Poly balls

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I know this is off topic, but one last thing: my coach doesn't come to my tourneys. Only my parents (I'm twelve years old). So between games, I sit down and think about what I have to do and improve by myself. But one tournament, the guy says he is in a hurry to go so can we just go and play the next game? WHILE IM SITTING ;). Oh well.
 
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That's a fantastic idea! We will review the new Stiga ball with a variety of rubbers/blades.

I have news for you guys, THE "NEW" POLY BALLS REALLY SUCK! One of the pros at SPiN brought a few DHS poly balls back from China. The ball bounced high regardless of how much spin you put on it. The ball went sort of slow, and slowed down a lot after the bounce even if it was looped heavy. It sounded cracked. It sounded like what you would imagine a PING PONG ball would sound like rather than a table tennis ball. Shots I gave that would have had a ton of spin with the current 40mm celluloid ball had what seemed like one third less spin. Because the ball bounced high and slowed down it was sort of easy to crush.

I got the feeling from hitting with it that the new poly ball will actually lower the skill set needed for high level play.

I did not play matches, I just hit with it for about 3 min. But IT WAS REALLY REALLY REALLY LAME. Sorry guys, there was no two ways around it, the ball was lame. I really could not figure out how it was slowing down so noticeably after the bounce. I was not thinking it was going to be good. But I went into it with an open mind and it was much worse than I thought it would be from some of what I have heard.
 
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I have news for you guys, THE "NEW" POLY BALLS REALLY SUCK! One of the pros at SPiN brought a few DHS poly balls back from China. The ball bounced high regardless of how much spin you put on it. The ball went sort of slow, and slowed down a lot after the bounce even if it was looped heavy. It sounded cracked. It sounded like what you would imagine a PING PONG ball would sound like rather than a table tennis ball. Shots I gave that would have had a ton of spin with the current 40mm celluloid ball had what seemed like one third less spin. Because the ball bounced high and slowed down it was sort of easy to crush.

I got the feeling from hitting with it that the new poly ball will actually lower the skill set needed for high level play.

I did not play matches, I just hit with it for about 3 min. But IT WAS REALLY REALLY REALLY LAME. Sorry guys, there was no two ways around it, the ball was lame. I really could not figure out how it was slowing down so noticeably after the bounce. I was not thinking it was going to be good. But I went into it with an open mind and it was much worse than I thought it would be from some of what I have heard.

Thanks for the review. Wang Chen doesn't even know about the new balls haha, so luckily for me I will not be changing until I have to.
 
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I know this is off topic, but one last thing: my coach doesn't come to my tourneys. Only my parents (I'm twelve years old). So between games, I sit down and think about what I have to do and improve by myself. But one tournament, the guy says he is in a hurry to go so can we just go and play the next game? WHILE IM SITTING ;). Oh well.

You tell him not to rush you. You take your time. You should be allowed time between games.

But you are right. This is very off topic and probably should be in a completely different thread or you could even make a thread of your own for this.
 
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They should make a cut like on 1st July everybody have to play the new plastic balls! There would be no discussions... I am not from this generation when we got the 40mm balls but was there also that kind of discussion?

Many countries will not start using the Poly ball and are rejecting it. I think this ball change my give the ITTF some trouble.
 
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There is so many different reviews of poly balls. Some people say it sucks. Some say its like the current balls.

I have read some reviews from new balls last month and they have said they were pretty much like current balls. But now Mr@UpSideDownCarl says they sucks.
Don't know how it's possible. Maybe they were testing different versions of new balls.

Anyway i don't think players will play with very bad quality balls ant ITTF events. At least i hope they will be good.
 
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There is so many different reviews of poly balls. Some people say it sucks. Some say its like the current balls.

I have read some reviews from new balls last month and they have said they were pretty much like current balls. But now Mr@UpSideDownCarl says they sucks.
Don't know how it's possible. Maybe they were testing different versions of new balls.

Anyway i don't think players will play with very bad quality balls ant ITTF events. At least i hope they will be good.

I also know people who, if you have six balls, 2 are three stars, 2 are 2 stars and 2 are shite (1 stars), they will not be able to tell the difference. I will be able to tell the difference between a Double Fish 3 star and a Nittaku 3 star (Double Fish is harder). So, perhaps not everyone is paying attention fully.
 
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They should make a cut like on 1st July everybody have to play the new plastic balls! There would be no discussions... I am not from this generation when we got the 40mm balls but was there also that kind of discussion?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No I don't thinks so! As I remember it we just had a date when the new balls were to be used from.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
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I also know people who, if you have six balls, 2 are three stars, 2 are 2 stars and 2 are shite (1 stars), they will not be able to tell the difference. I will be able to tell the difference between a Double Fish 3 star and a Nittaku 3 star (Double Fish is harder). So, perhaps not everyone is paying attention fully.
I know. But that guys were playing tournaments in USA so i think they were good enough to tell the different.

