You're Tearing Me Apart

The 2024 World Championships began today in Busan. I was supposed to go to the 2020 edition of this tournament, but some weird disease showed up and caused the event to be cancelled. It's great that South Korea will finally get to host the Worlds.

Then on February 26th and 27th will be meetings of the ITTF Council and the AGM, where elected officials will consider making a few minor changes to the rules. They will also consider a couple major changes: Council Proposition IC-14 and AGM Proposition A-05, both of which I believe will be detrimental to the sport if they are approved. The first one recreates the environment for one of the messiest situations the sport has ever seen. The story starts with the long time Korean coach . . .

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At the 1995 World Championships, the Korea Republic's Kim Taek Soo had results that were decidedly mixed.

I wasn't there, but you can read news reports about it. In the team semifinal against China, Kim beat Ma Wenge but lost to Wang Tao. China won the team contest 3-2, and would proceed to win the team final against Sweden.

Then in the singles competition, Kim Taek Soo faced Wang Tao again, in perhaps the most controversial World Championships match in the last 70 years.

The official ITTF match results show Wang Tao as the winner, and the scores were 21-18, 21-16, 21-18. But not stated is that Kim Taek Soo was the player who got 21 in each game, not Wang Tao.

Kim Taek Soo would like a moment

You can watch highlights of the match on YouTube. Speed glue, orange 38mm celluloid ball, hidden serves. Kim ran around like crazy and you can clearly see that he won the match on the court. So what happened?

In 1995, racket testing was expensive and slow, and the testing was only done after the match. Kim's racket was found to be illegal, with a solvent emission level higher than permitted, and so he was disqualified. He won the match on the court, but lost in the laboratory.

It is very rare for this to happen today. Players submit their rackets in advance, and racket testing only takes a few minutes. If a racket is found to be illegal, the player can simply play with a different, legal racket. The only time a racket is tested after a match is if the player has really screwed up and showed up late for their match. This doesn't happen in major tournaments.

If Kim Taek Soo had been given the opportunity to use a legal racket, he might still have won the match and gone on to win the tournament. Speed glue doesn't give you better footwork.

Wang Tao, both the winner and the loser

If Wang Tao had been given the opportunity to play against Kim using a legal racket, he might have become the men's singles champion that year. After all, he was the highest ranked Chinese player, and the highest ranked player left in the tournament. He automatically advanced to the semifinal due to Kim's disqualification, but I suspect he didn't permit himself to become a world champion with an asterisk. "If they tell me to play, I will play but in my heart I know I have already lost." Wang Tao lost the semifinal to his teammate Liu Guoliang in what has been described as an exhibition match.

There was a third loser in all of this: table tennis. Other sports have newsworthy disqualifications for reasons like steroids, unsportsmanlike conduct, clandestine signaling devices, etc. Using glue that's too aromatic? What kind of sport is this?

I don't care to judge what Kim did or didn't do. My concern is with the system, and the pre-match racket testing protocol we have today is superior because from a competition perspective, a post-match disqualification is a major, almost catastrophic problem. If a player has an illegal racket, tell him before the match so he can play with a legal racket. The players played (and the spectators watched) a match that didn't count. Imagine if everyone were told one hour after the Super Bowl that the losers are actually the winners. The sports books would have to institute a policy where they don't pay out pending the post-match litigation.

Unfortunately we might be going back in time. On February 26, the ITTF Council will meet and vote on Proposition IC-14, which would introduce a new racket testing method and protocol. This testing would involve disassembling the racket and examining the discrete blade and racket coverings - after the match. So perhaps we will see the Kim Taek Soo - Wang Tao situation again in an upcoming World Championships or Olympics.

You can read the details in the book of propositions, pages 20-22 and 162-178.
https://www.ittf.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2024_ITTF_Council_Propositions_EN.pdf

I was a member of the ITTF Equipment Committee for ten years, being responsible for racket coverings, and sharing responsibility for racket control. I took the photos and wrote a lot of the text in the racket control procedures (you can blame me for writing "color" rather than "colour"). I'm familiar with the techniques players use to manipulate their rackets, and a few more that they could use but haven't discovered yet. In 2023 I decided not to stand for another term in the committee.

