[Neptune]

Hello Mr. Sharara,

nice to "see" you here.

The ban of frictionless long pimples was the biggest mistake the ITTF ever made. That ban really helps nobody and the only thing it causes is a lot of trouble during the matches. Everyone knew what would happen after the ban and actually now you find lots of frictionless long pimples. A lot of players are used to play with frictionless long pimples for many years and those players are not willing to play without that material. They did spend a lot of money and time to get used to play with that kind of material. There was absolutely no need for this ban.
Now people make there own frictionless long pimples or buy them from stores (what a business). There is no method to identify those rubbers and there will be no serious method. Even if there would be a testset it wouldn't help at all. If a player after a test says "Your long pimples are illegal" the other player says " They are legal" or "They are legal. Your testset fails/ Your testset is modified/You are doing the wrong measurement" or "Your inward pimpled rubbers are boostert" and so on.... In every way you put it, trouble would be THE ONLY effect and there is absolutely no solution. Even a ban of all long pimples wouldn't help at all, because players would use anti spin rubbers or short pimles and modify them, which would be no problem at all. I have already seen modified inward pimpled rubbers with the same effect as frictionless long pimples (some players want to make sure that they must not buy new rubbers again in case of a new ban). And there is no chance to ban inward pimpled rubbers or to set a special friction level for those rubbers. With a special friction level for inward pimpled rubbers the ITTF would anger a VERY BIG AMOUNT of players and make them stop playing table tennis. That would be definitely the end for our sport!!!
I cannot believe that this is what the ITTF really wants but the situation is getting more and more out of control. The ITTF doesn't see the base no more and forgets the large variety of the sport, that makes/made table tennis so interesting for us.

The only way to stop this very frustrating situation (for all sides) would be to take back the rashly and needless ban of frictionless long pimples and allow those rubbers again.


Sorry for my bad English.

Best regards