ニッタク(Nittaku) Nitaku Table Tennis Ball, International Certified Ball, Plastic, 3 Star Premium

The best Ping Pong balls in the world.

Best TT balls I have bought from Amazon. Definitely tournament worthy. Worth the extra cost.

It arrived today after ordering it through Amazon Prime, to go with my recently purchased full size table tennis. I'm always a believer in paying extra for the quality even if it's just the 3 here. It's a bit more than other options but worth the premium for some truly exciting plays this allows us to hit. Has a nice texture which adds additional grip when hit against the bat for greater spin potential, while weighted enough for a balanced bounce and sound pitch that is pleasing to the ear at a higher pitch. For newcomers, intermediates and date I say professionals, you'll find a lot to enjoy here. I started with a set of 3 to see how i found the quality. I'm now ready to buy a pack of 6! Hope this helps with your decision. Quality definitely is better than quantity. See my full review on my blog at onetechtraveller.com

I wanted some high quality balls for practice with my team mates, as we'd been using old-spec non-poly balls, then going into league matches and having to adjust to playing with better quality three-star products that give more bounce, spin and pace. These are very good, but noticeably slower than Xushaofa balls that have become the ball of choice for most clubs in our league (including mine). They are quite similar to the Joola three-star in pace, but also slower than the Butterfly. For that reason, we now mainly use the Xushaofa for practice too. As others have said, these are a little pricey and that's probably why clubs aren't buying them. They are every bit as good as the Xushaofa - speed isn't everything - but I am yet to see anyone using them in competitive play, and the price point is probably why.

Ok, this a seemed ball and up until the recent advent of seamless from the likes of 'KINGNIK (who, incidentally make ALL the seamless balls currently available), the Nittaku premium balls were considered the best. While it's true that they are very nice, spin-up easy, have a good textured-surface and are slightly heavy (while still being legal), in my experience they are NO better than the seamed balls I have bought ffrom the likes of 'DHS', 'Double-Fish', 'Yinhe', 'Giant-Dragon' et al ad infinitum. I also have no idea why some clubs now view seamless balls as 'not very good'....the current 'on-trend' club ball seams to be the Xushaofa 40+ (December 2018). As I alluded to earlier, this ball is made by the makers of the KINGNIK ball (Shanghai Minkow Co., Ltd); the latter being every bit as good and generally cheaper than the Xushaofa (if you can find them).

All three seem to be well balanced and have great bounce

I have found this ball to be a robust ball that has been my go too ball for 42 years and counting and yes the new type of plastic ball is of a high quality.

Nittaku are a leading brand in table tennis and are notably famous for producing high quality table tennis balls. It may be worth giving a little background story to these new(ish) 40+ balls. Back in 2011 the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) decided that they were to promote the usage of non-celluloid (plastic, poly) balls. The main reasoning behind this was the dangerous manufacturing process undertaken to produce celluloid balls. From the 2014 / 15 season all major events would introduce the usage of these new poly 40+ balls. One of the major problems with the new plastic / poly balls was that they could potentially be produced to be slightly larger (up to 0.5mm) than a standard 40mm celluloid ball. This is where the 40+ comes into play. It took manufactures a long time to get up to scratch with producing high quality 40+ balls. The first batch of Nittaku 40+ balls weren't that great. Nittaku really failed to get the balance right which I was very surprised by from this famous TT ball brand. This 40+ Premium ball by Nittaku is a huge improvement and by far the most stable and consistent I've used to date. ** I hope you found my brief review and photos useful **