Speed-gluing series part 11:
Germany’s advantage of experience

For the youth, the future has already begun. Since the 1st of January 2008 the speed glue ban started on international floor for the young generation of athletes, for adults this ban will be effected after the Olympic Games in Beijing.
For the national competitions, the speed glue ban was brought forward by the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB): since the 1st of September 2007 youth players in Germany have to be ready that their rackets will be tested in regard to harmful organic solvents.
At three national tournaments this method already took place: at DTTB Top48 cadets in Hude, at DTTB Top48 juniors and at DTTB Top16 tests were be made with the controlling system “Enez”. “All investigations have been negative”, reports DTTB general secretary Matthias Vatheuer. Furthermore all players had the opportunity for a voluntary testing of their rackets. Especially the cadets in Hude took this possibility. Due to the fact that all investigations were negative, doubts about the functionality of the Enez-box occur. ”The testers had the opinion that the box always shows the green light”, says Günter Köcher. “Because of that we did a test with a piece of paper and we put prohibited glue on it”, explained the youth secretary. The result: red. The Enez box worked well and also all investigations on the national stage were without any problems. At all three tournaments we followed the same system: in every playing round tables have been drawn from a lot and tested afterwards. The referee went to the table with the Enez-box and tested the rackets of both players. “We did not prey on the players, we just did selective tests”, says Köcher. The DTTB youth secretary is sure: ”We did better testing than the ITTF.”
The investigation system, which has been used in Seligenstadt at the German Youth Open was in fact less convincing. In the morning, players have been drawn from a lot and some hours in advance they got the information that their rackets will be tested. 30 minutes before their match they had to give their rackets away and shortly before the start of their matches they got them back. Also in Seligenstadt voluntary testing of rackets was offered and many of the participants made use of it – but here 25% of the rackets failed to be o.k.! At official investigations during the German Youth Open some rackets were also positively tested, so that some athletes, also the British youth national player Gavin Evans, had to play with another racket. 
Vatheuer guesses that the differences of the testing results can occur due to the fact that the speed glue ban was handled early on time in Germany and that everybody already got some experience with this topic. The German players know the right handling of the new equipment e.g. new rubbers need to be ventilate before using. At least many young players of other associations still have to learn a lot, but also the ITTF might ask itself, how valuable tests are, when the players already know hours before that they will be tested. Junior national coach Istvan Korpa put it in a nutshell: “Here, changes have to be effected.”


Interview: „Good practice and good material are the key”

andro coach Stephan Schulte-Kellinghaus who is working as a coach for the Western German table tennis association has experienced how the German youngsters started into the era beyond speed-gluing at the national highlight events DTTB Top48 and Top16.


Stephan, you have been at the DTTB Top16 and Top48 tournaments where speed-gluing was already forbidden for the participating cadets and youth players. What are your impressions? Is table tennis now a differently game?
No, of course not. But in the technical part, one had notice that for achieving a good topspin,you have to work more with your legs and your hips. If your racket is different and a bit more slowly, you have to strengthen the athletic component.

 

Ricardo Walther and Robin Malessa, the two andro-players, also belong to your fosterlings. How did they present themselves?
At he Top48, Robin won and Ricardo was third, at the Top 16 it was vice versa: Ricardo won and Robin was third, he just lost against Ricardo. Both of them played especially over the table, so at short-short-game, considerably better. But also in total their error rate  was lower. In the past, we have concentrated our practise on these points.

 

How long both of them play without speed-gluing?
That is an interesting story: In the West-Germany table tennis association we have already decided in summer that we will not allow speed-gluing anymore for the players of our trainings-pool...

 

Which age group is that?
This it the age from 11 to 14years. Of course, we can make just recommendations. We also recommend to our other players to stop speed-gluing as early as possible. But we explicitly opened a backdoor for two of our players: Ricardo Walther and Robin Malessa. We told both of them in summer, that we have no objections, if they want to go on with speed-gluing, because both were candidates for Youth European Championships and it was also sure that they would play in the 3rd or 2nd league of seniors.

 

How did the boys react?
Robin said: “Anyway, if I have to stop on the 1st of January, than I stop directly.”
Ricardo needed a bit more respite and then after two or three days he decided to stop directly, as well. But both of them have already played PLASMA rubbers, which have a very good quality.

