Timo Boll Interview: About 80% of pro's are using illegal rackets

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Reference: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/t...er-konkurrenz-manipulation-vor-a-1074917.html

Translation:

Significant criticism of the EM-record winner: Timo Boll accuses the competitors who are using illegal methods to improve their game. Even for the ITTF he finds clear words.

Table tennis star Timo Boll assumes that about 80 percent of the international players are playing with rackets which do not conform to the Rules of the ITTF." The Rubbers are treated with chemicals to increase the catapult effect when hitting. This apllies not only for the Chinese players, but for Europeans and other Asians to," said the multiple European champion to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung": "In order to prove this, the Rubber has to be removed from the racket and sent to the lab. That's what I am encouraging since long ago. But the International Association considers this unreasonable. "

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He also complained about the newly introduced table tennis balls. "The quality of the game suffers in a sustainable manner, because the players are feeling insecure. Some are suffering a serious blow. The rallies have gotten worse on average," said Boll.

The 34-year-old, as well as his compatriot Dimitrij Ovtcharov, don't understand the patience of the ITTF with the producers: "Nothing happened for a few months, time and time again, we are told it is impossible to do better than this... I don't understand why the Table Tennis Companys don't pull the plug, when they are receiving low quality products for their money."

The associations should provide the best balls at their events and not the ones with the highest license fee. "We players would be happy about that," Boll said.

I hope you are able to understand my Translation.
 
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Just one addition: after using EL-P on both sides for a few months, I noticed that they shrank a little bit so that the blade surface showed up. As an experiment, I boosted both with two layers of some booster that my friend got from ebay, and the result is very fun. Even soft loops feel more zippy and I really like the feeling.
 
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Tenergy is just perfectly fit for boosting. Because of the high quality top sheet and the porous sponge. It was the first rubber which could relativ reliably resist the high demands of tension from boosting ( to the limit). Which is the reason why everyone was and is still using Tenergy. For the top players there is no reason to change to other rubbers, because they get provided with top tier quality. The top players then just boost the rubber to their own preferences.
 
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Timo Boll is wrong. It's not 80%, it's 100% of pro players.

Some players use boost to improve racket. Others don't need to boost. Most of players use tenergy and Butterfly adds boost according to players need.

ITTF approves tenergy but only commercial version. Pro's version is much more faster than comercial version, with much more boost by Butterfly (pros choose level of boost).

Even Timo Boll and others best europeans haven't legal racket.
 
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If you read the full source article, Timo Boll made some very powerful points. I summarize:

1. He can't get the rubbers that the Chinese team uses in commercial stores.
2. He uses rubbers that are 100% commercially available in commercial stores (he has said this before in other contexts but people have treated it in the past as advertising hype).
3. The Chinese team publically and admittedly boost their rackets. Wang Hao has shown how he prepares and boosts his racket on TV.
4. He doesn't boost his rackets.

Many people are calling this a case of sour grapes. It's a really sad commentary on our sport today when the greatest non-Chinese player in the world in recent times is being laughed off on TT forums for stating things we obviously know are true, but because Ma Long is looping Boll off the table, we think that Boll is just complaining unfairly.

We could of course add in that Timo is one of the cleanest servers in the game. Then you wonder how much current rules and their enforcement lapses are screwing him...
 
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says Aging is a killer
It depends on who you define as a pro.
But, in my limited experience and talking to players of all levels, the great majority of journeymen pros do not boost.
In fact, if you go to many clubs you'll notice that many top players have 2 bats. One with old rubbers for practice and the other better one for matches.
Who boosts a lot are the good and very good amateurs. They don't need sponsorship and have the money to buy any amount of rubbers and boosters.
 
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says Aging is a killer
BTW, I have heard that 80% figure from several players but they add that 80% is a the high estimate.
But it's hard to judge. I know several players that don't boost that hit the ball consistently harder/faster than many who do boost. And to top it off, they use All+ to Off- blades.

We should do a poll here on TTD. Do the best players at your club boost?
 
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