I was still a member of the committee when they started looking into taking rackets apart. I believe the intentions are good, but throughout the development process I continued to voice my opposition while simultaneously giving them advice. They proceeded onward, and all I can do now is write about it and hope that the ITTF Council votes against the proposition.

It's the racket testers' job to pursue the players. Some players will find a new way to get an advantage, and if it's an illegal advantage, the racket testers need to find it and enforce the rules. With rubber, players look for two main advantages: racket coverings that are as thick as possible (the limit is 4.0mm), and racket coverings with higher elasticity, typically boosted with softeners.

We don't want honest players to have an equipment disadvantage, so we should do what we can to detect and prevent illegal rackets. But this proposed changed to racket control doesn't go about it the right way.

The new racket control procedure describes three things for a tester to look for on the blade of a disassembled racket. One of them is "lacquer near the handle". But having lacquer or any other material near the handle is not illegal. My personal racket has a piece of wood along the bottom edge of the rubber, not for cheating purposes, but for hand support. No player should be penalized for having extra material on the handle.

Does this chunk of wood make my racket illegal?

The other two things to check are related to a "sanded blade" - removing a strip of material to try to fake out the thickness testing device. It is true; there are players who employ these techniques to try to defeat the system. But this kind of manipulation can be detected without racket disassembly. These rackets don't meet the existing flatness requirement, and this defect can be measured without disassembling the racket. The ITTF just needs to adopt a better flatness gauge (which should be quite easy to do) and train people how to measure this. I've disqualified many rackets for this, but maybe I'm the only one.

If you sand a hollow out of your blade, I'll catch you

You don't need to dismantle the racket to measure this

The new procedure also describes measuring the thickness of the racket covering after disassembly. In principle I have no objection to this, but there are important details missing, which I will not write about here because I don't want to give more information to potential cheaters.

Here's my biggest problem with this whole thing: It does nothing to deter or detect boosting. Players will have to go through the ordeal of post-match testing and having their rackets disassembled, and yet there is no test of elasticity or chemical composition to see if the racket covering has been boosted.

It is ironic that this whole thing started as the "boostering" project. If a test for boosters were included, I might be in favor of racket disassembly. As is, the player (and racket tester) will go through all this and the only useful thing you'll learn is whether the rubber is too thick or not. Sure, it's illegal if rubber is too thick, but is it worth all of this trouble when the thickness of the rubber can already be seen with a loupe?

If this proposition passes, I expect the following:

• Very few tournaments will have racket disassembly, so nothing changes for most tournaments.
• In major tournaments, players will have their rackets dismantled post-match. We could have another Kim Taek Soo vs Wang Tao situation, and it will only happen at a big tournament.
  
• In describing things for racket testers to look for, the ITTF has now published a set of techniques that players can use to defeat the standard rubber thickness device. Players who had no intention of sanding their blades can now learn what pros do, so more will do it and the situation will become worse.
• There will be zero reduction in boosting. Players who are concerned about their boosted rubber being too thick will simply start with thinner rubber. The advantage gained by boosting is much greater than the advantage of having a thicker unboosted rubber.

If you know someone who has a vote, or know someone who knows someone who has a vote, I hope you will encourage them to oppose Proposition IC-14.
 

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The other proposition surprised me. The equipment committee and rules committee have made a proposition that will increase the rubber thickness limit.

In summary: When a racket is tested today, rubber with sponge needs to measure less than 4.05mm thick, and rubber without sponge needs to measure less than 2.05mm. The aforementioned Proposition IC-14, combined with Proposition A-05 for the AGM, has the net effect of increasing the limits to 4.10mm and 2.10mm respectively.

Thicker rubber is faster rubber. The ITTF should not be taking action that directly leads to faster rubber. This would be counterproductive to work that's been done over the last few decades:

• In the 1990s, table tennis started the process of eliminating speed glue. This had the side effect of slowing down the game a bit.
• In 2000, table tennis went through a more deliberate process of slowing down the game by increasing the ball size from 38mm to 40mm. It was complicated and a bit of an ordeal, but the sport survived and is better for it.
• Then in the 2010s the ball size increased a tiny bit more with the move to non-celluloid plastics.

