Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

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If you feel like you are becoming better from using a slower set up Maybe it is the way to go. But i still think you should play with a harder rubber if you feel safe with it. Can still try to work on these things. I Do not believe much in changing equipment to much.

Maybe you can try coming out more and using the body more. If you Do that you migth get more power even with the soft rubber. By doing this you migth even can develop your technique. Like when people are changing to china rubber to learn to use rhe body more.

Is is good to practice changing in pace and variation. I have notice that my players always train the same tempo in the open exercises so they can not vary the pace in a match since they have not trained on it. Alot of them and me to are to nice when blocking when the other Guy is doing the exercise. This teaches us to have a passive block in a match so We need to be tougher in the block when the other Guy doing exercises.

I have started playing matches in just bh bh or fh fh and i feel this is a great way to train changing the tempo and variation. You need to so that because you can not place the ball on different places. Works great for me. Try it.

Looking forward to the video!
 
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I was getting better regardless of my bat's rubber, mid firm or mid soft. I just am going to use a different approach to build better consistency. Use a rubber that is easier to do what I want (at the sacrifice of my shot not being as destructive) to build higher consistency. I have always had good offensive shots, but need a more fundamentally strong foundation and consistency. The rubber I selected will help me get this. At the level I want to compete, my current level of consistency will not get the job done.

I have determined that it would be better for my strategic growth if I become more consistent and capable of playing rallies when needed. I also need to be more consistent on my first topspin, so I don't give up more points.

Those are just two of the largest strategic goals - being more consistent and being more able to be adaptive (play a longer rally when needed).

Of course, one could get there by selecting the equipment one would ultimately use and train train train away until the level of consistency and adaptability is there. Of course there are many paths to get "there". I chose the path and will go down there and make it work. I can easily switch to affirmer sponge of the same class of rubber without problems when the time comes.
 
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I was getting better regardless of my bat's rubber, mid firm or mid soft. I just am going to use a different approach to build better consistency. Use a rubber that is easier to do what I want (at the sacrifice of my shot not being as destructive) to build higher consistency. I have always had good offensive shots, but need a more fundamentally strong foundation and consistency. The rubber I selected will help me get this. At the level I want to compete, my current level of consistency will not get the job done.

I have determined that it would be better for my strategic growth if I become more consistent and capable of playing rallies when needed. I also need to be more consistent on my first topspin, so I don't give up more points.

Those are just two of the largest strategic goals - being more consistent and being more able to be adaptive (play a longer rally when needed).

Of course, one could get there by selecting the equipment one would ultimately use and train train train away until the level of consistency and adaptability is there. Of course there are many paths to get "there". I chose the path and will go down there and make it work. I can easily switch to affirmer sponge of the same class of rubber without problems when the time comes.

I am interested in why you miss many first opening loops? You seem to train pretty much. My players also have trouble with this, despite we train this every practice.

I think they need to learn to read the spin more, can not do the same swing for nospin push and backspin push. Also need to think how they serve because that largely determines what spin they will get.
 
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Lula said:
I am interested in why you miss many first opening loops? You seem to train pretty much. My players also have trouble with this, despite we train this every practice.

I think they need to learn to read the spin more, can not do the same swing for nospin push and backspin push. Also need to think how they serve because that largely determines what spin they will get.

... said:
I am interested in why you miss many first opening loops?
It is not that I miss MANY loops. It is just that I need to land at a higher percentage to compete at the level I want to compete. My opening loop percentage is very very good vs players my level and below... and it is overpowering to them in terms of spin and placement. If I get an easy chance, even against a player 2-3 levels above me, my first ball will win the point 50-75% of the time. (and I land it only 80-90% of the time.)

If I land 80% of my opening loop under easier circumstances, (like say my opponent gives me a long push) I consider that an obvious threshold to make it profitable to attack with an opening loop. 80% plus is good, but 90% plus is much better, no?

Also, there is the issue of pressure. A player 1-2 levels above me is going to give me a much higher quality ball to make my percentages go way down. It is one thing to open vs the long underspin of someone a level or two below you, but it is an entirely different thing to do that same task to even land 60-70% successfully vs the much better player's non-attacking shot. Players this level are not going to frequently make it easy to attack for me. They know they will quickly die if they do that.

