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!