That brings us to the sport we have today. From an aesthetic point of view, rallies are far superior to how it was in the past. But each time things changed, professional players were affected. A larger ball, or thicker rubber, or any other change will benefit some players and hurt others. There is an adjustment period for everyone. We can't make changes lightly.

After all of the changes that were made to slow things down, it doesn't make sense to speed things up.

Today's players are faster and stronger than they were ten years ago. Rubber technology continues to advance. If anything, the thickness limit should be reduced to counter these advances. At the professional level, today's play is just as fast as the 38mm speed glued game of the 1990s.

I can say the same about any potential change to the blade rules. People have been talking about blade liberalization, permitting new materials or thicker layers of non-wood fibers. Adding more materials will make the sport faster - you don't see companies marketing new blades or rubber as "New! Improved! 20% slower!" Technology keeps making things faster; the rules should try to counter it, not help accelerate it.

The material advances also hurt the diversity of play styles. I don't think many choppers are excited each time a new attacking blade or rubber is produced. Among world class players, the number of choppers continues to decrease.

I could go deep and argue against the technical reasons in the rationales provided (they are not logical in my opinion), but I don't know if that matters. The rationale for this new proposition doesn't say the intention is to speed up the game, but that would be the end result. I hope someone at the AGM will speak up against it.

Which Ball Should I Buy?

Players have been asking this question, one that i find a little surprising: Which table tennis ball should we be practicing with?

To me, the answer seems very simple, and i can't imagine it ever being different: Practice with whichever ball will be used at the tournament you are preparing for.

It seems so obvious, yet i often see players - including very good players - practicing with a ball that is different from the one that will be used at the competition. Even during the day of competition, i see players warming up with an orange ball when the tournament ball is white. In my opinion, this is poor preparation.

It might be a hassle to get the precise ball that will be used at the tournament, but you should be able to come close. At least use a ball that's the same color, made in the same country, of the same construction, and now, made of the same material.

(Ideally, you should be training in conditions as similar as possible - same type of table, similar flooring, time of day, altitude, etc. Some of these are hard to achieve, but getting the same type of ball shouldn't be that difficult.)

Tournament directors in domestic competitions have always been required to state the brand and color of the ball that will be used. Now they are also asked to clearly state whether it will be a celluloid or non-celluloid ball. But if you're not sure which ball your upcoming tournament will be using, you need to ask them.

If you play internationally, the ball that will be used is pretty much predetermined:

• ITTF Junior Circuit events prior to the Youth Olympic Games - Butterfly *** celluloid, usually white
• Youth Olympic Games - DHS *** celluloid, probably white
• ITTF Junior Circuit events after the Youth Olympic Games - Butterfly 40+ *** non-celluloid, white
• ITTF World Tour events - DHS 40+ *** non-celluloid, white
• North American Championships - Double Fish 40+ *** non-celluloid, white
• World Championships - Butterfly 40+ *** non-celluloid, almost certainly white

What about US tournaments?

Tournament directors can choose any approved ball as their tournament ball, and both celluloid and non-celluloid balls are approved. In theory they could even use ball X for some events and ball Y for other events. I cannot predict which ball a particular tournament director will choose, but put yourself in their shoes: If you were a tournament director, and you wanted to maximize player attendance, which would you choose?

At the moment, most US players are still using celluloid at their clubs, and it would be somewhat risky for a local tournament director to host a tournament tomorrow using non-celluloid balls. Non-celluloid balls are not sold by all major brands yet, and bulk cheap non-celluloid practice balls are even harder to find. Things will probably change as the availability of non-celluloid balls improves.

One more question that people ask: Should i buy balls from auction sites or department stores? To that i respond: If you were a ball manufacturer that produced several different grades of balls, where would you send your best ones - to the person running online auctions, to the department store, or to the specialist table tennis store?