There are many things about the quality of a much better player's non-attacking ball that make it inherently much more difficult to attack with that same quality and consistency. A better player will mostly place the ball uncomfortable and not predictable with a high degree of quality time and time again. They are not at such a level if their non-attacking shots are sloppy. I was discussing first topspin vs this class of higher level players. I think this is why you believe I am say I miss MANY first loops. vs this class of player, it doesn't take to many misses to give them a win, they already have 2-3 points advantage over me before the first point. I need to make them work and pay the price if they do not give me high quality balls.

It is important to get my fundamentals as good as they can and get my consistency as high as I can, since it is a given that my landing percentage on first ball vs the crowd 1-2 levels above me is lower... I am giving them more free pints than I want. Two of those in a game is too many. They are already having an advantage in other areas and this doesn't help.

To make it short, I need to have an even higher base level of consistency for normal equal situations, and to become more fundamentally solid, so I can keep a high level of consistency vs the better players non-attacking shot, which I am of course under some more pressure. I do not want my technique to break down under pressure of players 1-2 levels above me. It is not an easy task. Plus, I have crappy hips that make it difficult to stay squatted for long.

if I want to achieve the level of the better players' level I am striving for, I need to be solid and not give up easy points to them. They are too good already. At the same time, I have to be able to pressure players of this level, or they will attack more consistent and destructively.

... said:
I think they need to learn to read the spin more
I think this is a very important aspect of becoming a higher level player. Such players will see the ball better, anticipate better, move more efficiently, and be in position to take advantage to have many options for the shot.

There is no magic thing I can say or hear from anyone that will get me to read the ball better in the cases where I didn't read it well enough. This is something that I need to get my brain to function better at a sub-conscious level and will take a lot of time to improve to a satisfactory level... then later will need improvement again.

This will apply to reading serves, non-attacking shots, and even the attacks.
 
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We had a team tournament today.

We play in our local division 4 (out of 6) in Tokyo. For the first time, our team of 4 was 100% french (!!). I am #3 in the team. We are in a league of 5 teams. We play all 4 other teams in a Singles-Singles-Doubles-Singles-Singles format; first team to win 3 games takes the match. Team ranked first plays in division 3 next time team ranked last falls in division 5.

Last 2 times we finished 2nd so we had good hopes to do better especially we saw we had a good draw (division 4 has 2 groups of 5 teams). Our #1 and #2 played according to their rank today, and won all their singles, and 3 doubles together. Our #4 lost the 2 singles he played.

As for me, my first singles (against team1) was a bit of a gag. I went to another floor to warm up, but i came back 10 minutes late as our #1 rushed to win his match. I got scolded hard for showing up late by my #1 and as a result when i was 0-6 behind in the 1st set against a very good player (who beated our #1 in a previous tournament) i was still hearing in my head the scolds of my partner and lost 5-11. In the 2nd set i started to get into the match still i lost 7-11. In the 3rd I finally found some rhythm and started serving much better, and scoring winners. i was 7-5 ahead, and still 8-8 but i was nervous and netted a serve and lost it 9-11. Too bad

I played the doubles against the 2nd team with our #1. I was doing very badly i felt under a lot of pressure and we were losing the first 2 sets because of me. in the 3rd we fought well and saved match point to take it in deuce. In the 4th we had a very bad start and were down 4-10. Somehow we managed to come back, i suddenly made much less mistakes and played much more cleanly and we won 16-14 this set saving perhaps 7 or 8 match points. In the 5th we took a head start and won it. its the most miraculous win i can remember in doubles LOL

Against team 3 i played against a veteran defender. I lost the 1st while being ahead most of the set, but wasn't playing well and lacked focus. I won the 2nd 11-3, and managed the 3rd not playing so well. I was so confident i would win this match i shut down the camera to save some battery but that gave me bad karma and he came back in the game, winning the 4th. I didn't move as well as usual and he was defending with short pips, not long pips and i made some mistakes reading the spin of some defenses ending short on the table, with my counterpush popping up and being punished by smashes.
In the 5th i got a good start and I think i got a lot of luck (edge or let balls) which tipped the match in my favour. a win but not a good win for me.

