Table tennis is used to changing equipment (bats, rubbers, sponges etc) and the ITTF has announced this week that, from July 2014 onward, there will be an introduction of ‘poly’ balls to all ITTF competitions – replacing the current celluloid balls.

As approved by the BoD 2012, the ITTF have been testing seamless ‘plastic’ balls in comparison to the celluloid balls to see if both the scientific effect and player impression of the ball is similar.

The study was conducted to find out how much speed and spin is generated when the two types of balls hit the racket under conditions that correspond to typical table tennis strokes.

The testing helped to highlight the two production methods: one by glueing two halves together, as used for celluloid balls, while the second one is a different process called rotational moulding.

The full results of the study have been published and you can find them here.