A Lesson in Simple Mechanics

Before we start with today's lesson, here's a pop quiz. Which of these balls are not like the others?

The answer is in the photo further down the page. Skip down to it if you wish, but you are also welcome to continue reading first.

Today's lesson is about speed and spin in table tennis.

We don't measure speed correctly. In attempts to promote the sport, people sometimes cite numbers which attempt to illustrate the challenges involved in playing table tennis, and one of those numbers is the speed of the ball. Where does table tennis rank in a list of the fastest sports, or the fastest racket sports? How fast does a table tennis ball actually travel? 100 miles per hour is a high number cited; 60 mph might be more reasonable.

I believe that giving an answer in miles per hour is inadequate or counterproductive. Table tennis is clearly one of the fastest sports, and this is clear not by looking at ball velocity, but by looking at time: how much time a player has between shots, or how many shots are completed per second. A tennis ball has a higher velocity than a table tennis ball, but in table tennis there is less time between shots. It's the short amount of time that puts stress on the player, not the high velocity of the ball. Table tennis has far more shots per second than tennis, racquetball, or squash; and by that measure table tennis is the faster sport.

Similarly, we don't measure spin correctly. People cite spins in the range of 9,000 rpm (revolutions per minute), but how does rpm affect the player?

Spin is a little more complex than speed. Let's look at the primary ways that spin affects a player:

• The spin causes the ball to curve; more spin causes the ball to curve more.
• The spin kicks off the opponent's racket; more spin causes the ball to bounce off the racket more sharply.

In both cases, using rpm to describe spin is inadequate. If you compare a 40mm ball spinning at 9000 rpm with an 80mm ball spinning at 9000 rpm (all else being equal), they will behave very differently. The equator of the 80mm ball is traveling twice as fast as on the 40mm ball, and will jump off a racket twice as hard. It will also have a sharper curve through the air. It's common to use rpm as a measure of spin, but when we consider the effect of spin on a player, what really matters is the linear velocity of the equator of the spinning ball.

Why do we care?

Back in the year 2000, we switched from 38mm balls to 40mm balls. It was a widely circulated fact that the new 40mm ball would have less spin - but only if you were looking at revolutions per minute!

In fact, 40mm balls are not less spinny than 38mm balls in the measure that matters - the linear velocity of the equator. When a player strokes the ball, the tangential energy of the racket is transferred into the ball's spin. The linear velocity of the ball's equator is the same regardless of its size; all that matters is the stroke. No matter the size of the ball (but again, all else being equal), if a player applies 20 mph of tangential speed, the ball's equator will spin at 20 mph, and the ball will kick off the opponent's grippy racket accordingly. So if your goal is to make the ball jump off your opponent's racket, the size of the ball is irrelevant.

The other factor, the curve of the ball through the air, is more complicated. I don't want to get into it too much here; look up equations for the lift vortex of a spinning ball if you want details. But the conclusion is that for a given linear velocity of the equator, a larger ball will curve through the air more than a smaller one. That is, with a larger ball, the effect of spin is more pronounced than with a smaller ball for a given stroke, all else being equal. Intuitively this can be expected because the larger ball has more air resistance.

Didn't read all that? Here's the summary:

• Table tennis is a fast sport when measured in time, not velocity. Forget about miles per hour and talk about shots per second.
• For a given stroke, the effect of spin on the ball's bounce off the opponent's racket is the same regardless of ball size.
• For a given stroke, a larger ball curves more than a smaller ball.

Now for the quiz results.

Another tournament, another surprise. This time it was the TMS Midwest Regional Tournament in the NCTTA College Table Tennis League, hosted at Northwestern University. Instead of bringing the MiniRAE device to test rackets, this time I brought a variety pack of balls.

The correct answer is: The three on the left are non-celluloid, and the two on the right are 38mm. (This was a pretty easy quiz because I arranged the balls this way rather than mixing them up.)

Now, if you forward this article to your friends and say "read this article about the new ball!" you'll spoil the quiz for them. I hope you don't.

