Stiga ITTF Approved Plastic/Poly Ball Review

Butt Stallion said:

Lol Dan is playing like Timo Boll, exactly the same stroke and spin and it evens looks the same, funny Timo Ball is one of the best european its a compliment

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I wished! Haha lets not be silly now Butt Stallion!

igorponger said:

Talking about tt materials is just a useless speech unless contains a decent set of numbers. yes.

--------
Through being a graduated engineer. I only trust the numbers, I love the numbers.

Human's body natural senses are fairly deceptive. No two man will feel alike, you know.

One man's softish feeling of the ball is another man's hard feeling. So is the ball speed, spin, bounce, etc.

Hence, my first and foremost necessity when reading all the reviews on table tennis materials is the exact numbers from laboratory material tests.
Numbers and numbers only will tell you whole of truth.

So far, I have only got a bulk of waterish, blank words about the plastic balls. Multitude of meaningless and obscure phrases, no numbers.


[*]BALLS MEASUREMENTS I'm LOOKING FOR.

Diameter to 0,01 mm
Mass to 0.01 g
Geometrical Hardness (standard testing machine) to 0.01 mm.

Please, take care to provide for those numbers in your reporting of the plastic balls.

Thanks.
Igor NOVICK

Building Constructions & Materials proficient.

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It is not entirely useless. When talking about TT materials, a player's experience with them is useful because it gives you an estimation of how a TT material plays. Of course different strokes, different folks.

But not all players can give specialized reviews of TT materials just like by the numbers as what you've been proposing. Heck, some cannot even interpret what a .01mm difference between TT materials. That is a very small difference. One cannot notice that in tournaments.

Dan and Tom here in TTD have done a great job in interpreting how the ball behaves based on their strokes. That is useful. That can give us useful info on how the ball plays. They have used phrases such as "we felt" , "we believe" because these are based on their own strokes.

Now if Dan and Tom did give you the measurements you're asking for, care to explain how those numbers affect the way the ball plays and how we should play with them? That is also useful.

Harvey Aquino
Concerned citizen


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk

Hi guys, Thanks for all the comments and questions! Really enjoyed making the review and testing the new balls with Dan.......I played with the new balls again yesterday and I think getting used to them won't take as long as we first thought I was getting used to how the ball behaves, it does seem like you have to take care to get the right amount of spin on your strokes but once you adjust to the slightly different bounce its not so bad!

Flatter strokes seem to be much easier with the new ball as you have slightly more time and margin for error......anyway I hope everybody can get hold of the balls and start training hard with them!

Me and Dan will be testing the new Stiga Airoc very soon, so lookout for the review soon!

Tom

It seems most of players will use now long or medium serves. If the spin is less and the bounce is higher it will be very easy to attack short serve with a lot of power.

Sali said:

It seems most of players will use now long or medium serves. If the spin is less and the bounce is higher it will be very easy to attack short serve with a lot of power.

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I don't think so. The new ball has less spin but there is still spin on it. If you serve long your opponent will smash it in your face. But if you serve short with down spin he/she will not attack it so strong. He can only flick it slowly and you will be able to counter it back.

agold said:

Thanks so much for the review! Chinese rubbers may go out of style because you have to go up so much, meaning that the sponge might need to bounce more. Maybe Adidas P7 would suit the new ball very well. I liked when Tom switched hands there in the match

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There are two reasons why Chinese rubbers will not go out of style:

1. New ball have less spin so players may switch to tacky Chinese rubbers which produce more spin that none-tacky ones.
2. Even now there are some Chinese rubbers with softer sponges like Hurricane 3.50.

But i'm agree with you about tacky rubbers with hard sponge. They may go out of style. But only maybe.

Dan said:

Good point, I found it quite difficult explaining this. Basically, the celluloid ball because it was faster it seem to shoot through the table more, and the spin kicked of the surface more forward. However when the poly ball bounced, because it was slower it seemed to land and not come through quickly giving an effect that it bounced higher.

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Dan, I think you explained this pretty decently.

I will add one thing, but, I think it is in what you said. The celluloid ball is grabbed by the surface of the table more and so the spin causes it to kick more on the bounce. In other words a heavy topspin ball will accelerate on the bounce and so it will not slow down and it will shoot forward creating a lower arc. The Poly ball's surface does not have as much friction so that, when it contacts the table, the table does not grab it hardly at all. So, with a Poly ball, a heavy topspin shot will not kick and accelerate the same way on the bounce and therefore the ball slows down more in flight. Therefore, the bounce is more up rather than forward since the topspin is not causing the ball to accelerate on the bounce.

This was the thing that was most disconcerting to me when I hit with the poly ball. The reason? It makes the ball soooooo much easier to track that a tennis player who has never played against the kind of arc and heavy spin of a good loop, would be able to track the ball much better than with a celluloid ball. Someone who had not really played table tennis at a high level will not have to adjust to curve and sidespin bounce to the same extent with the poly ball as with a celluloid ball. The poly ball just hangs up there to be crushed. It won't be hard to get used to, but the interaction of the material of the ball with the surface of the table changes things A LOT and makes things much easier in a way that I did not really like.

