Best and worst rule changes in the last 20 years?

TTHopeful said:

So there have been a lot of rule changes in table tennis in the last 20 or so years.

What do you think have been the best and worst rule changes?

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Best :21 set-points to 11. That gives a chance to the weak player gain advantage to a much better player

Worst : speed glue ban, 40 mm ball and plastic ball.

Thats just my opinion

Best: Hidden serves banned (although I don't know exactly when they changed it), 21-> 11 points
Worst: speed glue ban, plastic balls

Worst rule in my opinion is the speed glue ban!

WOW, speed glue ban sounds the worst rule, so what is the speed glue?

I also don't like that plastic ball, but who knows, maybe in the future we will get used to it, i can't remember what ball i was playing since 1997 until 2004, if it was that 40mm then what is worse about this ball from 38mm or the previous ball? if so then give this plastic balls a time 4-6 years from now let's say then we can judge, i play with cell and poly time to time and i swear i can't tell the difference most of the time until i look at the ball.

I also agree about 21 -> 11 set, but i played 2 last friday somewhere and they still play with 21 set-points games, i felt either they don't know or don't like that 11 set point rule, or they did this to give more chance for other players to play, as one 21 set points game is almost equal 2 games of 11 set points, but i prefer this 11 so if i lose in first set i may return in next 2 sets, but when i played with them at 21 set points i was able to defeat them all, it was like if i lead to 12-6 or 14-9 they just give up to fight back.

The absolute worst, must be the ban of speed glue and boosters.. Second must be the service rules.

Actually I like the new ball, and think it's a good choice, but the timing was absolutely the worst ever because the quality was so so poor at first.. Changing from 21 to 11 is also a good change

Ok, question: it is banned by ITTF for tournaments and championships and olympics, is it banned also for those hobbyists beginners who doesn't play in any tours or events and not under any ranking or even under ITTF rules?

Worst: Different color on you rubbers, pips rules like length and friction, plastic ball, speed glue and boosting.

Best: 11 points, hidden service.

I wanted to put different color of rubbers as 3rd best change not worst xD

Worst change: 38mm ball to 40mm then 40+.
Best change was the serve rule
Good: Banning of VOC speed glue.
Bad: Trying to ban VOC-free boosters.
Good: Changing from 21 but it should have been to 15 rather than 11. I just don't like the 11 game. There's little drama and no rhythm in the 11 game as compared to 15 or 21 game.

I like games to 11. I like games to 21. I think changing to 11 took away some of those boring run away games that used to happen where someone is down by 10 points and the game seems to drag on. With 11, at least a game that is 11-2 is fast. But I like playing both. I also think changing to 11 made pros have to stay focused and "bring it" in the games a bit more. Because being up 9-3 is only being up by 6 points. You still have to close the door. But I do like both.

Speed glue: I don't really care either way. But it is lame that they try to ban boosting with chemicals that are safe.

Hidden serves: good that they are gone.

Ball size: I recently played with one of my old Nittaku 38mm balls. I have to confess, I thought I was going to like it more. I did not. It was faster. It may have gotten more spin. But the shots had less arc. I think because the 40mm ball is slower. I like playing with the 40mm celluloid balls better than with the 40+ balls. But, the 40+ are fine. And the one thing I have to say about the 40+: at the professional level, the rallies are better; they are longer; it is harder to put the ball away and the ball keeps coming back; to me, it makes the matches more fun to watch. I don't like how easy they are to break and how bad the quality of the seamed balls has seemed to me. But I recently played with a newer batch of Double Fish 40+ *** and they played pretty well. One more note on the 40+: Jun Mizutani went, almost instantly from 11th to 5th in the world after the 40+ came on the scene and that is entirely because he can fish against the top players with it and they can't put the ball away on him the same way they used to.

Red/Black (rubber colors): this one I am glad is in place. It would be weird if a long pips player could have both rubbers black and twiddle without the other player being able to tell which side is which.

