[Christian Moser]

I sent following email to the ITTF-President and others:





Dear Mr. Sharara,

To start with let me thank you very much for the time you are spending in answering the questions and concerns from many players around the world on the minimum friction level issue for pimpled out rubbers.

A national association can indeed make changes to the rules, thank you also for mentioning that. However it should be pointed out that the national association can only interact within the national rules that are applicable to any national event.
The players have to stick to the rules of the ITTF for any international event.

As to the issue about frictionless long pimpled rubbers the proposal of preparing, establishing and introducing a minimum friction level has been made by the ITTF Equipment Committee.
The ITTF Board of Directors has thereafter given an official mandate to the Equipment Committee to conduct studies, gather information and finally implementing a minimum friction level later.

The Board of Directors is an ITTF committee consisting of various national representatives. However it should be noted that it is an ITTF directory.

According to the ITTF website (section “Directories”) the Board of Directors is composed of the following members:
• Executive Committee (7)
• Continental Vice Presidents (6)
• Continental Representatives (32)
• Committee Chairmen (Co-opted)
In that regard being the president of the ITTF and its widely acknowledged leader you do have the possibility to encourage and give guidelines to its members for any decision making.

Mr. Sharara, you have greatly influenced the setting up and implementing of all major changes in table tennis over the past few years. Many of these changes have been overall successful, the best example being the new scoring system up to 11 points which has certainly been beneficial to the attractiveness and TV coverage of our sport.
However the new pimples out rule will neither affect the TV or press coverage nor help table tennis in gaining even further professionalism at the top level.
It will only deprive a great number of players at the base of our sport of their favourite equipment which is – ironically – the only material used in table tennis that is totally and entirely predictable since it cannot impart spin on the ball by itself quite unlike reversed rubbers.
As to the number of defensive players who use frictionless long pimpled rubbers let me point out that there exists a large and increasing figure especially in lower leagues all over the world. Taking away their equipment would further penalise them. Due to the introduction of the 40mm ball, the reduced aspect ratio of 1.1 and the ever increasing speed and spin of blades and rubbers defensive game has become less and less effective over the last years.
Frictionless long pimples allow to return heavy topspin balls with a good backspin (albeit if the attacking player plays intelligently and just lifts the ball it will not help much either if at all). Looking at the ITTF world ranking (top 500) one cannot make out even one defensive player – among those few that are being left –who uses frictionless long pimples.
So in conclusion a frictionless long pimpled rubber is definitely not an unpredictable weapon in the hand of choppers or blockers.

I look forward to hearing from you

Best regards

Christian Moser




PS: This open letter will be published in various table tennis forums for discussion. We should like to get input especially from players who play with inverted rubbers. We do know that many attacking players love to play against frictionless long pimpled rubbers since they consider it being an advantage for their own game.
We shall keep you posted