Abstract des Autors

One possible measure to increase the medial appeal of table tennis is to slow down the game by using bigger balls or higher nets. Usually, an empirical approach is followed to study the effect of such changes on the players and the game. In this work, a different approach is taken, namely solving numerically the equation of motion for table tennis balls for systematical, statistical studies of the impact of ball size and weight as well as of net height on the distribution functions of successful strokes. The analysis confirms the empirical observation that the change of the ball in the year 2000 from a 38-mm to a 40-mm-ball can be compensated with other parameters such that their resulting trajectory distribution functions are nearly identical. This was also observed in reality, where adaptation of the player’s technique compensated the larger ball size. A larger ball of 44 mm with small weight is one option for suppressing high velocities, coupled also to a reduction of the influence of spinning. As an alternative an increase of the net height is possible. A small increase of the net height could be one future option, where the basic character of the game is not strongly modified, but especially the influence of the service could be reduced. Verf.-Referat