As you may know, earlier this month the ITTF approved three non-celluloid plastic balls, made by DHS, Double Fish, and XuShaofa. All three are made in China. The DHS and Double Fish balls are of the seamed variety, similar to the celluloid balls that we use. The XuShaofa ball is seamless, and this fact can be seen in the photos.

Another thing you can see in the photos is the size of the balls. If you believe the rumors on the internet, table tennis after July will be an unrecognizable sport because of how different the poly ball is compared to the celluloid ball, not just in material but in size. Now look at the photos and compare the size of the poly balls with the celluloid balls, and the size of the 40mm celluloid balls with the 38mm balls. Is there a huge difference in size?

There's also a rumor on the internet that my wife owns a patent on table tennis balls. How likely is that? (Hint: I'm not married.)

I only have one of each ball. I measured the diameters and they came out to: 40.03mm, 40.15mm, 40.17mm. The rules specify that the ball shall have a diameter of 40mm, so yes, these balls meet that requirement.

From what I understand, the process of making these balls and getting them approved was not easy. The initial balls submitted to the ITTF did not meet all the required standards, and the manufacturers had to adjust their formulations multiple times. As I had stated before, anyone who played with a prototype ball, and delivered a judgment of "the new poly ball" based on their experience with that ball, will not know what an ITTF approved poly ball plays like until they actually have an opportunity to use one of the new, approved balls. I have a few prototype XuShaofa seamless balls, and they play differently from the ITTF approved XuShaofa seamless ball.

Back to the tournament. I wanted players to perform a blind test on these balls, to see if they could detect a difference between the poly balls and the competition celluloid balls. Upon arrival I knew this would be difficult because the matches were being played using orange balls.

Plan B involved finding players who had been knocked out of the competition. Gabriel Skolnick had been drawn into the quarters against his brother Micaiah and lost, and he was willing to hit with me just for fun, because once in a while officials like to play too. The seamless XuShaofa ball has a different sound that I knew he would detect, so I only brought out the Double Fish and DHS balls. We countered. He looped, I blocked. He looped, I chopped. I looped, he blocked. Then I told him what was up.

Gabriel's teammate, Felipe Morita, had lost to Micaiah in the semis. (Micaiah would eventually win the Men's Singles event with a series of upsets.) Gabriel grabbed Felipe and they tried the poly balls. As teammates, each would be familiar with how the other plays, and this would be a better test than hitting with me.

The verdict? Both players agreed that when they tried the poly ball, they didn't notice anything unusual; it was just like a celluloid table tennis ball. When they switched to the celluloid ball, they noticed a subtle difference. When comparing the balls side by side, the flight of the poly ball was slightly different from the celluloid ball. But the feel of the ball on the racket was the same.

For reference, Felipe and Gabriel are better players than I am, but they're not world class. As more people test the new balls I'm sure there will be different impressions reported, and I can't presume to know how the game will develop as a result of the introduction of these new balls. This is just a single test.

I expect that the ball factories started production of these balls shortly after they received word that they were approved. Even so, it may take some time before new balls reach our markets. Now that I've seen that it's not a drastic change, I'm not in a terrible hurry to get them. At some point things will change, and I have hope that it will be okay.

Practical Advice on Rackets

Several months ago, I showed up at one of the Schaumburg Table Tennis Club's bi-monthly tournaments. I do this on occasion because I sometimes serve as the tournament referee, but this time was a little different because I had brought with me a MiniRAE Lite VOC detector - the standard device currently used in table tennis competitions to detect illegal chemicals in rackets. The players were a little surprised to see this serious device used at a local competition, and a couple illegal rackets were found, but otherwise it was just another tournament.

I've used the MiniRAE device in about a dozen tournaments now. It's not perfect but it's far better than the methods we used in the past, and overall I'm pretty happy with it. The readings are consistent; for the last three years, every time it's been checked for calibration, I believe it's been spot on. The only failings of the device that I've seen have been the result of user error.

I don't normally carry this thing around to small tournaments. Very few players use high VOC chemicals, and today's rubbers are pretty good without speed glue. But as a player I want to know that my opponents are following the rules - including the equipment rules - so for an honest player, having racket tests is a good thing.

