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 »

What do you think about illegal serving in matches?

November 18, 2008 — alannolan

Are you one of the “old school”, maybe brought up playing with a hard bat, or pimples out/no sponge? Do you serve by sweeping the ball straight off your hand? Or do you throw the ball backwards onto your bat from a cupped hand?

Or are you someone who sticks to the letter of the law, throwing the ball up high and straight, without any spin, and giving both your opponent and the umpire a clear view of the bat and ball at all times?

In practice, I guess most of us fall between these two extremes, but there are players out there (yes, in our League, and even in our club) whose game seems to depend on gaining an unfair advantage from serves which don’t comply with the Service Law as adopted by the ITTF and the ETTA.

The question is – does it matter? Does it matter in a local league such as ours, or is it only relevant in the Olympics? Is it more important that younger players serve legally because they will be forced to do so when playing for their county or country? If young players have to conform, why shouldn’t everyone?

And where does the responsibility for enforcement lie – with the coaches, or the team captains, or the umpires, or the League management committee? Should the League be making greater efforts to encourage legal serving? Would it be a sign of such intent if the Service Law was reinstated in next year’s League handbook? Should the League tell clubs to enforce the rules rigorously both internally and when umpiring matches? Or should it simply “turn a blind eye”?

You can let us know your views on this always thorny topic in two ways: firstly VOTE in our new Poll on the left of the page, and secondly by submitting a Comment in reply to this post. Please, do let us know your views.

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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 »

Let’s play table tennis!

February 16, 2008 — alannolan

In the 2006-7 season, 25 teams competed in 3 divisions; in 2007-8, 28 teams started, but this became 27 after only a few weeks. Our club entered 2 additional teams and both Argyle and Formby Holy Trinity entered one; North Meols dropped a team. The 1st and 2nd divisions now have 9 and 8 teams respectively, while division 3 has 10. An improvement, certainly, but it could be better.

Two of the four new teams consist of juniors, and another (Southport ‘E’) consists of elderly more mature players, mainly new to the competitive game. Their lack of experience hasn’t dimmed their enthusiasm, and both young and old have improved considerably during the first half of the season. Without these extra teams, the league would have faced the possibility of shrinking further, to only 2 divisions of 12 or 13 teams. Many of the top players also compete in Liverpool, and if their season got too crowded the Southport League would be the one to suffer, with some players and teams dropping out altogether.

I believe deliberate expansion is the only way to break out of this spiral. Other clubs need to be bold enough to field additional teams of less experienced players – if enough new teams entered the league in the lowest division, it would have the following benefits:

(a) produce a more evenly balanced and competitive Division 3,
(b) enable more teams to move up into divisions 1 and 2 to give a full fixture programme,
(c) provide a training ground for younger players to get experience without suffering heavy defeats,
(d) provide opportunities for older people to play competitively, again without suffering heavy defeats.

I think some other clubs are currently taking a very short-term view of their situation: their better players are reluctant to play in the lower divisions because they don’t get a decent game; they may even be reluctant to have less able players in their teams. This discourages the younger or less able players and eventually there will be fewer young players coming through to the higher divisions and the game will finally peter out.

10 or 20 years ago, there were around 10 divisions in the Southport League. We may never get back to that scenario, but the future of the game does depend on us all doing our best to promote it and to actively encourage others to join in the fun.

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