This is also why I wanted to see if Dan could get a backspin serve to go back to the net with the Poly ball.

Were you able to do that Dan? I guess I should get my hands on another poly ball and try myself to see if I can.

In any case, good job explaining that complex issue of how the celluloid ball bounced higher and longer in the bounce test but the poly ball bounces up more than the celluloid ball in a rally.

igorponger said:

Talking about tt materials is just a useless speech unless contains a decent set of numbers. yes.

--------
Through being a graduated engineer. I only trust the numbers, I love the numbers.

Human's body natural senses are fairly deceptive. No two man will feel alike, you know.

One man's softish feeling of the ball is another man's hard feeling. So is the ball speed, spin, bounce, etc.

Hence, my first and foremost necessity when reading all the reviews on table tennis materials is the exact numbers from laboratory material tests.
Numbers and numbers only will tell you whole of truth.

So far, I have only got a bulk of waterish, blank words about the plastic balls. Multitude of meaningless and obscure phrases, no numbers.


[*]BALLS MEASUREMENTS I'm LOOKING FOR.

Diameter to 0,01 mm
Mass to 0.01 g
Geometrical Hardness (standard testing machine) to 0.01 mm.

Please, take care to provide for those numbers in your reporting of the plastic balls.

Thanks.
Igor NOVICK

Building Constructions & Materials proficient.

Click to expand...

Ohhh this comment needs a popcorn bigtime! [emoji122] secure yourself a new ball compute it youself with numbers and learn the basic of your skills. Thats how engineer should do it.

esta é a coisa mais estúpida que eu já li, sendo arrogante a respeito de sua profissão porra

Alborz said:

I don't think so. The new ball has less spin but there is still spin on it. If you serve long your opponent will smash it in your face. But if you serve short with down spin he/she will not attack it so strong. He can only flick it slowly and you will be able to counter it back.

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So look at Fan Zhendong, he is attacking with his flick all short serves and the ball is not that slow. Some players are afraid of that, so they try quite often to change from short to long or medium. Now when the ball bounces higher and has less spin guess what FZD will do with such ball.
Beeing able to smash long serves need you to be very fast on your feet and guess how long the ball is going to be. It is never easy.

Tom said:

Hi guys, Thanks for all the comments and questions! Really enjoyed making the review and testing the new balls with Dan.......I played with the new balls again yesterday and I think getting used to them won't take as long as we first thought I was getting used to how the ball behaves, it does seem like you have to take care to get the right amount of spin on your strokes but once you adjust to the slightly different bounce its not so bad!

Flatter strokes seem to be much easier with the new ball as you have slightly more time and margin for error......anyway I hope everybody can get hold of the balls and start training hard with them!

Me and Dan will be testing the new Stiga Airoc very soon, so lookout for the review soon!

Tom

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That's positive to hear. It sounds like your getting some early practice in with that new ball Tom

Sali said:

So look at Fan Zhendong, he is attacking with his flick all short serves and the ball is not that slow. Some players are afraid of that, so they try quite often to change from short to long or medium. Now when the ball bounces higher and has less spin guess what FZD will do with such ball.
Beeing able to smash long serves need you to be very fast on your feet and guess how long the ball is going to be. It is never easy.

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Look at ZJK's legs and see his side jumps. Its not hard of top players to move fast. Long serves only work when they are surprising. If you serve long all the time you can not surprise your opponent.

Of course not all the time, but there will be significantly less short serves. There are still medium serves as well.

I had played with some chinese players who are able to make it to province or youth team B before. Basically if you serve long, it does not matter is a top or back spin. What they simply do is drive it back.

And it same as returning the ball. As long as it is long ball, they can step a side do forehand drive, or just backhand loop.

UpSideDownCarl said:

This was the thing that was most disconcerting to me when I hit with the poly ball. The reason? It makes the ball soooooo much easier to track that a tennis player who has never played against the kind of arc and heavy spin of a good loop, would be able to track the ball much better than with a celluloid ball. Someone who had not really played table tennis at a high level will not have to adjust to curve and sidespin bounce to the same extent with the poly ball as with a celluloid ball. The poly ball just hangs up there to be crushed. It won't be hard to get used to, but the interaction of the material of the ball with the surface of the table changes things A LOT and makes things much easier in a way that I did not really like.

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Carl, interesting post but I don't quite get what you are saying here. Could you simplify a little?

