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Just use water. By the way, all paddle wipes (including clothes moistened with water) would be illegal according to literal readings of current ITTF rules which forbid "any chemical or physical treatment" of the rubber. Water and these Joola wipes are chemicals. Wiping them over the surface...

This behavior is described by the N + 1 rule, which some say was a conjecture that originated with Einstein. Y = N + 1 where Y is the ideal number of blades to own and where N is the number you own now. If Einstein is correct, you will never be cured. Of course an alternative formulation...

Universities are cutting back soorts programs, not expanding them. Sad fact is that there aren't a lot of solutions to this. It's not unique to our soort. Kid's lives change dramatically when they start university. I quit playing then too. A long time ago. Kids who quit at 15 or so in my...

He is 29. WLQ won WTTC at that age in 2007. Schlager was 31 in 2003. We will see how much he has left. He just won China and German Opens. His losses are still so rare that when it does happen people want to assign great meaning to one match. But he is after all human.

It was also just one match. One match is not a trend. Age causes athletic performance to decline but Ma Long is not so old just yet. He has a lot of resources at his disposal to be better prepared next time.

Understand that some people seem to be arguing that it is the change from cellulose acetate 40+ to ABS 40+ that explains the success of Harimoto and predicts trouble for Ma Long at al. owing to an alleged lack of spin on ABS. See the first post on this thread and other threads related to this...

Mainly I am reacting to comments about the role of the ABS ball in all this. I am simply not buying into it for reasons already given. I can't exclude that it might contribute somthing to it. But there are threads already asking about how is the CNT going to avoid the decline that must...

We should make a distinction between boys and girls. Girls quite often mature physically sooner than boys. Hence top tennis players among women at much younger ages than boys. Bjorn Borg played a Davis Cup match at 15 but at that specific time Sweden was not strong in tennis and he didn't...

This needs to be repeated many times.

Other side is missing. We don't know what CNT players are thinking about how ABS balls affect the effectiveness of shots from Dima or Timo. They probably would never reveal what they really think.

Ito and Harimoto are quite different. They both had great weeks. Tropical is right. If you make crazy theories to explain this last week they ought to explain previous results from just a little earlier this year. Finally, anyone who writes "thanks to Em Rat Thic I know why" needs to think...

When Waldner was 16 he reached the finals of the ETTC and lost to Appelgren. He looked younger than 16 at that time, he was really skinny. He also was not anywhere near as good as he got later. We all know how his career progressed after that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjoYdz3T4sk It...

Mine.

Of course all of this is confounded by higher bounce of ABS. I still don't buy that this affects CNT players disproportionately. But I also could be wrong. Not enough data. Too many variables.

OK, but you need to untangle that from the fact that CA balls stay lower and also the brand and age of table affects the conclusion. Also you are not seeing the spin usually. You are seeing the effect of the spin. And again, there is no reason to think this affects CNT players more than others.

Here is a longer explanation of my last post. I don't personally buy into the idea that ABS balls spin less than other 40+ balls. I think it is quite likely that they spin less than 40 mm celluloid balls, but Ma Long and other CNT players won a lot of championships since 2014. Compared to...

I agree with most if of what you wrote. ABS balls bounce higher -- actually the same height as celluloid, whereas CA balls bounced lower and inconsistently. The problem comes from "feeling that the spin is less". That just doesn't cut it and a better way to put it is that you have the...

Matt has a point. It is not that hard.

The entire thread uses facts not in evidence

I completely disagree on this point.