Discussion: Is it worth trying to slow the game down again?

[ZFT]

Cap the weight on rackets to under 170-180g and you’ll see diversity come back.

How to enforce? Just a kitchen scale will do the trick.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

Cap the weight on rackets to under 170-180g and you’ll see diversity come back.

How to enforce? Just a kitchen scale will do the trick.

That's an interesting idea, but the problem is that balsa and paulownia blades are extremely light but very stiff, fast and bouncy. The speed will be there but the quality of play will decrease, more hitting, less spin. It doesn't help defenders either because defenders benefit from more spin.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

I don't think we should slow down the game more. At low levels it wouldn't matter as much and on the high levels I think we are at a good place with rally length. Slowing down would force players to hit even harder and we would get more injuries. I am curious if slightly higher amount of spin would help more people playing slower to avoid mistakes (the old 38/40mm ball had less air resistance), so maybe smaller diameter but lighter balls?
And I would love to see a retro invitational tournament, where everyone plays with 38mm balls and 21 point sets, but the service rules still the same.

 

[golden_son]

Rallies are definitely longer than they used to be so I am not sure what you mean by making the game too fast - the new rubbers etc. are largely attempts to bring spin back but they are definitely not at the level of the past. There is also hardbat already for people who prefer a slower and less spin influenced game. It just isn't going to benefit manufacturers to promote it I think, but it is already in existence.

Somehow I completely forgot about hardbat. It is a shame it isn't promoted more. I wonder what the general public would think of the sport if there were a hardbat Olympic event alongside "regular" TT.

Badminton is way faster than table tennis but you dont see people trying to slow down or dumb down the game. If anything, they want more aggressive playstyles (for eg with the change to 15 point games to reduce reliance on stamina more), because watching a 1.5 hr grindfest with players playing defensive and neutral shots to wear down the opponents physically, is just no fun at all. And people these days dont have much free time.

The thing about badminton is the shuttlecock slows down almost immediately. The thing is whizzing back and forth but, at least to my untrained eye, it seems players still have more time to react. I watched the Olympic semis and finals and it was intense!

I may have been a little unclear in how I see things for (non-hardbat) TT right now. There certainly are long, exciting rallies. Alexis vs LJK was about as edge-of-your-seat as TT can get. But matches like that feel fewer and farther between than ones where a few rallies get over 10 hits but most are serve-return-attack (3rd ball) scores or serve-return-attack-counter (4th ball) scores. It's a tough line to walk because fast-paced action is exciting to watch. Major League Baseball in the US has been experimenting with ways to speed up the game because people were getting turned off. It's the short rallies that make the sport seem less interactive and less accessible to non-superhumans. Does no one else see it this way? I watch matches hoping to see incredible rallies but it feels like only every third match or so has a few "wow!" moments. The rest is interesting to watch from a technical standpoint but not from a spectator viewpoint IMO.

And to be clear, I wouldn't argue for taking spin out of the game! That's why watching a good defender like Hashimoto is such a treat; they change the usual paradigm of "hit through the opponent's spin" by making that proposition exhausting.

Take out the table, use deflated tennis balls, bats without rubber and name it after a tiny cucumber submerged in acid. It's even more stupid than using walls, like you need a gutter blocker.
Evolution is one thing, absolutely. Forcing it is usually not the best way.

Say what you will; the rules are weird, the spin is barely there (coming from TT), and the people that play can treat it way too seriously, but pickleball is pretty fun and way more accessible.

 

[NetProphet]

A comment by @Sp8e00 (about table tennis becoming boring to watch if nixing serve rules pushed outright serve success much higher) got me thinking. For me, the amount of points currently ended on the third or fourth ball already make high-level table tennis matches a bit of a dud sometimes. There's a reason people get excited by ralliers like Gauzy and creatives like Mohregard.

The change to 40+ was--ostensibly--to slow the game down and make it more watchable, but with the plastic ball having less spin and manufacturers making harder and faster rubbers all the time, it's hard to argue that that plan panned out.

So I wonder: Is it time to try again? What might make a real change in rally length (without necessarily swinging too hard in the other direction, e.g. 40+ shot defender rallies)? Do you all even agree that game is too fast?

