What a racket!

September 30, 2009 — admin

A short quiz to start off with…

Q. What can the blade of a table tennis bat be made from? Glass? Steel? Polystyrene? Ceramic? Reconstituted cardboard? Anything at all?
A. None of these. At least not 100%.

Q. What can the racket covering be made from? Sandpaper? Paper? Bubble-wrap? Polythene? Cotton?
A. None of these.

Concerning the blade

Rule 2.04.02 of the ITTF handbook regulations states:

At least 85% of the blade by thickness shall be of natural wood; an adhesive layer within the blade may be reinforced with fibrous material such as carbon fibre, glass fibre or compressed paper, but shall not be thicker than 7.5% of the total thickness or 0.35mm, whichever is the smaller.

I guess most people will use rackets that conform to this rule – it’s not easy to buy one that doesn’t conform and it’s too much trouble to make one yourself!

But what about the covering?

Many of you may not realise that there is an officially published list of allowed racket coverings, i.e. rubbers.

The list of allowed rubbers is published on the ITTF website and the official list is published as a .pdf regularly (April and October). This list may also be downloaded from the ITTF website. The rules also have something to say about racket coverings. In particular, Rule 2.04.03 has this to say:

2.04.03  A side of the blade used for striking the ball shall be covered with either ordinary pimpled rubber, with pimples outwards having a total thickness including adhesive of not more than 2.0mm, or sandwich rubber, with pimples inwards or outwards, having a total thickness including adhesive of not more than 4.0mm.

2.04.03.01  Ordinary pimpled rubber is a single layer of non-cellular rubber, natural or synthetic, with pimples evenly distributed over its surface at a density of not less than 10 per cm2 and not more than 30 per cm2.

2.04.03.02  Sandwich rubber is a single layer of cellular rubber covered with a single outer layer of ordinary pimpled rubber, the thickness of the pimpled rubber not being more than 2.0mm.

How can anyone tell if the rubbers are allowed or not? More help from the official ITTF list document:

How to acknowledge a racket covering from this List:
1. Make certain that you have the correct list (see date of validity, they are published twice a year, in April and October.
Pdf files to be found on our website at all times: www.ittf.com).
2. The supplier and brand names as well as the ITTF logo and eventually ITTF number should be clearly visible on the rubber.
3. These names should appear in the List. If in doubt, check the images/pictures on the ITTF web site.

So, there should be no excuse for players using blades with a honeycomb centre, or one covered with unlabelled rubber, or unapproved rubber.

It’s not racket science, you know!

Posted in advice, equipment, opinion. No Comments »

Backhand Banana Flick Return of Serve

October 5, 2008 — alannolan

Gregg Letts has produced another tutorial, with video, for your entertainment and education. Enjoy!

Table Tennis/ Ping-Pong Basic Strokes – Backhand Banana Flick Return of Serve.

Posted in advice, videos. No Comments »

Lessons in life

August 22, 2008 — alannolan

Greg Letts is an above average Australian player ( ranked 32 in the Commonwealth in 2005) who writes a table tennis blog. Any table tennis player could learn from his musings on the philosophy of life, based on his table tennis experiences.

I’ll just pick out a few gems. Firstly for the ‘oldies’ among us…

  • The kids of today are the champions of tomorrow. Sooner or later they will overtake you.
    • But with cunning and experience, you can put off that day as long as possible!
  • There will always be those who embrace change, those who fight against it, and those who feel things were better 20 years ago.
    • Over time, you will be in each of those categories at least once!

and some things we all need to remember during the coming season…

  • The goal is to hit one more ball on the table than your opponent – whether other people like the way you do it, or with what equipment, doesn’t matter. There are no points given for style.
  • Win or lose, give a firm handshake and a sincere “Thank you”.

Think about it!

Posted in advice. No Comments »

Who said, “The more I practise, the luckier I get”?

August 1, 2008 — alannolan

Well, clearly it was a golfer! Most people credit this comment to Gary Player or Arnold Palmer, but Lee Trevino and Tom Watson also get mentioned as possible sources. It was supposedly in response to a spectator’s wisecrack about a lucky shot in holing out from a bunker. But is there anything more to it, and could it apply to table tennis?

We’ve all played against opponents who seem to get more than their fair share of net points or edges, and we tend to think they’re rather lucky. On the other hand, when we get an edge, we regard it as a well placed shot and a richly deserved point. Can this really be the case? Or is there a way to become as lucky as our opponents and still play good shots?

Maybe there is. If “practice makes perfect”, then perhaps we should be practising aiming at the edges or keeping the ball low over the net to better our chances of getting more of those “lucky” points. The better players hit their shots with greater accuracy, and guess what? this accuracy isn’t pure luck! Hours and hours of practice lie behind this ability to place the ball where they want it, with the speed and spin they choose.

So, if you want to become a luckier player, get down to the college on a Thursday evening over the summer and practise, practise, practise. If you want to develop a good “edge” shot, practise hitting the ball “down the line”, within 6 inches of the edge. The more consistently you can place the ball withing that corridor, the more chance that you’ll get a few extra edge points. Similarly, to get a few more net shots, you need to practise some defensive push/chop shots, keeping the ball within an inch or two of the top of the net.

Put in sufficient practice and the luck will surely follow!

Posted in advice, archives, newcomers, opinion, practice nights. Tags: . No Comments »

Feeding time?

February 18, 2008 — admin

Here’s a quick tip if you want to keep up to date with articles posted on this website: why not use an “RSS feed“?

“What’s one of those when it’s at home?” you may well ask! OK, stay with me.illustration of Entries RSS icon link

It’s a way of “subscribing” to the website so that you are fed a notification whenever an article or comment is posted. To subscribe, all you need to do is click on the “Entries RSS” link or the “Comments RSS” link near the top of the page; then follow the instructions to subscribe to the feed, using a feed reader, such as Google Reader, Outlook, My Yahoo, or Bloglines, etc. Subsequently, when you need to check for any new articles or comments, just open up your feed reader.

Administrator

Posted in advice. No Comments »

The Long and the Short of it – Pushing!

November 9, 2007 — alannolan

The most basic stroke, and the most frequently used one, is the push. Whether your best winning shot is a vicious forehand smash or a super-spin loop or a swerving spin serve that hits the edge, you still need a bread-and-butter shot in your armoury. For most people, this should be the solid foundation of your game because without a dependable push shot, you’ll never get enough chances to hit your special winner anyway!

The push isn’t just for getting the ball back over the net – though that’s no bad thing in itself. It is also the basis of the heavy chop return, and, if used with subtle variations, is a useful way to create an opening for a winning attack.

Greg Letts has written an article about the merits of Pushing Long versus Pushing Short and it is well worth a read

Alan

Posted in advice. No Comments »

The Service Law

September 7, 2007 — alannolan

Legal and Illegal servesFor all our readers (and sticklers for detail!), there is an excellent article by Greg Letts on how to serve legally in table tennis. This is just one of many informative items posted by Greg on his regular blog on “tabletennis.about.com“.

Just look at The Service Law page.

Posted in advice. No Comments »
«
»