
In the 1950s rackets that used a rubber sheet combined with an underlying sponge layer changed the game dramatically, introducing greater spin and speed. These were introduced to England by the sports goods manufacturers S.W. Hancock Ltd. The use of speed glue increased the spin and speed even further, resulting in changes to the equipment to "slow the game down cheap tennis racket".
Toward the end of 2000, the ITTF instituted several rules changes aimed at making table tennis more viable as a televised spectator sport. First, the older 38 mm (1.5 inch) balls were officially replaced by 40mm balls. This increased the ball's air resistance and effectively slowed down the game. By that time, players had begun increasing the thickness of the fast sponge layer on their rackets, which made the game excessively fast, and difficult to watch on television. Secondly, the ITTF changed from a 21 to an 11-point scoring system. discount tennis racket This was intended to make games more fast-paced and exciting. The ITTF also changed the rules on service to prevent a player from hiding the ball during service, in order to increase the average length of rallies and to reduce the server's advantage. Variants of the sport have emerged. "Large-ball" table tennis uses a 44 mm ball which slows down the game significantly. This has seen some acceptance by players who have a hard time with the extreme spins and speeds of the 40mm game. The ball's mass is 2.47 grams.
There is a move towards reviving the table tennis game that existed prior to the introduction of prince tennis racquet sponge rubber. Classic table tennis like Liha or "hardbat" table tennis players reject the speed and spin of reversed sponge rubber, preferring the 1940–60s play style, with no-sponge, short-pimpled rubber equipment, when defense is less difficult by decreasing the speed and eliminating any meaningful magnus effect of spin. Because hardbat killer shots are almost impossible to hit against a skilled player, hardbat matches focus on the strategic side of table tennis, requiring skillful maneuvering of the opponent before an attack can be successful.