Against team 4, our team was up 2 matches to 1, and the table next to us became free, so although i was scheduled to play the 5th match, they launched the 4th and 5th match simultaneously on both tables. I played a guy i know well and played perhaps 8 times in training sessions, and won only the 1st time we played 3/2 (coming back from 0/2). The guy is a PH with a strong 3rd attack after serving short to the FH (messing up with different spins). Short to the FH is my biggest weakness and the key for me was making good receives because he had not many other tactics, and on my own serve he had trouble as well dealing with short backspin serves. It was thus a Wimbledon-like battle of serve/receive, and not many rallyes. I didn't expect it, but i surprisingly won, and i even won 3-0. all games were tight (9 11 9) but i made it ! a good win for me.

TLDR our team finished 1st with 4 victories. Our #1 (4 singles 4 doubles) #2 (4 singles 3 doubles) had a perfect performance, I contributed a little (singles 2V1D doubles 1V0D) [including a singles victory which didn't count after all]. Our #4 was there to do cheering lol (singles 0V2D, no doubles)
 
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I am interested in why you miss many first opening loops? You seem to train pretty much. My players also have trouble with this, despite we train this every practice.

I think they need to learn to read the spin more, can not do the same swing for nospin push and backspin push. Also need to think how they serve because that largely determines what spin they will get.
I think you are onto something about reading the spin. I frequently play a guy who is semi defensive and very good at finding the table with the defensive shots, and those very often vary between nospin and backspin, even some sidespin with the backspin. It has made me better at coming more forward at those nospin shots at least. Still some struggle with lifting aggressive long pushes into backhand crossover or forehand. I do not know what it is, but I have always found it easier to lift backspin with a forehand pivot on the backhand side. If I get a long backspin diagonally on the forehand, I find it more difficult.
 
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It is not that I miss MANY loops. It is just that I need to land at a higher percentage to compete at the level I want to compete. My opening loop percentage is very very good vs players my level and below... and it is overpowering to them in terms of spin and placement. If I get an easy chance, even against a player 2-3 levels above me, my first ball will win the point 50-75% of the time. (and I land it only 80-90% of the time.)

If I land 80% of my opening loop under easier circumstances, (like say my opponent gives me a long push) I consider that an obvious threshold to make it profitable to attack with an opening loop. 80% plus is good, but 90% plus is much better, no?

Also, there is the issue of pressure. A player 1-2 levels above me is going to give me a much higher quality ball to make my percentages go way down. It is one thing to open vs the long underspin of someone a level or two below you, but it is an entirely different thing to do that same task to even land 60-70% successfully vs the much better player's non-attacking shot. Players this level are not going to frequently make it easy to attack for me. They know they will quickly die if they do that.

There are many things about the quality of a much better player's non-attacking ball that make it inherently much more difficult to attack with that same quality and consistency. A better player will mostly place the ball uncomfortable and not predictable with a high degree of quality time and time again. They are not at such a level if their non-attacking shots are sloppy. I was discussing first topspin vs this class of higher level players. I think this is why you believe I am say I miss MANY first loops. vs this class of player, it doesn't take to many misses to give them a win, they already have 2-3 points advantage over me before the first point. I need to make them work and pay the price if they do not give me high quality balls.

It is important to get my fundamentals as good as they can and get my consistency as high as I can, since it is a given that my landing percentage on first ball vs the crowd 1-2 levels above me is lower... I am giving them more free pints than I want. Two of those in a game is too many. They are already having an advantage in other areas and this doesn't help.

To make it short, I need to have an even higher base level of consistency for normal equal situations, and to become more fundamentally solid, so I can keep a high level of consistency vs the better players non-attacking shot, which I am of course under some more pressure. I do not want my technique to break down under pressure of players 1-2 levels above me. It is not an easy task. Plus, I have crappy hips that make it difficult to stay squatted for long.

if I want to achieve the level of the better players' level I am striving for, I need to be solid and not give up easy points to them. They are too good already. At the same time, I have to be able to pressure players of this level, or they will attack more consistent and destructively.