One of the were a chopper and the other one were looper and they both said that the ball were so much like the current balls.

Here are the reviews by them:

I just read this posts on OOAK forum and i think it's better to share it with you:

"Had a chance to play in the recent tournament in South Bend Indiana..
and during the free time in between matches, i was able to play test the new poly balls..

believe me i thought the new balls were going to feel and sound totally different but the simple fact is i really couldn't tell the difference too much..
i was playing 3 events and i was finished with 2 of them, so it was my 7th hour being there already so i couldn't play test the balls long... 2-4 mins was all the time i had with these new
40+ (plus) balls..

inspecting them i did notice some unique things..

- doing the spin test i could see that they were round.
- feeling the ball it felt like a normal ball we are used to feel, grip, texture, etc
- bounce test on racket or table i didn't see any difference..
- looking at the seams.. (DHS, Double Fish ball had center seam line. there was a seamless ball Xushaofa .. not 2 halves put together)
- hitting test was the only thing i can feel different.. might be the table, or me just waking up from my nap, but the ball kinda felt dead, not crisp, but i was being gentle in the hitting as these were the only samples there were and i didn't want to break nor mis hit and send into other matches beside me.
- the ball weight was same feeling, and bounce during the play was about the same as you would expect..
- the sound was different, nor were we hitting the ball hard
- bounce on the hits was as expected, no different

my 2 cents is there won't be much of a difference, and the size of the balls was told to me as 40mm - 40.17mm

i believe the feeling of the new balls is about the difference of you playing a celluloid ball in 80F room and then going to a room that is about 65F room, that is the difference.. that drop in ambient temperature is the only way i can explain, just a touch or less than 1 percent less in power..

the change is coming so i hope all you will make your adjustments and transitions smoothly.. best of luck..! (i personally don't think the change is going to affect our game at all)"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another one:

"I was also in South Bend for that tourney and had a chance to hit with the DHS ball. In short. The first thing I noticed was the ball was harder. You could feel it better on the racket. And being a chopper this is something I like. Spin seems to be very and I do mean very close to the same. Sound was the same. Didn't sound like a broken ball. Felt the same in your hand. In the 5 to 10 minutes I hit with it I can safely say I'm not going to worry about the change."
 
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This is really interesting. You have 2 experienced Players testing a poly ball from the same company and they tell totally different things about the balls.
Either DHS etc. are still producing poly balls with big variations or i don't know
or they are paying these people to say this :p ... just kidding
 
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This is really interesting. You have 2 experienced Players testing a poly ball from the same company and they tell totally different things about the balls.
Either DHS etc. are still producing poly balls with big variations or i don't know
That is why i think there will be balls with different qualities for sell. And i think the best ones will be used at ITTF events.
 

JHB

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I think we cannot possibly know until we get to see and play with the retail poly balls, which I guess will only be after the manufacturers have gotten properly up to speed on production. A lot of the balls which various people have tested have been pre-production samples, in some cases not ever ITTF-approved. Encouragingly Nittaku have had their Premium poly ball approved by the ITTF, and we all know how good Nittaku Premium celluloid balls are. We could say exactly the same for Stiga Optimum too. Let's consider our verdicts then, not now !
 
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Well, the one thing I know is, THE BOUNCE on the ball I was using WAS TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Not at all like a celluloid ball. Noticeably higher. It was easy to hit because of this and because of how it slowed down. The ball slowing down was, to me one of the most disconcerting things besides the spin.

Now I was NOT HITTING SOFTLY. I wanted to see what it felt like if I hit my most spinny loops. I was doing something that would have put a ton of spin on a celluloid ball. It put a decent amount. But nothing close to how much spin would have been on the celluloid ball. I was giving full acceleration to my stroke to spin the ball as much as possible. So there was no doubt about the fact that it did not spin as much. And the balls that were coming back at me felt like they did not have much spin at all.
 

JHB

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Dont forget day-to-day variations either ! I played for two-and-a-half hours this morning and I was totally gash the whole way through, the only thing I could hit the table with was the bat. Granted we were playing doubles rather than real table tennis, but still - sometimes it just happens that way.:cool:
 
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Well, the one thing I know is, THE BOUNCE on the ball I was using WAS TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Not at all like a celluloid ball. Noticeably higher. It was easy to hit because of this and because of how it slowed down. The ball slowing down was, to me one of the most disconcerting things besides the spin.

Now I was NOT HITTING SOFTLY. I wanted to see what it felt like if I hit my most spinny loops. I was doing something that would have put a ton of spin on a celluloid ball. It put a decent amount. But nothing close to how much spin would have been on the celluloid ball. I was giving full acceleration to my stroke to spin the ball as much as possible. So there was no doubt about the fact that it did not spin as much. And the balls that were coming back at me felt like they did not have much spin at all.

And you are sure you used the poly ball that has been ITTF approved? From this list? http://ittf.com/_front_page/ittf1.asp?category=balls
 
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