Tournament officials check rackets for other things besides VOCs; in particular thickness and flatness, verifying that the rubber is authorized, making sure the rubber is properly glued and not damaged, etc.

From my experience, the two biggest reasons a racket will be ruled illegal are because of excessive thickness and excessive chemical (VOC) levels. Sometimes this is because a player is trying to cheat by adding chemicals to their rubber. But other times, it's because an honest player made a mistake at some point in preparing his or her racket. I don't think any official wants to throw out an honest player's racket, but the VOC and thickness limits set a firm line that can't be crossed. If a player takes some care in racket choice and assembly, there shouldn't be any problems. You don't need to be obsessive, you just need to know what to watch for.

• Use water based glue. Don't use rubber cement. I still hear older players advise people to use rubber cement for its ease of use and low cost. I've heard of players gluing with rubber cement in training, and then when it's tournament time they reglue the same sheet of rubber with water based glue. This is pointless because all the chemicals from the rubber cement remain in the rubber and wood.
  
  Not only does rubber cement contain illegal VOCs, it can also reduce the play quality of modern rubbers. If you insist on using rubber cement, you may as well use the classic rubbers that were popular in the 80's and 90's because the new rubbers don't work well with rubber cement. The newest high performance rubbers are more sensitive to their environment and rubber cement will often cause them to react poorly; shrinkage is one of the typical indications of damaged rubber. If you can afford today's $60 rubber, you can afford water based glue.

• Use as much glue as necessary to secure the rubber to your blade, but don't build up a massive layer of glue. If your rubber is 4.00 millimeters thick, and you use 0.05 millimeters of glue, that side will be illegal because it's too thick. Now, a responsible manufacturer probably won't sell you rubber that's 4.00 millimeters thick; their "max" offering ought to be thinner than that to provide allowance for glue thickness. But pushing the limit is not to your advantage here.

• Don't play in a tournament using brand new rubber right out of the package. The rubber manufacturing process involves VOCs, but manufacturers are expected to air out the rubbers before packaging and selling them, so in theory using brand new rubber should be okay. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers are diligently airing out every sheet of rubber like they are supposed to. In my own tests, I've opened a few dozen packages of rubber and tested them with the MiniRAE immediately. Only one failed the VOC test, and the one that failed was from a manufacturer that's not known for its quality control. All of the other rubbers I checked, coming from what I consider to be responsible rubber factories, had no problems passing the VOC test. Even so, there is no guarantee that the particular sheet of rubber that you bought is free of VOCs, and it's best to play it safe by letting your rubber air out a bit before using it.

• Pay attention to what else is in your bag. If you have a clean racket and put it in an old racket case that has absorbed chemicals, those chemicals will be transferred to your racket. If your backpack or duffel bag also has other things in it such as chemical sprays or liquids, those things can contaminate your racket.

• Don't use damaged rubber in a tournament. No cracks, no bubbles, no missing pips.

• Use voluntary racket test services. If you wait until match time to find out that your racket is illegal, it may too late. If you have any doubt whatsoever, ask the tournament referee, as he or she has the final authority as to whether your racket is legal or not; it doesn't matter what a previous official at a different tournament told you. If possible, have your racket tested before you warm up, and have your second racket tested as well. If you're a serious player you need a minimum of two rackets, because you'll be using your second racket to practice with while your primary racket is being held at the call area.

Here are two more pieces of advice regarding racket assembly, which probably won't make your racket any more or less legal, but will help maintain it better.

• Don't glue wet. The main component of water based glue is water, so when you're putting glue on your blade, you're spreading water onto it. Then if you immediately put your rubber on the blade with wet glue in between, you're sealing a layer of water into your blade because foam rubber is waterproof. Of course, pouring water onto wood results in softened or rotten wood. So make sure the glue is completely dry before you stick the rubber onto your blade. This leads to the second bit . . .