I think this is a very important aspect of becoming a higher level player. Such players will see the ball better, anticipate better, move more efficiently, and be in position to take advantage to have many options for the shot.

There is no magic thing I can say or hear from anyone that will get me to read the ball better in the cases where I didn't read it well enough. This is something that I need to get my brain to function better at a sub-conscious level and will take a lot of time to improve to a satisfactory level... then later will need improvement again.

This will apply to reading serves, non-attacking shots, and even the attacks.

My coaches used to say that if we missed an opening loop they would break our kneecaps. They thought that it was not okay to miss an opening loop.

I think how well you can perform your opening loop depends alot on your serve. If you serve high, with to little spin and with to little variation so they know which spin and which placement the serve will have they can make good returns. If you vary your serves alot it will be much harder for them to make quality returns. It is also important to vary the length of the serve, your short serves will be much better if you do long serves sometimes. Against not so good players i can get a serious advantage because their serves are not good enough.

When i serve i also know very often where the return is going to come, because i know that the majority put the ball there so this will make it is easier for me to make a good return. Try to understand where the return is coming and you can use this. Even more so in a individual match, or several matches over time against a certain player you will notice patterns if you are aware, so you can use this to.

I also do not think you need to have amazing much spin all the time. This can almost be good for the opponent because they know this ball will come. Here is variation also important, try to open at different places, with different spin and pace. If you always do your topspin with alot of spin it need to have very good quality, and maybe you miss more because of this.

I do not know your level, but i think you need to play at a very high level for the opponent to counterloop your opening loop successfully every time. So alot of the time maybe you can loop it in pretty safe since you know they will block, and then you can be ready for this, step out and try to loop harder or make a loop with good placement so you keep your advantage.

Maybe you do all of this, i am just speculating :)
 
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I have been injuried in my foot for a while, so i have been working on my BH. I have always wanted to be able to kill the ball with the backhand. It is fun since my backhand have always been somewhat bad and it is good that i can kill the ball with the backhand so i do not have to run forehand on everything.

For years ago i had my elbow to close to the body and almost pushed the ball forward instead of using my forearm and wrist. This is much better now.

The problem i trying to change now for the latest months is that i often have my racket to low on topspin balls. I have the racket under the ball so for me to be able to hit it i need to do the stroke upwards. This only give me spin and and a high arc. Useless if you want to kill the ball. I want to have the racket at the same high as the ball, i want to search in the ball first, so move the racket where the ball are and then i can loop forward instead over the ball instead of upward. By doing this i can play a much harder shot and i can kill the ball with my backhand.

So it have become much much better. But i really need to focus on having the racket high and looping forward. When i do not focus or in free play or match play i do the old thing, lower my racket and hit upward. Everytime i miss i also loop out, so this show me that i need to loop more forward. I am almost happy when i loop in the net. That is good, beacause then i have made a change. Much better than looping the ball out everytime i miss. I also think i can have the upper part of my body tilting a little forward. I sometimes are almost leaning backward and that can also be a reason i loop out.

I have been working on shadow playing the correct stroke, have the racket higher and loop forward with a blade at home. I will keep on doing this. It is almost to difficult to learn a new stroke with a ball, i think it takes a longer time. I will also do just looping against block so the exercise is easy and i can just work on doing the correct stroke. Harder exercises is just to difficult.

I do not know if anyone will benefit from this, but i wanted to share my progress. When i think it is somewhat good, maybe i can share a video.
 
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Playing TT and deliberately trying not to bend my knees.

https://youtu.be/whivUPVxNXQ

I have not had the time to watch the whole video so i might be wrong about this.

It is nice to see that you are playing. It must be difficult to play without bending the knees.

