Modern rubbers are killing the rotation in the topspin play

[jk1980]

I would not invalidate the point of the rubbers being "at fault" for the less spinny game. Remember that the equipment you play will influence what and how you learn to play. If it is significantly easier to win points by "powerlooping" with little spin, then that is what you are getting used to. There is this guy in one of the clubs i frequent who relearned the game with XiomVega X as rubber and even though that rubber is spinny enough, he does power loop 90% of the time. If that is enough for him to win points against the pushes he gets 99% of the time who should blame him for ending the point early with half power loop half smash? from the people he plays against i am the only one that actually applies backspin to the pushes so he does gift me 3 to 5 points per set simply by him not being able to loop my long push. If he started off with a less easy to generate power/speed with rubber he probably would have learned to spin first instead of resorting to power.

We do see similar patterns when i play against some of the youngsters from the youth and the women from the women team. in general the game is much less spin focussed there and they always watch their rubber in disbelieve if their loop technique that just works fine against no spin or very low backspin fails.

 

[J-fed]

I'd say missing long is the ideal type of problem to have for youth players who are being coached.

It means they're committing to shots properly, but probably not brushing the ball or closing the angle enough on the shot - both are easily corrected.

With coaching, they will adapt over time and get more consistent at landing their shots. More importantly, youth players need to enjoy the game to stay motivated, which will certainly make them much more motivated in the long term. Classic rubbers are boring, tensors are fun!

It’s a great POV too

 

[Tyce]

Interesting, ruminating on this.

I think it's a fair point to say that overriding spin has become a much more important skill than purely applying a lot of it.
Also, perhaps I'm just too stuck in the old mindset of using spin over power, and that could be a fair point as to why I'm not getting what I want out of most tensor rubbers.

There's just someting magical about producing a heavy-ass loop and seeing it dip down just on the white line, but chasing that might be as useless as chasing super hard third ball finishers all the time. After all, most progress is found in the basics: being in the right place, playing the ball with control and placing the ball accurately.

 

[Sriver1]

Bigger ball plus plastic almost killed the spin. This leds to play close to the table and powerloop every ball. We should go back to a smaller ball to bring back style variety.
It was fun when had to face different playing styles.

 

[vvk1]

Smaller ball plus plastic almost killed the spin. This leds to play close to the table and powerloop every ball. We should go back to a smaller ball to bring back style variety.
It was fun when had to face different playing styles.

"Bigger" ball plus plastic ...

 

[jonol]

This thread has me thinking it would be really interesting to see a Spinsight comparison between celluloid vs. plastic and different ball sizes.

Classic vs modern rubbers on the different types as well.

 

[darucla]

Not taking any side here, but I would like to add the table to the mix. I feel that of the tables I play on, the newest, made by Tibhar, are both the shiniest, and the fastest. I much prefer the older Butterfly tables, which seem to grip the ball better, and thus react to spin more positively. BTW, I am an old 75 year-old, so probably up for abuse from young kids, but on the other hand, I have only been playing for 10 years, and currently have Zyre-03 2.7 on my FH, with very good results.

 

[ttarc]

Not taking any side here, but I would like to add the table to the mix. I feel that of the tables I play on, the newest, made by Tibhar, are both the shiniest, and the fastest. I much prefer the older Butterfly tables, which seem to grip the ball better, and thus react to spin more positively. BTW, I am an old 75 year-old, so probably up for abuse from young kids, but on the other hand, I have only been playing for 10 years, and currently have Zyre-03 2.7 on my FH, with very good results.

ITTF finally requires a friction test and puts the tables in three ranges based on the coefficient of friction (I has the lowest CoF, III the highest) 1) (that's not the type shown in the list on https://equipment.ittf.com/#/equipment/tables one has to click on each table to see the friction range...)

1) M1: tables https://equipment.ittf.com/#/equipment/manuals

I wouldn't say that it's purely rubbers. It seems to me that any slow heavy spin that rises too high over the net can easily be clobbered through now. I think the game has moved towards removal of time from the opponent more than spin. I only played with the old ball for 1-2 years before the new ball but ai remember the old ball fizzing with spin and arc.

There are two seemingly contradictory findings:
1. without spin: 1) compared 40 mm celluloid with 40 mm seamed and seamless ABS balls. Bounce height: seamless > seamed (Nittaku > DHS) > celluloid. 38 mm celluloid vs 40 mm celluloid are/were around the same I would guess.
2. with spin: 2) compared the "peak height after impact" on he table with spin and found that the plastic ball peaked lower (around 1.1 cm or ~0.43" less).

1) Effect of table tennis balls with different materials and structures on the hardness and elasticity https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11025803/
2) https://www.researchgate.net/public...c_responses_of_elite_versus_sub-elite_players