• Seal your blade. This is not strictly necessary, but I recommend it for the same reason as above. Again, as you're spreading water based glue onto a piece of wood, imagine how the glue will dry. Ideally the water in the glue will evaporate into the air, but bare wood tends to absorb water more quickly than air does, again resulting in soft or rotten wood. So it's best to protect the wood by sealing it. You can tell if your blade is sealed by how quickly glue dries on it - apply glue to both the rubber and the blade, and if the glue dries faster on the wood than on the rubber, that means the wood absorbed liquid and is not sealed.

The New Poly Ball is Coming . . . Maybe

In March 2012, the ITTF Board of Directors voted to pass the following resolution, proposed by the Executive Committee and the Athletes' Commission:

"That the new Poly balls (non-celluloid material) be used at ITTF events as of 1 July 2014. The Executive Committee may allow the use of the Poly balls, in exceptional cases, in the period between the 2014 World Championships and 1 July 2014."

Half of a celluloid ball, formed by pressing a disc into a
hemisphere. It will be trimmed, glued with another half,
and polished. Image taken from the Nittaku ball video.

Celluloid is one of the first industrial plastics, dating to the 1800s. "Poly" refers to other kinds of plastics such as polyethylene. The rules of table tennis permit the use of any kind of plastic ball, so there's no rule change required for the adoption of a new ball material. This resolution just designates a particular type of ball for a few dozen elite events.

From one perspective this is not much of a change. The direct scope only extends to ITTF events: World Title Competitions and ITTF Sanctioned tournaments, which includes the ITTF World Tour, ITTF Junior Circuit, and continental events. The ITTF already specifies a particular ball for these tournaments. For example, all World Tour events must use the DHS ball, while Junior Circuit events must use the Butterfly ball. So this resolution is in a similar vein in that it designates a ball to use, but in this case it's by material type, not brand.

But even though this resolution is directed at specific elite events, the game played by the pros is also played by aspiring pros; likewise, aspiring pros play with dedicated amateurs and weekend hacks. Even novice players want to play the same game as the professionals. A change in equipment at the top has broad effects.

Each celluloid ball is checked by hand and sent through
a gauntlet of mechanical testing devices before it gets
its final grade. Image taken from the Nittaku ball video.

At the time of this writing, every ball approved by the ITTF is made of celluloid. In the manufacturing process, celluloid is largely composed of nitrocellulose, a highly flammable material. Celluloid is not the easiest material to work with, and most historical uses of celluloid transitioned to newer plastic materials long ago, with the major exceptions being as decorative components in things like pens and musical instruments . . . and table tennis balls. If and when we stop using celluloid in table tennis, we'll be one of the last entities to do so.

Poly balls were briefly used in competitive table tennis a few decades ago, so in that sense it's not new. Poly table tennis balls are also readily available as recreational toys, but not built to the standards required for official competition. The forthcoming poly balls are expected to meet ITTF requirements and behave more like celluloid balls than older versions.

Some players and coaches have been able to acquire prototype poly balls for testing purposes. Reviews of those prototypes have been mixed. However until a brand of ball is fully tested by the ITTF in the approval process, nobody can legitimately claim that they have seen a final production set of approved balls. And nobody can truly say they know how the new ball will behave.

Personally, I would like the playing properties of the poly ball to be similar to the celluloid ball in feel, but improved in technical aspects such as roundness, durability, and regularity of hardness and bounce. I am hopeful that the use of modern materials and manufacturing processes can help lead to those improvements. However with the change in material there will probably be differences seen during play, and the more differences there are, the more time players will need to adjust to the changes.

Domestic competition does not fall under ITTF jurisdiction, and USATT tournaments could conceivably continue to use celluloid balls indefinitely, as long as there is an available supply of balls. Anyways, until there is actually an approved ball, and until that ball is available for purchase, we will continue to use celluloid balls by default.

How players, tournament directors, and USATT deal with the poly ball will depend on when it arrives, and how it performs. The fate of the poly and the celluloid ball may ultimately be decided by market forces and manufacturer decisions.


The 2013 USATT Annual Assembly will be held in Las Vegas at 7pm on Wednesday, December 18th, and all USATT members are welcome to attend. The complete program has not been determined, but I will be available to field questions about the ball or anything else.