Nittaku Premium 40+ balls (Japan)

Being on the Westchester email list, I can confirm that they used the Poly ball for the open event in September.

That was for September.  As stated in that email, they will be using it for more and more events over the next few months.  Unless they changed their minds, I have to assume that at minimum the Open event in October will again use the plastic ball and quite possibly other events as well.  

Westchester has switched completely over to the plastic ball.  They sent out an email regarding the October tournament and this was included:

NextLevel wrote: Where is it on their website?

I think Baal is doing a great job in terms of keeping us informed about the new balls as well as reviewing the best ones so we don't waste money on buying crap.

I don't know why that dude is on your case, Baal.

Thanks for the reviews. Keep them coming.

Out here in NJ, friendly local leagues have moved to plastic. At LYTTC, it is the 1st div league. At NJTTC, it is their entire Sat & Mon leagues.

Edited by slevin - 10/22/2014 at 10:40am

Mastermind wrote: By the way, it is an interesting question, why the organizers would provide false information about the balls used in their entry form. At the first glance this is totally against common sense.

The entire purpose is to give you something to troll about.  This is quite obviously also the reason why Nittaku 40+ Premium balls are currently not being sold. (It's not because they are bad balls, although you tried to claim they were).

NL, Unfortunately the computer in question  has entered an infinite loop from which it can never escape.

LOOPMEISTER wrote: Clubs who have anyone going to Nationals this year should definitely find any type of plastic ball to practice with. And the fact that Nationals is using a plastic ball is a good sign that other major tournaments in the US are going to be using them very soon. At the same time I think its really stupid for Nationals to use the plastic ball since its obviously difficult to find a consistent quality ball to practice with on a daily basis, before Decemeber. A catch-22? Clubs and tournaments at any level shouldn't be switching to the new ball until manufacturers can mass produce a good, consistent product, which is probably still a year or two away. But the only way to pressure manufacturers to do so, is with bad press and scandalous situations, by prematurely using them in major tournaments, etc.

The other thing is that I am not personally convinced that they will actually be using the plastic ball they originally announced (the Nittaku Premium 40+ Japan) which is currently on back order (for reasons unknown and which would pointless to speculate about).  Maybe USATT already has a big supply stored up for Nationals but that would surprise (although a happy one because they have the nicest playing properties).  I think there is at least some possibility that they will use the Nittaku SHA instead, which is quite different--in my experience the same as DHS (since it is made by them). 

So how to deal with it?  There is not obviously correct answer.  My recommendation is train some with XSF balls (high bounce like Nittaku Premium, but a touch slightly slower and floats a bit more sometimes) and some with Nittaku SHA (lower bounce than the premiums) so you can be familiar enough to adjust a bit not matter what you end up using.  But if you are going to play at the North American Teams, which is coming earlier, then train some with the Joola 40+.  It is very bad that we have to take this kind of thing into consideration and that different balls are sufficiently different that you have to take account of it in your training.  I am also dissapointed that Nittaku in Japan is having some issues with production.  But you do have to account for it, and the situation is pretty messed up at the moment.

Baal and Others with experience with the Nittaku Premium and other poly balls.

Are all the chinese seamless balls made by xushoafa?  For example, are my sample galaxy balls xsf?

cole_ely wrote: Are all the chinese seamless balls made by xushoafa?  For example, are my sample galaxy balls xsf?

Yes, but they may not be the same grade as the XSF ITTF-approved balls. (Unless they are ITTF approved themselves).  XSF also makes some seamless training balls that remind me of what they were making a year ago -- sound broken, really soft, really pretty bad balls all in all (for example the IPong training balls). 

Well, the galaxy samples are ittf approved, but I can't find anybody who doesn't hate them.

Baal wrote: NextLevel wrote: The most similar is XSF. The hardest to adjust to is Joola/DHS. Use plastic for sure to practice. The Nittaku ball feels lighter than DHS so I can't simply recommend DHS for practice. So use XSF. I agree.  If your next big tournament is Nationals, train with XSF until you can get your hands on Nittaku Premium.  If your next tournament is NA Teams, train with Joola 40+ (or Nittaku SHA, not that different)

Well, not as things stand now, although I have to say that the more I play with XSF the easier it becomes to play with the seamed balls (compared to when I first switched over from celluloid).  I think that is because once I am used to the effects of playing with a larger ball (true for all of the plastic ones) then it is easier to account for the low bounce (characteristic of Chinese seamed balls and not the others).  As things stand now, the various types of seamed balls are not the same and the variability in the way they play is much greater than we ever had between different brands of cellluloid.  This has to improve, it just has to.  This is most apparent in bounce height, and secondarily in hardness.

In any case, whichever plastic ball you use, count on a couple of months before you kind of instinctively know what is going on in matches.