Poly balls

[Tony's Table Tennis]

They should make a cut like on 1st July everybody have to play the new plastic balls! There would be no discussions... I am not from this generation when we got the 40mm balls but was there also that kind of discussion?


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That won't work
Certain events are able to change in time, certain aren't
IE, CSL will be half way through the league, and changing the ball half way isn't a good idea.
Also as explained by ITTF and many national federation, changing balls may be a costly thing, so it is the individual tournaments, leagues etc that decide when to move over. So they can choose to use any ITTF approved balls.

For example, Germany premier and 1st league will change over, the lower leagues directors can decide which to use.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

No I don't thinks so! As I remember it we just had a date when the new balls were to be used from.

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Yes, certain ITTF world events will be using the new ball after 1 July
The rest of the tournaments is decided by national federations.

So in other words Table Tennis England will inform you what are the allowed balls to use at your local tournaments (new and old are legal)

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

And you are sure you used the poly ball that has been ITTF approved? From this list? http://ittf.com/_front_page/ittf1.asp?category=balls

Yep. I think it was DHS or else it was Double Fish. I do think it was DHS though though I actually can't remember. One of the pros at Spin brought some back from China.

 

[dici]

I have been wondering, had they ever try to do stress analysis on seamless poly ball or not. I kind of believing this still contribute the main reason of all these bad ball

 

[Alborz]

Yep. I think it was DHS or else it was Double Fish. I do think it was DHS though though I actually can't remember. One of the pros at Spin brought some back from China.

In the last reviews of DHS balls that i read they said it's so much like current balls and as far as i know DHS is the best in making new poly balls so far. If i remember correctly DHS balls will be used in ITTF events after 1st of July.

So i think the ball you tested was most likely a Double Fish one. Not sure, only guessing.

It will be good if someone make a review of new DHS balls.

 

[Alborz]

I have been wondering, had they ever try to do stress analysis on seamless poly ball or not. I kind of believing this still contribute the main reason of all these bad ball

DHS poly balls have seams. I think that is one of the reasons that they are more like current balls than other brands. But don't know the other brands have seam or not.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

DHS poly balls have seams. I think that is one of the reasons that they are more like current balls than other brands. But don't know the other brands have seam or not.

I don't really care what you guys say or think, the pro who brought the balls back from China did it for a reason. I hit with it. It really is different enough that it was not good. I will be able to adjust. I am not worried about that. It will dumb down the sport. I can go and find out which brand of plastic ball it was. At the time I looked, but all the writing was in Chinese and I did not really care that much.

It did not play like the old ball. I had heard people saying it played close enough to the old ball. I did not think there would be as much of a difference. There was more than I thought there would be and it was not good. Easy, but not good.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Alborz,

Have you seen and played with poly ball before?
You very active on all poly ball discussions, think there is couple of threads already.
you seem like an experience poly ball person already, so just wanted to know if you have seen and played with it

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I don't really care what you guys say or think, the pro who brought the balls back from China did it for a reason. I hit with it. It really is different enough that it was not good. I will be able to adjust. I am not worried about that. It will dumb down the sport. I can go and find out which brand of plastic ball it was. At the time I looked, but all the writing was in Chinese and I did not really care that much.

It did not play like the old ball. I had heard people saying it played close enough to the old ball. I did not think there would be as much of a difference. There was more than I thought there would be and it was not good. Easy, but not good.

I agree that it does not play close enough to the old ball.
Reduced speed and reduced spin.
Just by increase the diameter from 39.50 to 40.20, while keeping the same weight, can cause the reduction, yet along material differences.
But this change is no different to 38mm to 40mm change, time is the only thing for this type of transition. Soon we will forget about 40mm and only know 40+

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Carl, they advertise it will have higher bounce too lol

 

[Alborz]

Alborz,

Have you seen and played with poly ball before?
You very active on all poly ball discussions, think there is couple of threads already.
you seem like an experience poly ball person already, so just wanted to know if you have seen and played with it

Yes, but just for some minutes some month ago. But because here in Iran everything is available after 6 month it is available in other countries that balls was for nearly one year ago.
Can't remember the brand but it wasn't DHS. It was horrible. It felt dead and there were almost no spin.
But the guy i get the ball form said it is just a prototype and official ones will be much better.