For my part, I think changing the ball isn't the answer - there's evidence the plastic ball is slower, or at least slows down quicker, even if the tradeoff is it doesn't spin as well as celluloid. Perhaps a combination of larger size (again...) and spinnier alternative to ABS could work, but that almost feels like overengineering.

My suggestion would be a limit on rubber hardness, say H3 40d (or even 39) or under. It would have less impact on amateurs--where few of us can really hit through the sponge anyway--and would have more impact I think at the pro level, perhaps pushing the average rally length a stroke or two higher and making the sport more spectator-friendly. But we'd really need to see an analysis of average rally length overlaid with a trend line in the popularity of e.g. ESN50+ rubbers to see if that would really have any meaningful impact.

Maybe shorten the table? The thinking being that would make it harder to loop-drive or flick a ball at 100mph without risking overshooting.

I'm eager to hear other ideas.

I think it's perfect how it is tbh.
I compare it with Tennis. Some players have the edge on serve and 3rd ball, some have a big shot on one side and not every point is a 15 shot slug fest, not should it be, same for TT imo.
Table Tennis is more about spin and those that can handle it best prevail. In handling it best I refer to serve receive and stopping the killer 3rd ball coming at you
What I hate is the constant changes in the game, any game! Football for example is ruined with do constant changes in offside and handball interpretations along with changing the refereeing with VAR that has ruined it to the point that as a lifelong player and fan, I don't actually watch it anymore, the game is not recognisable to me anymore, my not from an entertainment standpoint anyway.
More changes in TT (the ball or whatever) will lead to more changes in sponge/rubber preference and playstyle/tactics from players which will again lead to cycle after cycle of change -> counter change, change -> counterchange.
Best to leave it alone. Apart from the implementation of service rules I reckon it's just about perfect.

 

[ttarc]

What if the net were simply made a bit higher? Wouldn’t that be the simplest way to make the sport more balanced again?

Computer simulation of table tennis ball trajectories for studies of the influence of ball size and net height
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._of_the_influence_of_ball_size_and_net_height
"A larger ball of 44 mm with small weight is one option for suppressing high velocities, coupled also to a reduction of the influence of spinning. As an alternative an increase of the net height is possible. A small increase of the net height could be one future option, where the basic character of the game is not strongly modified, but especially the influence of the service could be reduced."

What I would also test is not only a higher net but also a larger and higher table 1). People are now on average 10 cm (4 inches) taller than they were 100 years ago.
The easiest change are the table and net height.
A slightly higher net (say 0.5 inch/1.27 cm higher) combined with a larger table could also be interesting with 38 mm balls

1) from todays 60" x 108" to 64" x 114" to 116", height from 30" to at least 32"

 

[Grumms]

It might not be a bad idea to try to slow the game down even more. The reflexes necessary to become a top player aren't even reflexes. It is anticipation skills developed as a kid and if you do not start playing seriously from an extremely young age, you can never develop such skills.

Like in any other discipline in the world.

 

[Grumms]

Slowing down TT like it has been made for tennis will kill it. Speed and creativity won't matter and only power and stamina will prevail. Standardization of the surfaces in tennis killed backhand players and volleyers. You have only one kind of player now, and the same finals on any tournament, which could not happen before mid 2000.

Today, we have a lot of different style in the top 20 : WCQ, Felix, Truls, Simon, LJK, LSD, Jorgic,... If you slow everything again, you'll only have WCQ/FZD type of players.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

Computer simulation of table tennis ball trajectories for studies of the influence of ball size and net height
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._of_the_influence_of_ball_size_and_net_height
"A larger ball of 44 mm with small weight is one option for suppressing high velocities, coupled also to a reduction of the influence of spinning. As an alternative an increase of the net height is possible. A small increase of the net height could be one future option, where the basic character of the game is not strongly modified, but especially the influence of the service could be reduced."

