Is spin a bigger factor in table tennis compared to tennis? Its been posted on line that rafa nadal has achieved 3200 rpm in his topspin shots...

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Rafa nadal has been reported to have achieved 3200 rpm in his shot making. It's also been reported that a table tennis ball can make up to 200 rpm. A world of difference in orders of magnitude I must say. My question to the forum is why does it seem that spin plays a more influential role in table tennis compared to tennis? Experience has taught me that it took me hundreds of receive practice to not dump a backspin serve. Lol. Shhhhh. However, in casual tennis during my lunch breaks, I can easily return slices from my opponents. Much appreciated.
 
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Rafa nadal has been reported to have achieved 3200 rpm in his shot making. It's also been reported that a table tennis ball can make up to 200 rpm. A world of difference in orders of magnitude I must say. My question to the forum is why does it seem that spin plays a more influential role in table tennis compared to tennis? Experience has taught me that it took me hundreds of receive practice to not dump a backspin serve. Lol. Shhhhh. However, in casual tennis during my lunch breaks, I can easily return slices from my opponents. Much appreciated.
Because it's not 200rpm. For top players like FZD ML it's over 9000 on some shots and regularly over 8000rpm on typical attacking shots
 
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Rafa nadal has been reported to have achieved 3200 rpm in his shot making. It's also been reported that a table tennis ball can make up to 200 rpm. A world of difference in orders of magnitude I must say. My question to the forum is why does it seem that spin plays a more influential role in table tennis compared to tennis? Experience has taught me that it took me hundreds of receive practice to not dump a backspin serve. Lol. Shhhhh. However, in casual tennis during my lunch breaks, I can easily return slices from my opponents. Much appreciated.

I don't know where you get 200 rpm from. Check this out:

Screenshot 2025-01-19 at 3.08.08 PM.png


They used a high-speed camera (slow down by a factor of 120) and the calculated spin from Xu Xin's FH is 176.65 rpS (per second!!) = over 10560 rpm.

Bear in mind we are talking about the Xu Xin who had already retired for a few years. So I won't be surprised the current champs can produce >12000 rpm spin.

Full video here:
 
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Yes, a much bigger factor. Spin in tt not only effects how the ball moves through the air and bounces off the table (a greater effect than in tennis where the ball is more than 20 time heavier), but most importantly on how it bounces off the racket. Having to adjust racket angle and swing trajectory for incoming spin adds an entire dimension of complexity, and makes tt a more technically demanding sport in my opinion.
 
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Rafa nadal has been reported to have achieved 3200 rpm in his shot making. It's also been reported that a table tennis ball can make up to 200 rpm. A world of difference in orders of magnitude I must say. My question to the forum is why does it seem that spin plays a more influential role in table tennis compared to tennis? Experience has taught me that it took me hundreds of receive practice to not dump a backspin serve. Lol. Shhhhh. However, in casual tennis during my lunch breaks, I can easily return slices from my opponents. Much appreciated.
Absolutely, rubber vs strings !

Cheers
L-zr
 
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says Fair Play First
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Xu Xin once displayed 10500 rpm as measured in a staged experiment with professional apparatus. Fan Zhedong is famous for producing top spin 8200 rpm in a row.

3200 rpm is Sweden Lower table tennis leagues daily achievement for a player using the irregular hand.


Fan Zhendong illustrative power of spin.

----------------
Be erudite of everything
 
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says Fair Play First
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DEAR FELLOW MAGNUS.
Table tennis is the only sport to benefit so much from the side spin balls. You can now see a lot of balls travelling sidewise in a steep curved way. Thank you alot, dear fellow Magnus.

POOR, POOR FEDERER
As for the lawn tennis game, it is utterly impossible for a player to perform side spin.(other than on the brushing serves). Poor, poor Federer.
 
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All the above is spot on, but I'd also point out the difference the mass of the ball makes.

From memory, TT balls weigh around 2.5 grams, while tennis balls (I imagine) would weigh more than 50 grams -- or about twenty times more than a TT ball.

My high school Newtonian physics is pretty rusty, but to get the same amount of perpendicular movement through the air as a TT ball, a tennis ball would need to have an equivalent increase in spin.

In other words, Nadal would need to astronomically increase the spin on his sliced shots (more than ten orders of magnitude or more) to get anywhere near the kind of curved ball flight decent TT players can create with a heavy sidespin serve.
 
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Thank you all for your insightful and quick responses. To answer the question, where did I get my facts from... obviously not this highly educated and well informed forum. I pulled a rather unacademic maneuver and used a kids resource wink wink 😉 .
It's now 2025. Admitting any mistake on the internet is the wrong move. You should double down on your assertion and then start a conspiracy theory about how "big table tennis" has brainwashed everyone into believing it has the most spin in racket sports. Then pat yourself on the back about how everybody else are sheep and only you know the truth. Then start a podcast.
 
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