xiom Vega Japan Max
BH: TSP P1-R 1.0mm
USATT Rating: 2013

I have no idea since I didn't see or play iwh them. I very much doubt it would be possible for there to already be fake seamless balls (in the sense of made at a different factory) given the technological demands of making them. At least not yet. My bigger fear is that they would be practice balls -- something like the Ipong balls -- with inappropriate XSF label claiming ITTF approval. But since others seem happy with what they got, it seems much more likely that this guy is legit and I just had some bad luck.

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

I and a clubmate of me played a doubles tournament today. We played with the Joola plastic ball. I had the chance to see the box. They were from August this year. They played a bit better (more consistent), but again: no coming through, low bounce and low grip/hard feeling. My doubles partner (double inverted, hitting lobbing style) had a lot of problems with the former: when defending the ball just lowered half a meter before him. He missed a lot.

I remember a situation in our last game in which I served heavy underspin, the other pushed, my mate pushed quite heavy and the other flipped the ball like there was no spin on the ball. These players were lower in level than us by quite a bit.

Serving heavy backspin is IMO almost impossible. If you serve, only sidespin is capable to cause havoc.

My doubles partner is playing two leagues: in one they play with celluloid; in the other with plastic. In the one playing with plastic he almost can't win a game. In the one playing celluloid he almost can't lose a game. The latter league is a tad lower in level, but only a tad. The level difference can't explain the difference in results.

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There's always stuff to improve!

I've decided not to participate in any ranking tournaments until the choice of plastic ball settles down. No intention of upsetting my game since the old ball is still being used in the local league. If I end up losing matches with the inferior plastic balls currently on offer I'd rather not play since it could hurt my confidence. Still have no confirmation on the choice of poly ball being used in mid jan but rumour has it that it will be the tibhar 40+ ball since that's all that's supposedly readily. Can't understand why they don't order direct of xushaofa if a bulk order needs to be placed. Have decided that the only 2 I'll play with will be the 2 mentioned in the topic of this thread. Poly ball needs to play as close as 'humanly' possible to the celluloid ball.

Celluloid is only good for the younger boys. Too speedy, too spinny, difficult to handle.
I am far over 50, I need a tempered ball with a good control.

The slow, less spinny controlable plastic DHS and Double Fish is my preference; it is the best for my blocking play.
I have now resolvedly abandoned the cells and will never back to those insane horrible balls.

I am surprised the seamless don't suit you even more. Blockers I know here love them.

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

The only plastic that people can get from our local shopkeeper is DHS and DF, so the DHS40+ is the best agreeable compromise to me. It is near an impossible task to talk people into playing with a product they do not feel familiar to.

If anyone is looking to order the Nittaku premium (made in japan) poly ball from contra.de - don't !
They had planned on splitting an order but just updated me stating they don't know when they will have them in (supposed to be the new year) and replaced them with the Joola poly ball - I would have preferred the credit !

Ask them to just split the order and let them know you want to wait for the Nittaku's. They have a good customer service. I doubt they'll refuse to do that.

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There's always stuff to improve!

I spoke with them on the phone and asked them to split the order. When they issued the tracking no. they had taken the liberty of replacing the Nittaku poly balls for the Joola. I did say that I was going get more nittaku balls so maybe it got lost in translation since they're german speaking. Hopefully Santa will arrive tomorrow morning with the Stiga Instinct shoes

That's not good customer service. If they had offered it in advance, then ok, but now... You might want to think about returning the order.

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There's always stuff to improve!

Agreed, they should have asked. There is a huge difference in those balls.

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

does anybody know what the chinese national are using for training? I knew that we would have problems with the new polyballs. wondering what is out there to load in my machine?

Doc, Newgy has said that the new 40+ balls should not get stuck in their robots if that is what you are asking. I have no idea about other brands, though, and I don't personally know anyone who has tried it. I think CNT train with whatever ball will be used in their next tournament, which in about every case is DHS 40+ (unfortunately). If you are really concerned, you might want to stock up on celluloids.

A year ago I would have never suspected for a second that the seamless balls would end up better than most of the balls with seams, and yet that is where we are. I wasn't altogether optimistic but I also never thought the seamed plastic balls that are dominating the market at the moment would be THIS bad.

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

I've got some more news about the XSF ball. I spoke to my team captain today and he suggested to use the XSF ball during our league nights. He didn't have to ask me twice. So while all other teams will be using the Tibhar ball we'll be using the XSF one. This is unless the other team members wouldn't agree with this, but I highly doubt that.

I "accidently" stepped on a Tibhar ball after losing a friendly game. Quite the frustrating experience again with that ball. After that I've played against my team captain with the XSF ball and it was like: "Finally a ball that bounces." It feels very pleasant as a defender to use this ball. You can get farther away from the table, have more time and still be able to create enough spin to trouble the looper. The looper, however, can still put enough spin on the ball to create havoc. It equals the playfield between attack and defense.

I hope XSF and DHS get their disagreements behind them and start producing the XSF ball. It will be an enrichment to the sport.

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There's always stuff to improve!