What I would also test is not only a higher net but also a larger and higher table 1). People are now on average 10 cm (4 inches) taller than they were 100 years ago.
The easiest change are the table and net height.
A slightly higher net (say 0.5 inch/1.27 cm higher) combined with a larger table could also be interesting with 38 mm balls

1) from todays 60" x 108" to 64" x 114" to 116", height from 30" to at least 32"

Table change would be a financial catastrophy. Few clubs can afford cahnging the tables. Also, I think bigger tables would add an advantage to taller players and a disadvantage to older players.
This reflects how meaningless some studies are. 38 mm and 40mm looks like the same yet rally legth data shows how important it was for longer rallies. 44 mm would be a disaster.
Net height increase would be interesting, probably the meta would slow down. Short pips players would suffer, long pip blocker/anti players would thrive. Hard to tell what would happen in reality because it would make blocking strong hits harder as well.

 

[beeray1]

I think it just went too far in the wrong direction. When I watch matches pre plastic, the sport is just so much more enjoyable as a spectator. Rallies were a little more careful, the sport played a little slower at the pro level, yet so much more dynamic. I think bringing the spin back will slow the game back down a little bit, make more styles viable again, and add a bit of craft and beauty back to it. Watching pro level the ball still just feels so idk.. empty? Unfortunately that's never going to happen without a ball change. Either make the plastic ball 38mm, or bring back celluloid. Neither will happen.

 

[Reaper]

I wouldn't mind tweaking the balls. My proposal would be make ball neon yellow, just like tennis/pickleball. My reasoning is, the sport is played inside buildings with white walls being the most frequent color. Honestly i don't know why people dislike the orange ones, i vouch for those even before i developed presbyopia/astigmatism. Also white is a default color of shirts used by non-connoisseurs. I would prefer to see a neon blur rather than a white one mixed with the hall lightning/walls.

Another option is to make the ball thicker/heavier mantaining size at 40mm. A friend bought a pack of DoubleFish V40+ and it had dud, We give it a test, This ball bounced lower, had more dwell time on the rubber and it was so safer on topspins i usually overshoot it, that ball allowed me to drive topspin easier, my friend who relies on flat hits i saw him struggle to keep his usual pace, effectively slowing down the game, making the match more tactical.

 

[Lula]

I feel the game had more variation with the smaller ball so maybe try to go back to 40 mm ball.

 

[lightspin]

Like in any other discipline in the world.

BZZT WRONG. I know people who started seriously studying science after getting their undergraduate degrees who became world class researchers. I know people who took up running post college who made the Olympics. One of my friends took up Bobsledding after age 25 and still made it into the Olympic games. There are a few examples in motocross where people started at age 19 and ended up making 6 or 7 figures racing. I could give more examples in football, baseball and other sports.

To my knowledge there are no examples in table tennis like this. I know a few people claim "I started at 20 and ended up 2600+" but after questioning their story falls apart. "Well we had a table as a kid and I spent every waking hour during the summers playing but that doesn't count." Yea.. ok. Whatever.

In table tennis you have absolutely no time to react. I think it is worse than any other sport. Reacting late and reacting incorrectly results in disaster. Harimoto started at 2. Matsushita started at 2. The Lebruns at 3. Apparently the latest starter to achieve success was Benedict Duda at age 10. However, his dad was a serious player so I would bet a rather large sum of money he played a bit before that. Table tennis is more like speaking a language than playing a sport and if you do not start young you won't lose your accent. The worse your table tennis accent, the easier you are to beat.

 

[blahness]

The thing about badminton is the shuttlecock slows down almost immediately. The thing is whizzing back and forth but, at least to my untrained eye, it seems players still have more time to react. I watched the Olympic semis and finals and it was intense!

I may have been a little unclear in how I see things for (non-hardbat) TT right now. There certainly are long, exciting rallies. Alexis vs LJK was about as edge-of-your-seat as TT can get. But matches like that feel fewer and farther between than ones where a few rallies get over 10 hits but most are serve-return-attack (3rd ball) scores or serve-return-attack-counter (4th ball) scores. It's a tough line to walk because fast-paced action is exciting to watch. Major League Baseball in the US has been experimenting with ways to speed up the game because people were getting turned off. It's the short rallies that make the sport seem less interactive and less accessible to non-superhumans. Does no one else see it this way? I watch matches hoping to see incredible rallies but it feels like only every third match or so has a few "wow!" moments. The rest is interesting to watch from a technical standpoint but not from a spectator viewpoint IMO.

And to be clear, I wouldn't argue for taking spin out of the game! That's why watching a good defender like Hashimoto is such a treat; they change the usual paradigm of "hit through the opponent's spin" by making that proposition exhausting.

