What brand of TT balls do you prefer?

[Aizen]

Well known brands are ok, nittaku, dhs, butterfly, double fish, tibhar, xiom, joola, stiga etc.
But I don’t get some shitty brands has 3 star ittf. They doesn’t jump properly, slipping on rubber, skidding on table.
They even shouldn’t be used for training.

 

[Heming Hu]

Someone in my Skool Community asked "Ball of choice - or does it matter"?

I thought I'd share my experience and thoughts being on the pro circuit and hopefully this gives you guys good insights to the ball change since plastic balls arrived in 2014

"In the past, nittaku has been known to be of the best quality. Even today, its ball uses a more premium plastic compared to the rest. I'm not sure how much the other brands have developed or not, they seem to be quite good.

When the plastic ball first came out in 2014, they SUCKED! broke very easily, wobbly to play with, not very solid or consistent. Even from 2015-2017 those exact same model of balls improved. From 2018-2022 when I finished off the final years of my career, and on the international stage of Table Tennis, the balls dramatically became more consistent amongst different brands. I still felt nittaku was somewhat different to the rest of the other brands, but noticeably felt improvement in the double fish and DHS brand balls, with the rest being average and not great.

Is that still the case today? I'm honestly not sure and couldn't tell you".


At the end of the day, business is a huge part of sports and the sponsor of the event will get the pleasure of being ball host. I'm curious though, what has your experience been with balls?

 

[Heming Hu]

Honestly don't care much here. Other than some training balls full of skid marks that have clearly been used for over 5 years, most match grade balls play fine.
The butterfly balls have a slightly different bounce. But the new tables we have, or playing in a different venue, make much more difference.

yes, butterfly balls were notorious on the pro scene for being inconsistent as fuck in terms of its bounce. They were definitely a lot tougher on the surface too, in terms of hardness (which probably isnt a bad thing) but again, it was known for being inconsistently in its bounce. Dunno if today its still the same story, as I retired from playing in 2022

 

[Machi]

Double Fish
DHS
Yinhe

Why no butterfly 😠

 

[Gozo Aruna]

Why no butterfly 😠

Coz no one in my club plays with BTY balls. There must be a reason...

 

[Westy]

This week in a league match I had to play with andro 3s on andro tables. Honestly, it felt like another sport. The ball doesnt bounce at all. I never made so many service receive errors. I always expected the ball to jump higher, but that was not the case. Usually I play with sanwei HD, Nittaku oder DHS. The andro 3s has similar behaviour like Tibhar basic training ball when it comes to bounce. A bounce comparison from approx 50 cm between a nearly new nittaku und the andro 3s showed a clear lower bounce.

 

[CallMeZaddy]

Playing in a butterfly sponsored tournament this weekend and we're going to be using the R40+ balls. Haven't played with those in a while, but I remember they felt more "floaty" and I couldn't generate as much spin. I really like the DHS DJ40+ and the Double Fish WTT V40+(?) balls. Everyone at my club insists on playing with Nitakku even when those balls are smooth as freshly shaved balls.