After that i didn't play with any poly ball and i just read the reviews around.

 

[SpinQuark]

Can someone explain why the new poly balls are a different size ?
Changing materials is one thing, but why introduce a size change as well. I am sure if they can make a 40.2 poly ball, they can make a 39.5 poly ball.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Can someone explain why the new poly balls are a different size ?
Changing materials is one thing, but why introduce a size change as well. I am sure if they can make a 40.2 poly ball, they can make a 39.5 poly ball.

40mm rule states the ball need to be between 39.50 and 40.50

So the new ball is still 40mm as it is inside this rule

Old balls were mostly 39.50 - 39.70, they just pushing the new ball to the max limit at 40.2 to 40.5

 

[SpinQuark]

Thanks for responding.
So if the balls can be made with a manufacturing tolerance of say +/- 0.2mm:

Why are (all?) manufacturers choosing to make poly balls with a larger mean diameter than they make the existing balls ?

also

Why does the rule specify such a wide tolerance which is 2.5 times the manufacturing process tolerance ?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Thanks for responding.
So if the balls can be made with a manufacturing tolerance of say +/- 0.2mm:

Why are (all?) manufacturers choosing to make poly balls with a larger mean diameter than they make the existing balls ?

also

Why does the rule specify such a wide tolerance which is 2.5 times the manufacturing process tolerance ?

I don't know
This is a decision from ITTF AGM, it was decided like that

 

[AndySmith]

The ITTF specified that the Poly ball MUST be a minimum of 40mm. I think this was in one of the Technical Bulletins they put out. So it has in practical terms resulted in a change of size, even though it didn't need a definite rule change (as Tony mentioned - it still falls within the original tolerances). Some say it's a sneaky way of increasing the ball size without needing a vote. It could be a response to the manufacturers using the minimum amount of material for the original 40mm ball, resulting in us never having a "true" 40mm ball - it was always under 40mm.

As for your second question about the wide tolerance for the original 40mm ball rule - I don't know. Perhaps the manufacturing process has improved since the early days?

 

[SpinQuark]

Crikey. Thanks for explaining it.

Someone did give me a very short knock with a poly ball they had - no idea of manufacturer or whether it was final production standard. But my timing seemed to go all to pot as it did seem to have some different characteristics. Felt kind of like playing someone with a funny rubber (anti-spin etc) when the ball doesn't move quite as expected.

I'm really hoping the new ball doesn't change the sport, because it seems just perfect to me with the existing ball.

I guess if it is quite different there may be a push back from players.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Thanks Andy Smith

Spinquark,
As with all changes in life, people will first moan about it, but after a while it will be accepted and become a norm.
Not first time we had changes

In a way, I agree with the material change, cellu is a flamable and old technology. All other sports had material changes through out history and TT is still using cellu dating back, I don't know how long.
Regarding the less spin, less speed, I'm sure half of it got to do with the extra dimenion/size, and the other half is the material.
The sound is something we need to get used to

Regarding how durable the balls are, we will need to wait and see (so far i'm not happy about it)

The reality is, new rubbers, blades etc will be there to make up for the lost of speed and spin. This is maybe where companies will capitalised and make extra money out of the sport, which will happen no matter if there was a change or not.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Thanks Andy Smith

Spinquark,
As with all changes in life, people will first moan about it, but after a while it will be accepted and become a norm.
Not first time we had changes

In a way, I agree with the material change, cellu is a flamable and old technology. All other sports had material changes through out history and TT is still using cellu dating back, I don't know how long.
Regarding the less spin, less speed, I'm sure half of it got to do with the extra dimenion/size, and the other half is the material.
The sound is something we need to get used to

Regarding how durable the balls are, we will need to wait and see (so far i'm not happy about it)

The reality is, new rubbers, blades etc will be there to make up for the lost of speed and spin. This is maybe where companies will capitalised and make extra money out of the sport, which will happen no matter if there was a change or not.

