Plastic balls and TTX are enough. Go Jean-Michel and bring back table tennis to table tennis players.
Like seriously I clicked randomly on the podcast and I heard his idea would be to only serve with the backhand, I hope he is joking but this isn't kind of funny...
Less variety, less spin, less speed seems to be the main goal of ITTF but these caracteristics are the essence of our sport and why we like it !
This sums up my feeling pretty well.
I knew we were in trouble when Weikert was asked about the problems with the plastic balls at the Olympic Games and players complaining about those balls, and he tried to smile and pretend that there was no problems and no players were complaining.
To me, not to acknowledge that there are real problems with the plastic ball and that players at the Olympic Games definitely complained about them is totally disingenuous.
I personally don't care which plastic ball you like. I like the seamless and the Nittaku Premium. I would find the Butterfly G40+ pretty okay if they were round.
But the seamed balls that come from DHS and Double Fish are terrible.
However, regardless of being okay with Nittaku Premium, Seamless and G40+, I AM NOT OKAY with just how DIFFERENT each of those is from each other.
Back in the days of the celluloid 40mm ball, you could feel differences. Between balls from different brands. But I could train with Double Fish balls and play a tournament that used a Nittaku ball and have next to no adjustment to play with the Nittaku ball, and vice versa. But with the 40+, you really need to train with the ball they will use if you are going to play a tournament. It is a problem in and of itself that each of the balls play so differently to all the other balls. And a president who doesn't acknowledge that problem can't address it.
Sent from the Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy