Plastic balls debacle (to all TDs out there)

Rallies are longer bit slower.   The older players at sub 2200 levels I have seen love these balls if they are defensive players.

roundrobin wrote: The solution is actually very simple:  All it takes is for DHS to re-brand some XSF balls and call them the "DHS 40+ *** Olympic Gold" balls and Butterfly to do the same.

Yep.  And if people are concerned about saving face, they just have to make up some lies to tell and all will be well.

The nearly universal observation here is that the NP 40+ balls play shorter.  They are easier to block , easier to play a drop shot with, and harder to hit by an opponent.

Top ranked players of Moscow in action.
The whole event played with DHS 40+ plastic.
this boy is red is using DiTeck pimples on BH, and he well satisfied with the plastic. Such is reality here in Russia.

I just finished playing the NA Teams. It is the last event I will ever play with the Joola/DHS ball on its current incarnation. I will now play and practice exclusively with the Premium and XSF with minor allowances for DFish since two nearby tournaments use it. But no more DHS clones until further notice.

Edited by NextLevel - 12/01/2014 at 8:55am

NextLevel wrote: I just finished playing the NA Teams. It is the last event I will ever play with the Joola/DHS ball on its current incarnation. I will now play and practice exclusively with the Premium and XSF with minor allowances for DFish since two nearby tournaments use it. But no more DHS clones until further notice. I spoke to Will Shortz about it and he said it is the ball that the ITF tournaments use.  And that obviously makes it hard to replace with any other ball at his event.  So the change has to come from DHS.

I hope we get a lot of discussion about how the joola ball played at teams from many sources. Maybe in a new thread.

heavyspin wrote: I adapted to the conditions of the ball and had a successful NA teams. <span style="line-height: 16.7999992370605px;">I'm surprised you had difficulty this past weekend because </span>I felt that when you beat me in Westchester, you adapted well to the new ball and I foolishly played the same game I had developed from over 25 years of tournament competition.  One thing I discovered was that my backhand spin-the-ball-off-the-bounce technique, one of my core tactics, doesn't work with the Joola ball. That's why I used electroshock therapy for two weeks prior to the teams. Every time I attempted an unsuccessful bh closed racket angle topspin in a practice match, I zapped myself with a few thousand volts. I was able to refrain from making these errors as well as others.  Even with my successful adjustments, I still don't enjoy playing with the Joola ball.

Maybe my decision to move away from a slow paddle and to use offensive equipment was wrong... But seriously, I played well during the tournament. Videotape and perspective let's me see that. My last match helped me see that I haven't tapped the potential of my game yet and that I am not working as hard as I thought I was. Losing means I was outplayed, not that I played badly. But the faster equipment hurt my off the bounce game significantly.

The way I played at Westchester with the slower defensive blade is not what I want to do long term. But if I am forced to use the Joola ball again, I might go that route. I wanted to use the same equipment for Teams and Nationals and I knew I would be using faster equipment for Nationals.

The other big lesson I learned from this tournament was that I need faster wrists. That will hopefully be the biggest difference people see when they next play me.


Edited by NextLevel - 12/01/2014 at 12:37pm

NextLevel wrote: The Joola ball is playable. It just doesn't play as well as the XSF or the Nittaku Premium. And it bounces lower than both and makes the game more challenging in several respects. No one who played the teams and who was serious enough to practice with the balls is going to complain about them now. We all made our adjustments, played our matches and can move on (or continue with the ball if we so please). People who didn't will complain but will get no sympathy unless they were living under a rock for the last three months. But I am now going to play a tournament that uses a better ball. I will practice with similar balls. And I will refuse to use the DHS ball and clones until I get word that things have improved. If all you know is the Joola ball, you will mostly complain about durability but ultimately accept the ball. It's when you have used other balls that you start to see how much better the world could be...

Thank you.

I have only played with XSF balls (and the yinhe which is the same) and the Nitt. Premium 40+(NP40+ for short). I enjoy each ball but even those two play very differently. This past week at our club I warmed up and played a match with the XSF balls. Then I went to play another player who is going to US nationals and thus wants to use the NP40+. I did not take a significant warm up and we started our match. My first two serves promptly dumped into the net. I have to consciously think to contact my short serves a lot more solidly or harder to get a short serve over the net. Even long serves are difficult, i do not seem to get the depth I want. I used to make fun of players who insisted on the celluloid nittaku premium over double fish or other options, but the differences in the non-celluloid balls is much more dramatic.

