The Olympic table tennis players are fed up. The white balls used in their matches are cracking, crumpling, and breaking. They don't bounce right. They're unpredictable. And they are slightly bigger than the balls used at the London Olympics, meaning they spin less — and less spin gives power hitters an unfair advantage over players that rely on spin.
"I think this ball is very bad," Li Ping of Qatar said after losing a match, although don't call him a sore loser; his opponent, Dimitrij Ovtcharov of Germany, agreed. The ball "makes it almost impossible to compete," he said.
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