Badminton is actually way faster if you watch say a courtside side angle view. Then you can see it is crazy fast. It only looks slow because it is filmed from a top view. With doubles it is even faster.

But TT is more fun and complex because of the spin. Serve return attack is very cat and mouse like and is one of the most fun to watch. Watching 100 BH-BH topspin counter battles just gets old fast - and this is what it gets to if you dumb down the game too much. Tennis is way worse in terms of server dominance because there are just a shit ton of aces and nothing much you can do about 200+km/h serves, and still a lot of people enjoy it.

Most people want to watch superhumans when they watch pro sports. normal people kinda just dinking the ball back and forth sucks for presentation and people might even think "is this even a sport?!".

The main problem is the marketing of the game which sucks ass now especially with the stupid side angle view and uncreative presentation.

 

[ZFT]

That's an interesting idea, but the problem is that balsa and paulownia blades are extremely light but very stiff, fast and bouncy. The speed will be there but the quality of play will decrease, more hitting, less spin. It doesn't help defenders either because defenders benefit from more spin.

Balsa, yes. Though not so sure about paulownia aka kiri. Most Butterfly blades use it as the core and average around 85-90g.

But yes I agree it’s not the speed alone that’s dominating today’s game. It’s the speed + spin = power that can really only be achieved with 185-200g+ setups… I think the word is the heavy inertia generated by these setups.

Though the important outcome is still achieved. The overall game slows down slightly and you naturally get more variety in styles and equipment combos again. Some players might keep a boosted 40 deg H3 on FH with a much lighter BH. Others might go SPs with a heavy wood blade. Twiddling could be a thing. The point is there’s finally a trade off again instead of everyone just copy pasta-ing to the same similar max power setup. Existing infrastructure and dimensions stays the same.

So yeah a light attackers racket can feel fast but won’t produce the same loaded ball quality - a defender doesn’t always have to chop they can borrow and redirect “speed only” easily.

Ironically, oversized modern defensive blades are probably one of the few areas that would benefit. The larger head size increases leverage and dwell time while pips on the other side themselves are extremely light, so these defenders can still maintain good racket acceleration and pips disruption variation without needing the same overall mass as what double inverted attackers need.

Using max sponge ESN, D09c, Zyre 03, heavily boosted H3 on one side no problem either to get below ~175g.

 

[Der_Echte]

You could also answer in a normal way and explain why you don't think that's a good idea, instead of giving a meaningless, mocking response. If you think it's such an incredibly ridiculous idea anyway, and you already have strong arguments against raising the net with your superior intelligence, then share them with us. That way, we can learn something from it too.

At first glance, I don't immediately see why that wouldn't work. Spin becomes more important again because you have to spin in a higher curve. Defenders get a few more chances again, and the quick counterlooping immediately after the bounce becomes more difficult.

Sports must evolve with the times. Table tennis today is no longer comparable to that of 30 years ago due to all the progress in equipment and the athletic ability of players. It wouldn't hurt to think about how to keep the sport attractive to the public and a broad group of players.

No, I am not the owner of supreme intellect or whatever, ask NL the mod, he knows me well.

As for the improvement to our issue of furthering TT...

How about players figuring out how to play better? (and assisting this in all ways) (and working to cultural acceptance)

I see this happening all the damn time WITHOUT any intervention from the ITTF which is the equivalent of government intervention. (which yes, ITTF intervened in a dumb azz way changing the ball composition and size, but that fight is over and those days not coming back until you get leadership elected to ITTF to do just that)

Govt intervention happens when govt wants to change stuff without knowing the outcome of its dumb idea is almost a communist monopoly.

I am not superior intelligent, just totally against stupid communist ideology.

Ask the Admin(s) of this site and they will articulate to you in a much moar polite manner how to advance TT, it certainly is not with ITTF or natl assn intervention.

The answer lies in acceptance of TT culture... which is already accepted in many parts of the world and is terrible in USA, but increasingly better with more foreigners and native USA people excited about TT. There isn't a simple answer in my country, my countrymen do not culturally accept TT as a valid sport in huge numbers, even if those numbers are increasing somewhat... until we get the culture in my country to have it as a low cost and passionate sport in all our schools as a signal, then my nation is pretty weak culturally in this regard.

