April 3, 2013
Update on the Plastic Ball
As some of you know, the ITTF has plans to replace the celluloid ball with a new plastic one. (Yes, celluloid is a type of plastic, but let's not get technical.) This is apparently because they believe the celluloid ball is too flammable, causing problems in shipping. (Put in "Plastic ball" in the search engine on the left to see previous articles on this topic.)
Readers, feel free to comment below with your opinions and any links you have on this topic. This could be a big change to our sport.
ITTF Coach John Olsen was able to try them out this past week. Below is his report, and here's the picture he took of the "new" plastic ball, where you can see the seam.
I recently attending the March 2013 Stellan and Angie Bengtsson training camp at the Willamette Table Tennis Club in Salem, Oregon. The subject of the new plastic balls came up, and Stellan had a surprise for us. Not only did he have one of the plastic balls passed out at the 2012 Worlds, there was also a new one he had received from Japan just a couple of months ago.
First up was the "old" plastic ball. The first thing you notice is that this ball is seamless. There were no markings on it, but Stellan said it had come from DHS. As others have described, the sound it makes when it bounces was just awful, like it was badly cracked. The surface was very smooth, similar to how a Nittaku will get after much playing. Stellan couldn't remember if it was just worn or had always been that way. The ball was also fractionally larger than the current balls, what we play with now is just under 40 mm and Stellan said these plastic balls are slightly over 40mm. We didn't have any way to measure them accurately, but if you held a regular and a plastic ball in your hand, you could see a small difference in size. Hitting with the seamless ball felt like playing at high altitude, spin had significantly less effect on bringing it down. I couldn't tell if it was the size difference, the lack of texture or some other factor like weight that was causing the lack of spin effect. It also felt slower, but this could just be a subjective opinion on my part. One surprise was that, even with the terrible sound, it did bounce higher. We did some side-by-side drop tests, and the "old" seamless ball had a significantly higher bounce than a regular ball. I can't comment on how fragile it was, I mostly hit medium speed loops against a block.
The "new" plastic ball has a seam! There were no markings on this ball either, and Stellan did not know which company in Japan had manufactured it. Both plastic balls appeared to be the same size. The "new" one had a much more normal texture on the surface and sounded similar to a normal ball. The new plastic ball played closer to a celluloid ball than the seamless did, but still seemed to have less spin and felt a little slower. We didn't do a bounce test, but I didn't notice anything unusual when I was hitting, unlike with the seamless ball.
ITTF Presidency
Long-time ITTF President Adham Sharara has competition. Stefano Bosi of Italy, the current president of the European Table Tennis Union, announced plans to run against him in the upcoming ITTF election. Here's an article from Table Tennista on this, which says that "Bosi criticized the lack of transparency and the strategy of ITTF to help continents to improve their level."
Amazingly, the ITTF has had only six presidents since its founding in 1926 - see list below. Here's info on all six. I met the last two. President Xu's son, Xu Huazhang, was a member of the Chinese National Team when he came to the U.S. for most of the 1990s, achieving a rating at one point of 2777 while getting a degree in computer science at University of Maryland. He and I shared a house for a few years. When Huazhang introduced me to his father at the Worlds in China one year, President Xu gave me a watch with his picture on it! (I just spent 20 minutes trying to find that watch, but couldn't. I've got table tennis mementos lying about all over the place; I just put it on my todo list to organize them. I'll find that watch.) I believe Xu is still president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association.
- Ivor Montagu, 1926-1967
- H. Roy Evans, 1967-1987
- Ichiro Ogimura, 1987-1994
- Lollo Hammarlund, 1994-1995
- Xu Yinsheng, 1995-1999
- Adham Sharara, 1999-present
2013 USA College Table Tennis National Championships
Here's the home page for the upcoming College Championships, to be held in Rockford, IL, April 12-14.
Table Tennis Played with the Foot
Here's a picture of an armless player who plays with his racket held in his foot. Caption: "Never give up on your dreams."
Interview with Joo Se Hyuk
Here's an interview with Joo Se Hyuk of South Korea (just out this morning), the best defensive player in the world. He was a Men's Singles finalist at the 2003 World Championships. Currently ranked #12 in the world, he's been as high as #5.
Chris O'Dowd Plays Ping Pong
Here's an article from Table Tennis Nation on actor Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids, This is 40) and his table tennis. Unfortunately, it includes this statement from O'Dowd: "Ping-Pong is one of those sports where you don't have to have any fitness level." I hope to get him into one of my training camps and see how long that attitude lasts!!!
World Team Classic Top 10 Shots
Here's the video (3:46). Some of the shots and rallies are replayed in slow motion.
Crazy Japanese Table Tennis Stuff
Here's a video (9:47) showing Japanese players doing crazy things, such as using human faces as targets, spinny serves that curve around objects, playing on improvised tables (small roughly one-foot square tables about 6-8 feet apart with a net in between - here's a picture), and lots of other stuff.
Non-Table Tennis - After Death Anthology
"After Death," an anthology of fantasy and horror stories about what happens after death, is out, and on sale at Amazon. It includes my story, "The Devil's Backbone." It's the story of an ice cream man who is killed and pulled into the ground by an incredibly gigantic hand, which turns out to be the Devil's, who literally jams him down his throat and (from the inside) onto his equally gigantic backbone, where there is an entire city of lost souls. How can he escape? (Here's my science fiction & fantasy page.)
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