August 5, 2011

Special Section on Ping-Pong Balls

Three-stars and two-stars and one-stars, oh my!

A couple of decades ago you could pretty much tell the star level of a ball with a couple of shots, or by simply examining it. Manufacturing simply wasn't that precise. Your typical one-star or training ball was shaped like an egg with seams the size of a Godzilla wedding ring. But times have changed. These days even training balls are pretty round and consistent, and usable for training even at the higher levels. The main advantage of a three-star ball is that they have been carefully checked, and so you know (well, usually) they are good. Training balls are usually good - but that's not a whole lot different than three-star balls. As to two-star balls, I don't think I've seen one in years - does anyone use them? Also, since training balls and one-star balls are often the same thing, the huge majority of balls used are either one-star/training balls or three-stars.

Here's a challenge. Randomly select five or so three-star balls. Then get the same number of one-star/training balls of the same brand and color. Mix them up, and hit with them. Can you really tell the difference? Only an elite player can really tell the difference in most cases. But I don't think there's that much difference anymore, at least in the ones I've used - Butterfly, Nittaku, Stiga, and JOOLA balls.

I know some players are rather finicky about the ball. Do you agree with the above?

Celluloid ping-pong balls banned?

I'm told that celluloid balls will be banned after the 2012 Olympics, replaced by seamless balls made of some other sort of plastic. The reason given is the high flammability of celluloid - apparently there have been a few accidents. I can't find info on this on the ITTF home page, so I've emailed them asking about this. If anyone can find something official on this, let me know. (I found some new rules posted on a forum, but no link to where they came from.) One other note - the new balls will be slightly wider. The current rule is 40mm, plus or minus .5 (so between 39.5 and 40.5mm). The new rule would be between 40 and 40.6mm. So after going from 38mm to 40mm a few years ago, now we'll be at about 40.3mm on average. I'm not sure of the reason for this.

Serve With the Red Side With an Orange Ball

[Note - this is a Tip of the Month I wrote years ago for USA Table Tennis.]

It’s a game of inches, and you have to use every fair and legal advantage you can get. It’s easier to see an orange ball against a black background than against a red background, so if you serve with the red side, your opponent may not see contact as well. In fact, if you push a lot with your backhand, you should consider using red on your backhand for that reason. (Unfortunately, I rarely follow this tip for serving, since I have black on my forehand, and I serve almost exclusively forehand serves. I don't flip - the advantage simply isn't large enough.)

What one can do with a ping-pong ball

Here's what Adam Bobrow does with a ping-pong ball when someone made fun of our sport. Video is 76 seconds; wait'll you see what he does with the ball 40 seconds in!

How to make a ping-pong ball

Here's a nice article (with pictures) of the manufacturing process of a ping-pong ball.

Physics of a bouncing ping-pong ball

Yes, now you can learn why a bouncing ping-pong ball ... bounces! And you don't have any technical knowledge to follow this

Flashing ping-pong ball

And now that you've learned how and why they bounce, you can start trying to figure out why these ones flash! (25 sec. video)

Videos featuring ping-pong balls

There are more in the Humorous Table Tennis Videos section.

Ping-pong ball pictures

Ping-pong ball guns

Here are nine videos that show how to make and use a ping-pong gun. Stick 'em up!

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