 

Which problems increase during changeover?
You can see this very clearly in the rallies topspin-topspin, also at tournaments on  the national stage. The ball arrives a bit more slowly and so many players are wrong in estimating the bounce of the ball and hit him, when it is already falling down. “Particularly clay court tennis is played”. Looking at Robin and Ricardo this nearly never happened. It seemed to be good that our boys have more experience with non speed-gluing play than most of the others.
But we were not the only ones, who have reacted so early. From summer on, speed-gluing was completely forbidden for youth players in Hesse.

 

What point of view do Robin and Ricardo have today?
Generally speaking, they are very satisfied. For them the procedure of gluing were very bothering. I know, that once Robin had a relapse: At the International Portugal Youth Open he glued once. But this was more a psychological problem, because all of his opponents still glued and at this time he was not in a good shape, so he thought that otherwise he would be disadvantaged.

 

How important is the psychology concerning the speed-glue ban?
In my opinion, it is very important. My tip for all coaches: from the first, all players should have good equipment, but all of them have to learn how to handle the new equipment. The attitude is very important. I think, it is not a coincidence that especially our players reacted like that and directly stopped speed gluing last summer.  I was very impressed by the attitude of our players. Other players were not able to react like ours did. These players did not have such an attitude.

 

Did their waiver of speed gluing finally pay only  because of their advantage in experience to the rivalries?
Yes, I think so. At the national ranking tournament, Robin won two matches, which are very interesting in this context: one match against a player, who was not able to fix his rubber on the blade and another one against a player, who was complaining the whole time about his equipment and its slowness.

 

And what happened, in case a non gluing player plays against a speed gluing player?
There is an interesting statement from Nadine Bollmeier, who also belongs to the andro-Team. She says that she has also disadvantages against players, who are not speed-gluing anymore, because the bounce of the ball is different.

 

Keyword: racket investigations? Does it work?
On the national stage, controls have been done. At the West-Germany Cadet Championships two referees have been assigned, but controlls could not be done because there was no investigation equipment.  The boxes were not  available at that time.

 

Other German associations have reported about these problems as well...do they also contol the thickness of the rubbers? 
From time to time they control the thickness of the rubber. If players have rubbers on their racket, which are usually not played often, the referees also control these checking it with the ITTF list of approved rubbers.

 

The question of thickness could be interesting, in case rubbers will be tuned.
I am very annoyed that now tuner and other stuff are existing. I can understand that the companies want to make profit, but I am looking for a rule, where the players just fix their tubbers on the blades and play.

 

Maybe the rubbers are not good enough?
My impression is: the quality of the rubbers is continuously getting better. Anyway, the PLASMA rubbers are good und I heard that soon a new generation of rubbers will be produced. This one should be even better.

 

From what level do the rubbers with integrated speed-glue effect make sense? 
I had very good experiences with the new PLASMA rubbers at the talent-camps.
I saw many young children with modern techniques like Spin-Block e.g. – like one have played with speed-glued rubber. In former times that would have been impossible with non speed-glued rubbers. Especially with the backhand it is very popular to play different kind of spin-techniques and not only classical blocks.
Therefore it is absolutely great when players are able to play these techniques because the tension of the surface delivers the necessary basis for it.

 

Do you think tuners will disappear from the market?

I don’t know. But it is sure that the tuners bring two practical disadvantages:
Many players have the problem to get the same playing performances after each tuning. My colleague also gave me the feedback that many players have the problem to fix the rubber on the blade. Our players made very good experiences with the new andro glue (FREE GLUE) My wish is: take a VOC free glue, which works good, fix the rubber on the blade – and then everything is fine. Unfortunately the ITTF is not able to formulate such a rule, so that it works out well.

 

Do you think the speed-glue ban is the right way?
It is a good way and it is important that we stop the dangerous substances, but still too many backdoors exist . I hope that the new generation of rubbers is so good, that more players decide to play with these rubbers. 

 

In which direction does the development of table tennis go?

I guess that the athleticism will have more and more impact.  Furthermore, I am sure that two factors will be determining: good training and good equipment.
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