I think that you could work more on developing good serves and returns. With good serves, you can win more easy points direcctly from the serve and maybe get good balls to attack. I also think that if you serve smart, you can almost know where the ball is going to come and how it will be against alot of players so then you can move in advance. I also notice that you are great at blocking and i can imagine this is easier then attacking since you do not need to move as much. With good returns, especially fast long pushes you can get nice and easy balls to block.

I can also imagine it must be difficult to come correctly to the ball sometimes so it will be hard to play a hard loop with the body. Maybe you can work more on good placement, change of pace and good variation to win the points. By doing so maybe you can get a higher ball so you will have more time to attack.

I also think it would be good if you work on the tactics. That you have a playing style and try to use your strenghts. I notice you have a very nice backhand so maybe you can try to play alot of bh bh, because you will win over them there with your nice backhand. I do not know if your backhand is better than your forehand, since your forehand looked pretty good to. But if your backhand is better maybe you can serve more from the middle and have your ready stance more in the middle.

I also think you can win alot by trying to different things and see what the opponent are good and bad at. If you find out there weakness maybe you can win by playing against them and you might need to do crazy hard loops and stuff like that which might be difficult with your limited footwork.

There is also alot of patterns in tabletennis i feel. That they do a certain serve to one place all the time, return your serve the same way and so on. If you find these mabe you do not need to be able to move so fast, but can cheat and move a little in advandce. i also think you will benefit alot from trying to watch the opponent and not the ball, by doing so you will also win time and can move a little in advance.

You did not ask for any advice, but i can not help myself. Maybe you can find something useful or maybe you already are thinking about this.

I will also apologize in advance if i focus to much on your footwork. Maybe you can move much better than i think, despite your injuries. I recently had a footinjury and played basically at one spot, so i know that it is very hard to play good if you have trouble moving well.
 
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Yesterday I played at a social session at the club.
I played a total of 23 sets, so I was quite tired afterwards, but I had some good experience with singles and doubles.
Of note, I got to play against a left handed penholder with long pips in the bh side. He plays like a shakehand chopper. We had some rallies going, as he is higher level than me. One problem that I had was in executing my strategy. I know that after I loop a strong ball and then he chops it back with the long pip, the backspin to me is extremely strong, instead of keep looping the ball back harder and harder each time due to the increasing backspin, i want to just push the ball back short. However, many times when i try, the ball ends up in the net. I wonder if it is because I am doing too much of a pushing action? Am I meant to simple 'lift' the ball a bit so it goes short and over the net?
I lost 5-0 to the chopper, but there were 2 sets that I was in front with a match point but was not able to convert.

Another match, I played against a Chinese penholder who only use fh side, and won with confidence 3-0. That was surprising as I played that match after losing to the chopper.

I was happy that I went, as I got to play with some unusual styles (penhold with single side and penhold with long pips). I got some good experience.
 
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Yesterday I played at a social session at the club.
I played a total of 23 sets, so I was quite tired afterwards, but I had some good experience with singles and doubles.
Of note, I got to play against a left handed penholder with long pips in the bh side. He plays like a shakehand chopper. We had some rallies going, as he is higher level than me. One problem that I had was in executing my strategy. I know that after I loop a strong ball and then he chops it back with the long pip, the backspin to me is extremely strong, instead of keep looping the ball back harder and harder each time due to the increasing backspin, i want to just push the ball back short. However, many times when i try, the ball ends up in the net. I wonder if it is because I am doing too much of a pushing action? Am I meant to simple 'lift' the ball a bit so it goes short and over the net?
I lost 5-0 to the chopper, but there were 2 sets that I was in front with a match point but was not able to convert.

Another match, I played against a Chinese penholder who only use fh side, and won with confidence 3-0. That was surprising as I played that match after losing to the chopper.

I was happy that I went, as I got to play with some unusual styles (penhold with single side and penhold with long pips). I got some good experience.

after a heavy chop that you want to push, you have to go to the ball with the tip of the racket first. just be very relaxed, and even I know you are rather short you have to do lower your body as you do that. only when you contact the ball give a very light impulse forward. If the ball has no spin, it will prevent the ball from popping up.