To me, the most worrisome thing was that, with the high bounce and the fact that, even on the heaviest topspins that the guy who was hitting to me, could get onto the ball when he was looping, the ball seemed to slow down on the bounce and instead of accelerating, leaving it sitting up there to be crushed, making it much easier to be tracked and giving you a little extra time to adjust to where the ball was going. The ball, in short, nullified some of the advantages that come with higher levels of play and technique.

I am also realizing, in thinking about this, rubbers may change to spin the ball more, but they may actually have to change the table surface too. Right now, the amount of grab on a new table helps create some of that kick on the celluloid ball. Well if the poly ball is slicker and harder to spin, it would make sense that it would kick that much less off the table as a result. So part of what made me dislike the way the new ball performed was the effect of a smoother, more slippery substance not being as affected by its contact to the table. So that, even when a shot had had a decent amount of topspin, IT WAS NOT KICKING. The reverse is probably also true: even if you have a lot of underspin, it will probably not slow down as much as it would have with the old balls.

Those sidespin serves that start on one side of the table curve off the other side may disappear; those heavy underspin serves that come back to the net, may be a thing of the past.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that, what was most disconcerting was not how the ball was affected by my racket and rubbers. That felt okay. It was how the ball reacted to the table. That was much less okay in my opinion. Again, I won't have much trouble adjusting to it. It just makes everything much easier. But, that is what I don't like.

This is different than going from 38mm to "40"mm. There was less spin on the ball when going to 40mm. I still like the 38mm ball better. But there was a difference in how this poly ball interacts with the table that is really substantially different.

And in thinking about this I just remembered something: I HAVE HIT WITH 44MM BALLS. They were funny, but, THAT DID NOT BUG ME AS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

To me, the most worrisome thing was that, with the high bounce and the fact that, even on the heaviest topspins that the guy who was hitting to me, could get onto the ball when he was looping, the ball seemed to slow down on the bounce and instead of accelerating, leaving it sitting up there to be crushed, making it much easier to be tracked and giving you a little extra time to adjust to where the ball was going. The ball, in short, nullified some of the advantages that come with higher levels of play and technique.

I am also realizing, in thinking about this, rubbers may change to spin the ball more, but they may actually have to change the table surface too. Right now, the amount of grab on a new table helps create some of that kick on the celluloid ball. Well if the poly ball is slicker and harder to spin, it would make sense that it would kick that much less off the table as a result. So part of what made me dislike the way the new ball performed was the effect of a smoother, more slippery substance not being as affected by its contact to the table. So that, even when a shot had had a decent amount of topspin, IT WAS NOT KICKING. The reverse is probably also true: even if you have a lot of underspin, it will probably not slow down as much as it would have with the old balls.

Those sidespin serves that start on one side of the table curve off the other side may disappear; those heavy underspin serves that come back to the net, may be a thing of the past.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that, what was most disconcerting was not how the ball was affected by my racket and rubbers. That felt okay. It was how the ball reacted to the table. That was much less okay in my opinion. Again, I won't have much trouble adjusting to it. It just makes everything much easier. But, that is what I don't like.

This is different than going from 38mm to "40"mm. There was less spin on the ball when going to 40mm. I still like the 38mm ball better. But there was a difference in how this poly ball interacts with the table that is really substantially different.

And in thinking about this I just remembered something: I HAVE HIT WITH 44MM BALLS. They were funny, but, THAT DID NOT BUG ME AS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can relate to you and your experience.
That was basically first impression over a year ago.

I agree, table service is a problem - I never thought of that in the past though