Frictionless Pips: my memory is that most of the top players said there was no reason to ban them. Guys like Waldner didn't seem to care and felt there was no reason to ban them. But I think it made a difference at levels between 1400-2400 (USATT rating).

Growing junior players with rich parents cried a river when they couldn't figure out how to cope with the returned ball when a fat old dude wearing a sweatband simply stuck his bat out and blocked the ball back without any plan except to simply get it back safe on the table.

2 Color rule waz good. Serves shoulda been left alone. 38-40 ball was irritating change, but everyone got over it a few years later and the game actually played faster and more powerful.

Tuner ban is an obvious ploy to make more money for ITTF and equipment companies. "Factory" does the SAME thing to rubber and it is perfect legal.. but YOU do it and we send out the GOON SQUAD after you. TTD members decide what is morally right.

Cool topic lots of interesting suggestions. I was just thinking, perhaps up to 15 would be more interesting. Imagine playing to 21 nowadays, the Chinese would be like steam trains

I am still not fully sure of the new ball situation. I just cannot get to grips with the dam thing. I feel to many errors occur which wouldn't have with the celluloid ball, but maybe thats due to different timing and bounce etc.

It will be interesting to see how the rules of today differ in 20 years time

2035 the year of the ....

good rule changes :
- 2 colour rule
- hidden serves
bad rule changes :
- non-voc booster ban
changes i'm not too fussed about :
- 38 -> 40mm ball
- 40 -> 40+mm ball
- games to 21 (agree with carl on this)
changes that didn't really affect me :
- all the pips rules changes (only player that i ever played against that used pips {original grass d-tecs} was a french guy i played with in the western cape regional league ... way back in the 1980s and 90s. he taught me how to play against them so i didn't get caught out that much)

Okay that's covered it. Now let's talk about the future rules.

Rubbers, Same model of rubber on both sides of the bat. They may differ in thickness by say, 0.2mm but that's it.
The benefit is to cut down on errors due to rubber switch/change.
This way we can allow frictionless or whatever but the player must have it on both sides of the bat.

Modify all rules and regulations to reflect the principles of 'Plain English'.

Serve rule: the ball is to be struck behind the table but in front of the player's body, or words to that effect.

Best change : sets to 11, serve rule
Worst : serve rule (because the rule is not respected), speed glue ban and polyballs.

By and large, the serve rule is respected.
At top level, the players do follow the rule as written. At low levels no, but the serve isn't nearly as important at low level.
To see what I mean, have someone competent play you a match using hidden serves.

See Par Gerell serves, and tell me what has the serve rule changed for him.
Both players at Croatia Open final were hidding their serves.

Tinykin said:

Okay that's covered it. Now let's talk about the future rules.

Rubbers, Same model of rubber on both sides of the bat. They may differ in thickness by say, 0.2mm but that's it.
The benefit is to cut down on errors due to rubber switch/change.
This way we can allow frictionless or whatever but the player must have it on both sides of the bat.

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Sorry, if your idea was implemented, this would be a horrible idea.

I could write a ton about why not. You could not have any modern defenders at anywhere near a high level if a rule like this were implemented. You also could not have a player use a softer rubber on the BH than than what he is using on FH or vise versa. But the big thing would be that there would be no possibility of having a defensive player at a high level.

One of the problems with todays game is that things are too uniform. You have too many players trying to have the same basic attacking style. The styles of play are not as diversified as they were 20 years ago. Forcing everyone to use the same rubber on both sides would increase this trend. And it would not bring anything to the sport at a low or a higher level.

If a player can't read what is coming off a pips racket, that just means he/she need to train more and learn to watch the path and arc of the ball more. Without any other information, a well trained eye can see topspin, dead ball and backspin on an incoming ball. You can also see if there is a lot of spin or not as much spin.

So I am not sure what would be positive about making everyone use the same model of rubber on their FH and BH.