Yeah, the tables with higher friction attributes cause the ball to react more on impact but reduce the amount of spin remaining on the ball after impact with the table. The ‘slippery’ tables when the ball can ‘skid’ through don’t remove as much spin from the ball, so you have more residual spin to deal with.
Table top thickness, material type, and paint finish are factors that all contribute to how the ball reacts after impact with the table.
the above is sort of hard to get a grip on!!!
when I play on a glossy slippery table I feel that I’m not spinning the ball well, because you don’t ‘see’ as much reaction when the ball bounces, but the spin is still there.
I also think that possibly the ITTF want to increase the appeal of table tennis, not make it easier per say, but a better sport for spectators. Bigger balls, trying to reduce spin levels, maybe trying to slow the game down helping to create longer exciting rallies.
the type of table surface and properties will play quite a big part in this.
Moving back to the tackiness/grippyness subject, we all get obsessed about max this and max that!!!
a ball spinning at 6000 rpm and one spinning at 6500 rpm can we really tell the difference during play??? How much does that additional 500rpm actually make??
I think that many rubbers produce heavy heavy spin be they grippy or tacky, it’s more a case of technique of the individual that plays the biggest part.
On the other hand if you put the ‘control’ into the hands of completely similar robots playing against each other that have the same ‘limits’ but differing rubbers, then maybe you would ‘see’ the difference that the top sheets actually make. According to the study quoted the robot using the grippy rubber should produce some more spin and speed. At least I hope I’ve got this right!!!