Usually thats enough. if the ball has a lot lot of backspin then as you touch the ball make a very slight move up. but at our level i think 95%+ of the time its not necessary

I posted recently a video of myself practicing against my coach who is chopping. You can see what I mean.
 
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I had a great day yesterday. I was meant to attend a one day training camp with Japsko.se but I got asked if I could backfill our division 6 team. I went to the camp for the first 3h and then went straight to the league match.

We had an interesting mix: one guy is 52, myself I’m 40 and then two 13 year olds. Unsure what happened but I managed to win both of my matches by playing quite passively. I lost my double but we won the match 8-3.

Both kids (13-14) had more than 300 ranking points more than me so I earned some nice points. I was quite amazed at how naive they played. All out on everything so I won lots of points on active blocks. My serves worked really well and probably won me 3-4 points per set.
 
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@Lula you want to kill what kind of balls with your BH?

slow and high balls ?
or make a counter-kill to a fast ball ?
how far from the table are you ?

depending on all this, the answer is different

Thanks for the comment!

As long as i have the time to play the ball hard i want to try the opponent under pressure or kill the ball. If the ball is too high i will proably kill it with my forehand instead. It is more of a kill shot on an easier ball, than a counterloop. So i need to stay a little more away from the table to have the time to use the elbow, a little longer stroke to be able to get power to kill the ball. Do not have the space if i am to close to the table. But i also do not want to be to long back, since then i can not smash forehand. And i also need to choose the right kind of balls, if the ball is to difficult or to fast i need to just play it back.

I do not feel the stroke is much different against easy balls, as long as i move the arm up and down to where the ball is.
 
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I have been injuried in my foot for a while, so i have been working on my BH. I have always wanted to be able to kill the ball with the backhand. It is fun since my backhand have always been somewhat bad and it is good that i can kill the ball with the backhand so i do not have to run forehand on everything.

For years ago i had my elbow to close to the body and almost pushed the ball forward instead of using my forearm and wrist. This is much better now.

The problem i trying to change now for the latest months is that i often have my racket to low on topspin balls. I have the racket under the ball so for me to be able to hit it i need to do the stroke upwards. This only give me spin and and a high arc. Useless if you want to kill the ball. I want to have the racket at the same high as the ball, i want to search in the ball first, so move the racket where the ball are and then i can loop forward instead over the ball instead of upward. By doing this i can play a much harder shot and i can kill the ball with my backhand.

So it have become much much better. But i really need to focus on having the racket high and looping forward. When i do not focus or in free play or match play i do the old thing, lower my racket and hit upward. Everytime i miss i also loop out, so this show me that i need to loop more forward. I am almost happy when i loop in the net. That is good, beacause then i have made a change. Much better than looping the ball out everytime i miss. I also think i can have the upper part of my body tilting a little forward. I sometimes are almost leaning backward and that can also be a reason i loop out.

I have been working on shadow playing the correct stroke, have the racket higher and loop forward with a blade at home. I will keep on doing this. It is almost to difficult to learn a new stroke with a ball, i think it takes a longer time. I will also do just looping against block so the exercise is easy and i can just work on doing the correct stroke. Harder exercises is just to difficult.

I do not know if anyone will benefit from this, but i wanted to share my progress. When i think it is somewhat good, maybe i can share a video.

How is your backhand flick over the table? A coach told me to replicate the flick from behind the table as I was doing the same as you but my flick looked ok. It definitely helped me as the strokes should actually not be all that much different, if you watch Dima you can see this very clearly. But for me they were very different because I dropped bat and had too open a blade face when away from table.
 
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I've never understood why the Japanese tournaments don't have barriers between the tables?

Doesn't the ball from the adjacent tables come over and interrupt play quite a lot?

well it would cost a lot of money to buy all those barriers

As a result, even if a ball comes by, the play is usually not interrupted. I would never stop playing unless the umpire calls it, its too dangerous not to play the point. The point would be replayed only if a ball flies over the table, hits a player, or bounces just in front of him. If you see a ball passing by behind your opponent or yourself, best thing to do is to play the ball.

Everybody knows this so the play is not often interrupted as you may think
 
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