Ma Long Endorses New Plastic Ball

Ma Long endorses the New DHS Plastic Ball!

2014 is the year where the celluloid ball will be a thing of the past. July 7th the new plastic ball will come in place in all International competitions according to the ITTF.



DHS will be sponsoring all major events including the Rio Olympics where the plastic balls will be used.

According to reports the Chinese National Team are accepting all the changes and have been testing the new balls in Beijing, Shantou and Chengdu.

Is Ma Long forced to do this? Does he like it? Will the ball be similar? What do you all think?

Have DHS put these balls on the market yet?

Originally Posted by TTHopeful

Have DHS put these balls on the market yet?

I don't know. I really want to buy some. Does anyone know where I can get any plastic balls? They don't have to be approved. Thanks!

Originally Posted by agold

Is Ma Long forced to do this? Does he like it? Will the ball be similar? What do you all think?

I think he likes the money he earned by being on the product box

OP is very misleading.

Ma Long is a DHS sponsored player, and DHS has image rights of Ma Long within it's product line up.
This got nothing to do with Ma Long endorsing anything, it is all a legal rights issue that DHS has in place.

And why should Ma Long not endorse it? The laws has been set and approved by every country that voted in favour.
Sooner or later, Ma Long and other players will need to accept it and play with it. Or he can choose to boycott and not play any tournament etc.

But if you are good enough, you can play with anything, train hard and still do well.

Originally Posted by agold

I don't know. I really want to buy some. Does anyone know where I can get any plastic balls? They don't have to be approved. Thanks!

ttnpp.com has the Palio's and the Xushaofa's. Both are not approved versions. Here are a couple of videos from Bogeyhunter playing with the Xushaofa's.

Originally Posted by Tinykin

Darn! I didn't really look closely. DHS has simply put Ma Long's image on the box for an ITTF proved 40+ ball. You are correct. Ma Long has not approved anything.
Thread title is misleading and I should read properly before commenting.

The thread title is the title of the article.

Originally Posted by agold

The thread title is the title of the article.

What article? Your OP looks more like a thread starter than oppose to article quoting.

I think it is one of those media things that wants to stir up discussions, and fact providing is really poor too.
I notice a few top notch TT media company doing this.

Now the part regarding CNT accepting the changes, is world knowledge. CNT already stated in a press release that they are not happy with the changes, but have approved the changes at ITTF AGM - I think 3 years ago already.

Not sure why so many people think this change only happen recently. The first launch date was 1 July 2012 if I recall, but got postpone to 1 July 2013, and now 1 July 2014.

CNT testing the new ball - yes, this is true from reports from Chinese media.
CNT B team has been testing the ball for a while now.
Even I have been testing prototype of these balls since Feb-Apr 2013.
In fact, I met a Chinese Taipei junior coach who stated they had a junior tournament in Feb 2013 using these balls - to check if there was any problems, so they can report back to Chinese Taipei national federaton and report to ITTF.

There is a lot of official testing from all countries all over the world - or maybe the first world TT countries at least.

Originally Posted by Tony's Table Tennis

What article? Your OP looks more like a thread starter than oppose to article quoting.

I think it is one of those media things that wants to stir up discussions, and fact providing is really poor too.
I notice a few top notch TT media company doing this.

Now the part regarding CNT accepting the changes, is world knowledge. CNT already stated in a press release that they are not happy with the changes, but have approved the changes at ITTF AGM - I think 3 years ago already.

Not sure why so many people think this change only happen recently. The first launch date was 1 July 2012 if I recall, but got postpone to 1 July 2013, and now 1 July 2014.

CNT testing the new ball - yes, this is true from reports from Chinese media.
CNT B team has been testing the ball for a while now.
Even I have been testing prototype of these balls since Feb-Apr 2013.
In fact, I met a Chinese Taipei junior coach who stated they had a junior tournament in Feb 2013 using these balls - to check if there was any problems, so they can report back to Chinese Taipei national federaton and report to ITTF.

There is a lot of official testing from all countries all over the world - or maybe the first world TT countries at least.

I wrote the article with just the title and the link. The title had quotation marks on it. Then I checked back on it and the quotation marks had gone away and the first paragraph was pasted into my thread. I'm not sure what happened. Here is the link:
http://tabletennista.com/2014/2/ma-l...-plastic-ball/

Originally Posted by agold

I wrote the article with just the title and the link. The title had quotation marks on it. Then I checked back on it and the quotation marks had gone away and the first paragraph was pasted into my thread. I'm not sure what happened. Here is the link:
http://tabletennista.com/2014/2/ma-l...-plastic-ball/

I remember this article.
Really poor article, and no where does it quote that Ma Long endorses the New Plastic Ball - only the part written by the writer - Patrick Tan.
The rest of the article is a translation from Xinmin News.

I see this as media tricks
Seen this quite a few times on that website.

If the writer can quote Ma Long have made such statements, then his article is valid.
Having a photo of Ma Long on the box, doesn't mean anything.

But like I said, i'm certain Ma Long will use these balls with no issue, so i'm purely addressing the misleading quote in your OP and in this article.