Plastic balls delayed?

Hi, on the Italian forum they say that the European Youth Championships in September 2014 will be played with the old celluloid balls.

Also, a friend of mine told me that an international umpire told him personally that the new balls are delayed until july 2015. Is this true?

I've got the xushaofa from ttnpp. It is harder but it spins; the rubber grips.  I need to test it better today (so far only with return board).

seguso wrote: I've got the xushaofa from ttnpp. It is harder but it spins; the rubber grips.  I need to test it better today (so far only with return board).

Edited by GMan4911 - 03/10/2014 at 10:10am

Looks like Palio now has an approved ball so now there are four:

I just posted the official ITTF letter that spells all that out.

seguso wrote: the xushaofa from ttnpp is not the approved one, (red letters, no ittf mark, see on ttnpp) but you can guess it is equivalent to the final product. it plays like plastic, spins less, bounces higher, is harder.

You could guess but that is all it would be.  One could also guess that the reason the xushaofa ball sold earlier is not ITTF approved is because it is not good.  Lot of speculation everywhere, and rumors, but that is all it is. 

Edit.  Cole has started a thread with some information that is more concrete.

I played with one Xushaofa ball and I hated it.. lacked spin... my game will really hurt from this change but will be nice to see the anger on peoples faces against my LP's when they can't end a point like the used to

tested yesterday. videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8XsczfRT2M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED9RqRSJEkw

I like the new ball, but it's another sport (better IMHO).

1) I guess third ball is dead. If you cannot read the spin in the receive, you can just drive or soft push, and if you can keep not too long and not too high, the third ball is not deadly. You will block it or counterloop it easily.

2) even though backspin spin is less, you can't counterattack against backspin. power loops to kill against backspin are very difficult. You have to hit softer, othherwise you miss, because the ball does not dip. as a result, defenders with long pips are very difficult to defeat now.

3) you flip every receive, but the flip is softer and will be relooped. and the loop in turn is softer and will be re-relooped.

4) the ball is slower, but at the same time you feel it's for the better, because if you were to play as fast as before you would miss (no arc). rallies are slower.

5) as I said, loops have little arc. Brush loop on dead balls that barely go out is very difficult.

more to come...


Edited by seguso - 03/11/2014 at 3:11am

I doubt it, I think the lack of grip and spin is not due to the material but to the hardness.

Evidence: Tibhar JPS+ (hard celluloid) was similar or identical in spin, only faster.

All we can do is slightly decrease the rubber hardness, but I doubt we can recover all the lost spin.

LUCKYLOOP wrote: Your set up is non tacky topsheet rubbers so the loopers of the future will probably use super tacky topsheet rubbers maybe even with softer sponge to get the most dwell time.

Look, what you say is plausible, but the problem here is hardness, not lack of grip. if you switch to a DHS H3 to compensate, it will feel like playing with a 1.0 mm H3 today. For this reason, I think the proper way to compensate is to switch to a softer rubber, not to a tacky hard one.

When you play, you feel like the ball does not stay on the paddle enough to grip it. It's the kind of lack of grip that is due to hardness, not the kind that is due to lack-of-tack, if you know what I mean. Imagine playing with a 0.5 mm euro rubber to know how it feels.

Imago wrote: First video - how did this happen to the ball? I hate to change $3 balls every 10 minutes.

The ball broke after only 10 minutes of play. because I hit the edge of the blade...

Then I picked two more balls which did not break so far (I played 2 more hours. I hit the edge at least once.)

I hope the reason why the first ball broke is that everyone there kept pressing it with their fingers to test the hardness. But this is wishful thinking :(

apart from fragility, I have to say the ball is very high quality. very good feel. very hard implies very accurate placements. As I said, it plays very similar to tibhar JPS+ but slower. (which I 've heard is like Nittaku premium)

Mastermind wrote: seguso wrote: 2) even though backspin spin is less, you can't counterattack against backspin. power loops to kill against backspin are very difficult. As Roundrobin and some others pointed out, less spin leads to more successful smashing. Players will adjust soon and the first impression of longer rallies because of less spin will be gone. It is spin that drives players away from the table now leading to longer rallies. If spin is not so effective any longer, the players will stop looping and start flat hitting closer to the table, which will lead to a faster game and shorter rallies.

Wait a second. Power loop against backspin is more difficult than it was before, but is still easier than smashing. I don't see why someone would smash instead of powerlooping. He would have less margin.

roundrobin wrote: seguso wrote: Wait a second. Power loop against backspin is more difficult than it was before, but is still easier than smashing. I don't see why someone would smash instead of powerlooping. He would have less margin. Hardly the case when we tested the Palio seamless ball, which by your account should be even more difficult than the one you tested to power loop against backspin.  It is a piece of cake to smash/drive/loop the ball with full force once you are used to the bounce.        Our Chinese provincial players absolutely loved it for ease of attacking.

Don't they use a rubber with a super sticky topsheet ?



...........


Edited by LUCKYLOOP - 03/11/2014 at 6:25pm

roundrobin wrote: seguso wrote: Wait a second. Power loop against backspin is more difficult than it was before, but is still easier than smashing. I don't see why someone would smash instead of powerlooping. He would have less margin. Hardly the case when we tested the Palio seamless ball, which by your account should be even more difficult than the one you tested to power loop against backspin.  It is a piece of cake to smash/drive/loop the ball with full force once you are used to the bounce.  Our Chinese provincial players absolutely loved it for ease of attacking.

Are you saying that Zhang Jike will start smashing instead of looping?

Received my Palio balls yesterday.