It is what it is, Suga. When I mention that some "not-so-good"-players can tell that the G40 is garbage, I'm actually quoting them, since that was the very comment I got from my clubmate back then...
About three years ago when I returned to tt, the G40 was just released and the Nittaku Premium -which is made of (some sort of) ABS, as you have pointed out- was already on the market. These were the balls that I knew (apart from the 1 star Donic practice balls, which I barely used, but our club used tu buy in buckets...) and kept in my bag. I expected quite a bit from the G40, but my impressions were very similar to the impressions which hipnotic also made: rather light, gets smooth fast/ doesn't spin that good and breaks fairly easily (compared to the NP). It's just what is is (or was).
Anyway, so one day my clubmate asked me for a ball cause he was too lazy to walk the 20 - 30m to the storage room where we keep the buckets of balls. I gave him a G40 and a NP. I didn' t really care which one they would use for the practice match. After about ten or twenty seconds he angrily threw the G40 back to me with the words "That one is garbage!" and they went on to play with the Nittaku...similar thing happened a few days or weeks later with two other guys. I for myself wouldn't put too much thought on that. I just have to smile a little bit when I think back of that little episode. By the way: I really wouldn't describe these guys as players with a good "hand-feeling".
However I do not doubt that there were TTBL clubs that used the G40. The reasons for that? I don't really know. Maybe marketing as you mentioned, i.e. the club/s might have been contractually obligated to play with the G40. Be that as it may, I admit that I do not have any insight in how things work on the national or international level.
As for Timo: I might be exaggerating a tiny tiny tiny bit, but I've been a social worker for almost ten years now and I would like to believe that I can tell (most of the time) if someone is just nervous or if he (or she) does not tell the truth. Obviously Timo is nervous in the clip, but in my opinion he is nervous because he simply knows that he is not telling the (full) truth here, although I wouldn't say that he is per se "lying". I for myself would always consider that he is under contract from Butterfly. It must have been an awkward situation for Timo for he was way more nervous than usaually during interviews or similar situations...
Since people seem to be quite forgetful and mix up stuff, i will refresh the memory.
Maybe you're right, and I surely don't know about your psychological abilities in reading body language, so i will leave this up to your interpretation and will instead rather stick to the facts, and just want to add, since this point seems to be overlooked a bit, is: when the vid came out there were either Nittaku NP, or cellulose acetat (short: CA) balls or seamless Shararaballs. We tried them at our club, but both didn't behave like celluloid balls, and since we were (actually still are) allowed to use celluloid we quickly discarded both of them.
The NP stood out by far but wasn't easily available. At least not to that time and not over here. And it was (actually still is) pretty pricey, so this wasn't really an option for our club, since we're rather small and don't have money to burn.
So when Timo says he thinks that the G40+ stands out from the others (whatever this might mean, positive and negative) i actually believe him.
And you guys shouldn't take this out of its context and rather should try getting the bigger picture.
Some might think he only said this, 'cause his sponsorship contract says so, but comparing to the Nittaku Sha, the Joola Super P, and a few more from that ball generation it really did stand out to that time.
But remember, this was before DHS started introducing the D40+ and flooding the tt-world with it.
[EDIT: i may add that after the D40+ was introduced, our club decided to choose that ball and discarded all the others]
[Emoji2]
I think I've got my point across and maybe even explained more than i wanted.
Look, i'm not going to try to convince you or anyone else here, you can interpret whatever you want all day long, but i wanted to keep the
facts straight in case someone without a preconceived opinion reads this.
Thanks.
