Facts/Trivia/Information

I recently updated the list of places to play with a few more Bay Area options I should have added long ago.

Though I knew there were many public places to play table tennis around the world, I recently discovered there is a new twist: organized amateur competitions. It started in Barcelona and has spread to London and other European cities and towns. In addition, there is a StreetTT app and website which is helping to organize amateurs who want to compete without all the usual training and stress. Seems like a fun idea though I’m not sure the Santa Cruz area has enough public tables to put us on the map. As of last check, the towns involved were all in Europe, but I can see this spreading throughout the world.

Check out The Street Table Tennis Phenomenon for more information.

No exciting news. Just a reminder for anyone 12 and over: go get vaccinated! Then, go play some table tennis!

All the info you need.

There may not be the number of songs inspired by table tennis that there are about soccer/football, but here’s a playlist I made on YouTube. In this case, some of the songs just have the sounds of table tennis, some of them just use it for the video, and some are just dumb. There are jazz songs going way back to the 1920s and 1930s which have yet to make an appearance on YouTube. I will keep adding to the playlist and if you have any suggestions that I missed, please send me a message or post a comment below. I can’t guarantee these are all safe for work, but most of us are home at the moment.

Hope everyone is staying safe. I know we’re all craving a return to normal life and playing at the club.

A new study finds those with Parkinson’s can benefit from playing table tennis.

With some help from another table tennis player, I’ve learned that because of sponsorship, most major national and international competitions (some of 2019 & most of 2020) used or are using DHS 3-star D40+. This includes the 2020 Olympics. Butterfly is the official table – https://www.ittf.com/tournament/5177/2020-world-championships/.

Sorry for the geekiness of this, but I wondered about the weight of the “new” plastic balls. Mainly, are the Nittaku heavier than the Butterfly? So, I grabbed a friend’s calibrated scale and did some comparisons.

First, the ITTF requirements

The official rules state that the ball shall weigh 2.7g, but any weight between 2.67 and 2.77g is acceptable for any one ball. No more than 1 ball out of the 24 sampled may be outside this range. The sample mean must be between 2.69 and 2.76g.

Second, the data

My data is based on weighing 3 balls of each brand, then doing a mean. So, yes, I have a smaller quantity sample (ITTF requirements are based on 24 balls), but I’m guessing that my random three balls measurement is representative. All balls were within the mean, so the weight difference between the balls is pretty damn small. All 40+.

Butterfly: 2.739g
Nittaku: 2.710g
DHS white: 2.755g
Andro: 2.747g
DHS orange: 2.714g

Not only was I wrong, but the Nittaku were the lightest of all.

The folks at Joola (which I now know is pronounced Yola) have a new robot in the works, the JOOLA Infinity, that looks great for the home user. Hard to know if it will live up to the hype, but the technology has improved enough to not require huge robots and give a larger diversity of serves.