When you hit with a celluloid ball, because the ball surface has a certain amount of grab, the table grabs the ball so that it kicks, it accelerates big time, there is this topspin arc to the ball, and it drops fast. So, if you have not seen that, and played against that enough to really read the spin and track the arc of the ball, you will completely miss the ball because of the kick from the bounce. If you loop heavy against someone who is USATT rated 1400-1500 (so a decent player but not supper high rated), they will swing and their racket will be a few feet from where the ball is. If you put sidespin/topspin it kicks forward and to the side. If you do this to that same player, they will be too high and to the left of the ball when they swing. Because they did not read the spin and track the ball.

The new ball has a much more slick surface, there is so much less grab that the table does not grab it almost at all. It always bounces as though the ball has no spin on it. The ball always seemed to go up, not forward. When it went up, it slowed down. So you don't have to read the spin to know the arc. You don't have to think to know the arc. It is always close enough to the same arc. Because it goes higher, slows down, and does not kick almost at all, you can put heavy topspin on the ball and a recreational player who has never hit against a loop before in his life, will be able to get his racket on the ball without having to think much.

I don't so much care that a lower level player can track the ball well. I care that that skill of learning to see the spin, right off the other player's racket and watching the arc of the ball confirm that you are reading the spin correctly, which I feel is part of the art of higher level play, WILL BE LOST.

The ability to track one of those crazy sidespin loops and know it has more side than top and what you have to do to get it back, and where you have to move to in order to contact the ball, will be much less of a factor. Smacking the ball flat could end up becoming as effective as heavy loop. Which is absolutely not the case with a celluloid ball. And smacking the ball flat takes much less technique than heavy loop.

I guess this is a question for Dan, did you guys do sidespin loops? Did they kick to the side much or just hang up there after the bounce?

Tinykin said:

Carl, interesting post but I don't quite get what you are saying here. Could you simplify a little?

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By the way, one of the reasons I used the example of a tennis player, a good tennis player will see the spin, adjust to the spin, change the angle of the racket and, if they can get their racket on the ball a few times, they will start getting the ball on the table. But if you loop heavy at them from mid-distance, they will not be able to track the ball and get their racket on the ball consistently against heavy loop, for at least a week of playing a lot against heavy topspin. They already have the skills of tracking the ball and reading the spin but will miss when the ball has a lot of spin until they really get accustomed to the amount of arc and kick.

OK, cheers.

UpSideDownCarl said:

This is also why I wanted to see if Dan could get a backspin serve to go back to the net with the Poly ball.

Were you able to do that Dan? I guess I should get my hands on another poly ball and try myself to see if I can.

In any case, good job explaining that complex issue of how the celluloid ball bounced higher and longer in the bounce test but the poly ball bounces up more than the celluloid ball in a rally.

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Hey Carl,

Thanks for explaining it easier here. You are right, the celluloid kicked through more due to more spin being produced it felt. The plastic ball came through slower and dragged a touch more and felt higher.

I didn't have much time at all yesterday but here are 4 serves with the plastic ball.

Orange ball = Celluloid ball
White ball - Plastic ball


I was quite impressed with the backspin produced. From looking at the video it is quite hard to see to much difference between the two balls however it felt more lighter somehow with the celluloid ball. When the celluloid ball landed it seemed to skid that bit more and span back lower and more crisp. The plastic ball came back to the net well but slightly more clunky.

I think with some adaptation and if I contact slightly lower I would be able to serve the plastic ball more effectively.

I will try get some more videos up soon if any requests.

In terms of the side spin as you mentioned Carl, we didn't do much of this in the review however if you look at the very last point, I used a side spin forehand shot which created quite a lot of kick. So there is some good spin there but not as much as the celluloid that's for sure.

Dan said:

Hey Carl,

Thanks for explaining it easier here. You are right, the celluloid kicked through more due to more spin being produced it felt. The plastic ball came through slower and dragged a touch more and felt higher.

I didn't have much time at all yesterday but here are 4 serves with the plastic ball.

Orange ball = Celluloid ball
White ball - Plastic ball

I was quite impressed with the backspin produced. From looking at the video it is quite hard to see to much difference between the two balls however it felt more lighter somehow with the celluloid ball. When the celluloid ball landed it seemed to skid that bit more and span back lower and more crisp. The plastic ball came back to the net well but slightly more clunky.

I think with some adaptation and if I contact slightly lower I would be able to serve the plastic ball more effectively.

I will try get some more videos up soon if any requests.

In terms of the side spin as you mentioned Carl, we didn't do much of this in the review however if you look at the very last point, I used a side spin forehand shot which created quite a lot of kick. So there is some good spin there but not as much as the celluloid that's for sure.

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Awesome post Dan. Thanks for this. That answers two questions in a big way. That you can get the ball to come back to the net and that the sidespin has a pretty decent kick are both good new to me. Thanks again.

UpSideDownCarl said:

Awesome post Dan. Thanks for this. That answers two questions in a big way. That you can get the ball to come back to the net and that the sidespin has a pretty decent kick are both good new to me. Thanks again.

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Great to hear Carl! The sidespin will need to have a re look at to fullt confirm but Its somewhat decent due to last point we can see