Sharara Interview on new plastic balls

[UpSideDownCarl]

I don't get it... The ITTF introduced a long, LONG ago the Time-Rule to prevent the matches lasting to long. A clear and noble cause I’m sure... but now they are trying to slow the game down? I'm not really good at math, but it sounds to me like when you slow the speed of the ball down (less ball speed sounds to me like slower and longer rally's) the result will be that matches will last longer!

The rule changes in the 1940s that were instituted to make matches not last so long were instituted because of a problem back then, when hardhat was the standard tool. Most pros back then had realized that if they just chopped, they could simply wait for the other player to mess up and win the point. The result was, at some point, a match with 1 rally that was 4 hours long. The expedite system was implemented to counteract that. If an umpire deems a match is going on too long because of defensive play, then he can implement the expedite system. In the expedite system, the server has to win the point within 13 hits, or he will forfeit the point. The purpose was to force the server to be aggressive and take the offensive.

If, today we had the problem of 4 hour rallies and 12 hour matches, they would probably not be trying to slow down the ball speed.

Also, the 11 point game was not instituted to shorten the games or matches. What was often happening in the 21 point games is that, one player would dominate with 5 serves in a row. Very quickly that player would be up by 10 points. And at a score like 14-5, the game is effectively over and there is no real need to watch more. The players would lose focus and not play as hard. And you had a lot of boring runaway games.

The idea with the 11 point game is that you had to stay focused and bring your A game the whole time because 9-3 is really only a 6 point lead. You can come back from that. 10-6 is a score that does not necessarily mean you will win. You have more pressure to convert game points into games. Whereas, with a 21 point game, there is really no way someone is going to come back from 19-5. The game was over at 15-5.

The 2 serves was to make it so that a player whose main skill was serving could not simply dominate and take 5 points in a row on serve.

So those rules were not to speed the game up but to make players have to play harder and demonstrate more skill and focus throughout the match. Even being up 3-0 in a match does not always mean you will win with an 11 point game.

 

[NDY]

• Follow the world class players from now on with EXTENDED TV coverage (that means not only their matches, but also as in a real-life soap and lots of other TV programs/show to make people world wide can identify with them).
• Use better camera angles and beter commentators who have great knowledge of the sport (are very enthousiastic about the game and know how to bring that alive in their commentary). In the sport of snooker very often the commentary is provided by previous world champions like Dennis Taylor, Steve Davis, John Parrot, Ronnie O'Sullivan and many other great players. They know how a world class player thinks like, because they were/are world class players themselves as well.
• Look at other (now) popular sports; not all of them have always been popular. Darts, snooker, (field)hockey, etc. What did they do to grow up to global popular sports?

I totally agree with you.

Something really feasible would be to improve quality of the transmissions.
I mean,why an epic match like: Chuang Chih-Yuan vs Robert Gardos at the 2014 Kuwait Open (I can't post links yet,you have to search it on youtube,sorry.)
Should not have better angles,slow motions and much better quality?
And just imagine somebody like J.O. Waldner or some other former great doing the commentary,analyzing tactics,technique,etc.

 

[Kaiwen]

I am very agree with upsidedowncarl!

we all will need to change materials, and new generation will be more expensive! it's sure!

 

[bzing]

I think while forcing players on buying new blades is not good, these changes will surely improve player's technique overall. Too many players have been dependable on their fast carbon blades and over the recent months I've got to really hate playing against players that use fast carbon blades - most of them have absolutely no truly decent technique and almost every loop from their carbon blades shoots out somewhere in the air like a rocket and if lucky sometimes will land on the table - that's an absolute madness.

From now on I only play with players that use 5 ply wood blades using a tacky rubber and I've noticed how that way matches are much more interesting so that when I play with them the rallies consist of much more clever tactics and ways of exploiting the opponent by using their range of shots, not the power of a super fast carbon blade which is ridiculous.

 

[Alborz]

I think while forcing players on buying new blades is not good, these changes will surely improve player's technique overall. Too many players have been dependable on their fast carbon blades and over the recent months I've got to really hate playing against players that use fast carbon blades - most of them have absolutely no truly decent technique and almost every loop from their carbon blades shoots out somewhere in the air like a rocket and if lucky sometimes will land on the table - that's an absolute madness.

From now on I only play with players that use 5 ply wood blades using a tacky rubber and I've noticed how that way matches are much more interesting so that when I play with them the rallies consist of much more clever tactics and ways of exploiting the opponent by using their range of shots, not the power of a super fast carbon blade which is ridiculous.

This will be good for amateur level but not for top pros. Pros have very solid technique and their game is based on their technique not their equipment. So if they start using slower rackets (that i have doubt they actually do) we will miss those super fast rallies and watching them will be boring.

ITTF tests rubbers and blades at factories right now. They just test some general features of top pros rackets at tournaments like the thickness of rubber.
They will do like this in future because they can't get a machine to every tournament and test the rackets there and the conditions like temperature of air and so are different in every city.
So they will test the rubbers and blades in factories and pros can receive faster and spinier rubbers than what we can. So they would still play with what they prefer not a slow racket and their game will not get effected by this rule (limiting the bounce of racket).

The real reason of limiting the bounce of racket is to make us buy new equipment and full the pockets of manufactures and ITTF with money.