It (this passion to further TT in all our countries) must come from within. Almost if not all of us on the forum have this, even you, maybe you have this more than me, because you risk posting the idea with your (noble) goal of improving or sport. That is indeed honorable. And no, I do not have the initial or final idea to get this done, which we all want. You are likely even MORE of a TT patriot than me, you seem to be genuine about wanting to further TT globally if not your area.

We could all further this by volunteering our time and effort. Try to help others with equipment and encouragement to get into the sport. The more we excite about TT, even if they are scrub players competitively, the more we get participation and acceptance, the better we get in making our sport bigger and better.

Locally, maybe you do even more than I do (even though I do as much or moar than anyone you can name) and maybe you are a better leader and influencer than me. (maybe high likelihood of that) as I suck at that kind of leadership, I am only good at doing and encouraging locally and everywhere I go. That is still needed.

WHY do Koreans luv TT so much that there is evening show after evening reality show of respected monied actors and sprots people making shows about TT (and all over youtube with unique content) and that USA has only A. Barbrow at that level? Culture and marketing, but talented and motivated people can make it happen... maybe you can do it better than me. (No, not satire, but serious, maybe your passion and some time will have a huge impact)

My point is that blindly changing equipment (and making people spend way more money) without a result as opposed to getting more into the sport and getting them to play better is more effective over time.

So many place on both our coasts in USA and some inland are already improving this and it is having an increasing impact, but needs to be 100x more.

 

[Der_Echte]

As for spin and defensive players... lets look at Joo Sae Hyuk, the undisputed representative of defensive modern TT...

You see a match with Timo Boll or any CNT vs Joo Sae Hyuk and the crowd is on its feet 100% by the 5th ball to the 11th ball... only he did that do arean crowds and it was absolut GLORIOUS.

Joo Sae Hyuk hiz self... and I heard it from hiz own mouth (I speak Korean) said that when we got away from celluloid ball and went to plastic, that the spin was greatly reduced, which greatly reduced JSH ability to vary the spin to mess up opponents.

That alone made it WAY harder for defenders to compete at the highest levels.

Only the Indian women with some pips close to table have had a brief moment in the sun vs CNT... but with enough training, that will end too and we back to the argument of variety players.

This new ball made players at the top level even more homogenous. (play close to table take ball early and hit hard with less overall spin variety. Big can of worms opened with ABS ball, but according to the undisputed king of defensive modern TT, the new ball really hurt defenders, maybe an unintended or intended consequence.

 

[Der_Echte]

Cap the weight on rackets to under 170-180g and you’ll see diversity come back.

How to enforce? Just a kitchen scale will do the trick.

NOPE.

Not gunna work. Some 85g blades with 45g cut rubbers can be gad-awful fast.

Only a matter of time and training and you right back where you came from.

yes, easy to implement, but zero chance with even one year to do what you want.

 

[Archosaurus]

I will say that technical changes to the sport can have no real effect at the level of play that most players play at and will not affect the popularity of the sport at all in terms of adoption rates, but can have very profound changes at the highest levels which can affect the longevity of the sport in those contexts.

The truth of the matter is that 95%~ of players in the world (people who have never stepped foot in a club) don't really care about the ball change (if they even know about it, most people don't), and it's arguable if it has made them care about watching the sport.

Probably the most significant difference that stems from things like the plastic ball change is simply the price of purchase for said balls; much more dramatic influence on adoption of the sport than the technical characteristics were.

 

[ZFT]

NOPE.

Not gunna work. Some 85g blades with 45g cut rubbers can be gad-awful fast.

Only a matter of time and training and you right back where you came from.

yes, easy to implement, but zero chance with even one year to do what you want.

I’ll come with your same energy

WRONG.

Fast feel ≠ heavy ball quality. Light setups can feel super crazy fast in direct impact shots like smash and punch block, but it still wouldn’t generate the same spin stability and inertia (I think this is still the word) as a ~200g during rally exchanges or short/short game control with sticky or hard sponged rubbers both sides.

And it’s great if players adapt and think of such a setup, as the outcome is still achieved - more variation in styles, tempo and equipment setup choices than the current state now.

If that’s hard to see, that’s kind of the point.