Comment by Matt Solt on January 20, 2013 at 8:42pm

Interesting turn of events... it's certainly a shame, as Mizutani is one of the most interesting players to watch. Curious to see if any others follow suit. Keep us posted if you can Matt, since you're so good at reaching the masses online.

Comment by Matt Hetherington on January 21, 2013 at 2:01am

Will be interesting to see if anybody does yes, it IS a huge commitment to make though I'd be surprised to see anyone follow suit.

Comment by Les Kayos on January 21, 2013 at 9:39am

'sup Matt?! Look man...as a player it doesn't really bother me! At the levels I play at it doesn't really make a difference...it doesn't matter how much booster I put on I'll never beat our current national champ!

I ,however, understand why Jun is doing what he's doing coz at that level the skill levels are almost even & anything illegal can mean the difference between a gold medal & a silver one.

Jun might just succeed in making the ITTF react as his stance is 'radical' & he IS right afterall.

Comment by Dmitri Fomin on January 24, 2013 at 9:38am

Problem (and blame) here lies entirely with ITTF. Not only they instituted an extremely bad new rule - no logic (how can you disallow a process? rule should deal with the state of the rubber not with the absolutely unknown things done to that rubber before the tournament), no real enforceability (forcing tons of expensive equipment on organizers), no plausible explanation (health issues, my foot) etc etc.

Of course now ITTF cannot back down (when did you hear last about bunch of bureaucrats saying we were wrong, let us correct our mistakes - especially after Sharara himself proclaiming the wonders of racket control for the last four years).

Alas, Jun will have to stay away from ProTour or change his mind and save his face after some facetious promise from ITTF to crack down on boosters even more. This will only bring worse things like already proposed lifetime ban from TT anyone whose racket fails control more than once in one year, etc etc.

Comment by George Dounas on January 24, 2013 at 2:35pm

I would like to point out something that maybe many players dont know . The whole thing with the speed glue issue was not about health . Speed glue exists from the early 80's . Isnt it strange that after 28 years of existence , suddenly speed glue and VOC's are considered hazardous from the ITTF . Let's get the facts straight . 

Cancer cannot be caused exclusively by hazardous substances . Of course im not claiming that if you inhale 1000 litres of speed glue in 20 years nothing bad will happen to you . That is common sense . Andreej Grubba didnt die just because of VOC's ... 

The TT industry was hungry for more money and there was the time and the place to introduce tensor rubbers , plus the fact that ITTF wanted the game to be more viewer friendly than it was . 
So , now we know that industry rules the game as it does in every economical situation in life . I dont know if Mizutani is totally alone in his decision (or affected by others, in higher influential positions in the game of TT) , but i dont think he will achieve boosters to be banned . Everybody knows the chinese boost and they will be the best even if they stop them from boosting

There are more important issues to solve for the ITTF , like the service rule . The olympic final was a disaster , and the men's singles quarter final also . Fans want to watch quality table tennis not some referee and the players arguing if the serve was legal or not . Even better ITTF has a difficult task to commercialize the game of table tennis in order to make it bigger and viewer friendly .

Personally i dont think boosters are much of a problem

Comment by Matt Hetherington on January 24, 2013 at 3:07pm

Interesting, I think if there is a level playing field then it is not a problem which is why I think the rule is stupid. You can't stop everyone from boosting, it's almost impossible and boosting is not physically harmful so I think the rule should just be scrapped so that everyone has the option of entering a fair situation. William Henzell actually holds a similar opinion to this one.

Comment by Ferdinand Castillo on January 24, 2013 at 8:53pm

i personally think that boosting the rubbers doesn't give the player any significant advantage any more than speed glue did, it still comes down to the skill of the player, but i admire his stance.

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