I agree with you but wouldn't say *very* differently. The Nittaku ball feels or is heavier. However I rallies I feel they are similar in rallies.    

I was responding to vanjr, Baal. You never wrote "very differently". And I did remember you said the Nittaku was lighter, but felt more solid. I just press the balls to test them these days. So when DHS catches up, the press test will make it apparent. But of course, not on my dime.

My general impression from playing with Joola ball at NA Teams was mixed.

First of all - it made a hell of a difference to play on brand new tables on hard cement floor (covered by plastic or not). No comparison to playing with it on old, pockmarked tables at hardwood floor in Boston TTC. I thought I would be extremely frustrated with playing that crappy ball in DC, but I was not. It was playable.

Second, feeling wise, it was not great. It still bounced a tad slower, had strange funny wiggle on sidespinny shots etc.

Third, the build quality and longevity of the JOOLA balls is a joke. There was a match where me and my opponent used 4 (four!) balls to play the match, and three of them were brand new, just out of the box. Ridiculous. All in all, I had about 11 balls break on me during the competition.

Once (during that 4-ball match) we counterlooped, my opponent sent the ball a bit long and when it landed on the floor behind me, it literally disintegrated. Not just a crack but full-blown splitting in two or three pieces. He argued that the point had to be replayed, I argued that the ball was not broken when he hit it (no sound, proper flight etc) so the point should count. I won the point but lost the match.

Of course, I am never going to waste even one dollar of my money on balls like these. I might still play with them if forced to, but never going to buy them.

Also - need to talk to our club owner about buying new tables. Our Donic Perssons are more than 12 years old I think.

wturber wrote: Got basically the same report from my coach, Matt Winkler.  Balls broke very easily and many were wobbly.  He also noted that some balls started out good and became wobbly as the match progressed. He reported some balls literally splitting in two.  His short description was "horrible."  He equated them to the Nittaku SHA balls.

DHS makes many clones, including the Nittaku SHA balls and the Joola balls - they are all the same ball.  We should realize there are only 4 balls (XSF, Nittaku Prem, DHS and DFish) - every ball is a clone of one of these. 

Edited by NextLevel - 12/01/2014 at 4:41pm

wturber wrote: Got basically the same report from my coach, Matt Winkler.  Balls broke very easily and many were wobbly.  He also noted that some balls started out good and became wobbly as the match progressed. He reported some balls literally splitting in two.  His short description was "horrible."  He equated them to the Nittaku SHA balls.

deleted because I just wrote the same things as NL -- there are only four balls and only two of them are any good.

wturber wrote: NextLevel wrote: DHS makes many clones, including the Nittaku SHA balls and the Joola balls - they are all the same ball.  We should realize there are only 4 balls (XSF, Nittaku Prem, DHS and DFish) - every ball is a clone of one of these.    While there are clearly only four current manufacturers, it has been the clone aspect that I've been reserving judgement on.  I've been leaving open the question of whether different end brands might spec different plastic formulations.  But from a performance/experience standpoint, it surely looks like DHS sourced balls are clones.  Did anyone smell a broken Joola ball to see if it too smells of camphor?

Didn't think to do it... As soon as I break one - I still have one or two left - I will try to remember and "smell the roses".

I have been using only NP+ for the past week but a nice fellow on Saturday night wanted me to use a new DHS polyball he just bought online...I said 'OK" and we did a few warmups.  Wow!!! Could it be possible that DHS have finally improved their cr@ppy balls?  This ball felt the same as NP40+, I told myself (and very pleasantly surprised).  Then we started the round robin tournament match...and the ugly truth came out.  Cr@p bounces started to appear immediately on side-spin loaded serves and returns.  Sometimes too low, sometimes a lot higher than expected (knowing that it should bounce lower than the NP40+).  Loaded spin pushes didn't bounce up sufficiently most of the time, nor did super-spinny opening loops.  These balls became incredibly difficult to open or counter over the table with a quick wrist motion.  It was almost like the ball wobbled when struck, with no directional control whatsoever on such low-bounce shots.  I tried a few quick wrist flips and fast counters against such weird balls and none went in, whereas I did them with NP40+ without any problem for an entire week.  So I started to play very safe and focused on soft placement and won my match easily.  Did I have fun even though I advanced to the next round?  Not at all. 
As I said it before, these cr@ppy balls should be taken out of the market completely.






Edited by roundrobin - 12/02/2014 at 3:07am

RR, should have just done a quick static bounce test.  They still suck.