Sarah Ansboury Defaulted as Gamma Paddle Fails PPA Tour On-Site Testing

📸 @sarahansboury

In a shocking piece of news on Saturday, it was announced during the broadcast of the men’s double semi-finals at the PPA Newport Beach Shootout that Sarah Ansboury’s Gamma Obsidian Raw Carbon 16mm paddle failed on-site paddle testing. The testing was conducted following her quarter-final match against Lina Padegimaite and Lacy Schneemann, which Ansboury/Braverman had won 11-8 and 11-9. Dave Fleming’s words on the broadcast were that the paddle “failed on-site testing for delamination.”

We have to presume that Padegimaite/Schneemann challenged the paddle but that is purely an assumption right now. The PPA confirmed on their social media that Gamma paddle failed deflection testing and that Ansboury/Braverman would be defaulted, allowing Schneemann/Padegimaite to play into the semi-finals. In watching the match back, it did not appear anyone made an immediate appeal to the referee to challenge the paddle so we’ll have to see if more information comes out about the process of testing.

This failed test comes on the heels of paddle controversy taking over the conversation at the PPA’s last stop in Utah and MLP releasing its paddle testing findings from Daytona earlier this week. Post Red Rock, there was a lot of discussion on podcasts about the paddle situation. One bigger note from this Sarah Ansboury failed test is that she uses the same paddle as Riley Newman, who was specifically named by Travis Rettenmaier on his Tennis Sucks podcast as one of a number of pros he suspected was using an illegal paddle. It is unknown to us whether Riley Newman’s paddle was challenged at any point on Saturday.

We wrote in our Red Rock paddle moratorium that it had been reported by the Kitchen the PPA would be bringing on-site testing to Newport. It is unclear what the PPA’s policy for deflection testing is right now. It is good that they are doing something about this, but they should have a publicly available written policy so that we understand what the process is, what standards they are adhering to and what the penalties are. We’ll have to assume they are using USA Pickleball standards until further standards are developed in conjunction with MLP and USAP. But hey, at least they are doing something about the issue.

We have to trust that the current PPA testing is reliable, but we bring up reliability considering Ben Johns essentially said on the Pickle Pod that deflection testing on used paddles is not that reliable. Someone and some paddle manufacturer was going to be the unfortunate recipient of the first failed on-site paddle test and it happens to be Gamma. Interestingly, Gamme is not a company that has been in the news for paddle legality and they have not generally been on the cutting edge of innovative paddle technology.

It is important that this paddle situation is getting sorted out. A default and likely loss of any prize money and ranking points earned for Ansboury is a loud message to the rest of the pros that the jig is up. While players are adamant they can see and hear when a paddle is delaminated, it is notable that Salome Devidze came out with a message on social media that the PPA informed her that her paddle in question did not fail off-site testing. Assuming that is true and the testing is reliable, it is a reminder that we cannot take everything at face value that is said about controversial topics and, personally, we could have given Salome more of the benefit of the doubt.

In terms of the impact of this first failed test on players, they will need to be more careful as to what they are using. Tyson McGuffin played the I was too focused on the match to notice my paddle had delaminated card on his most recent podcast. It won’t matter going forward whether the player is aware if this is how testing is going to be conducted. Who knows whether Sarah Ansboury was aware her paddle was towing the line of legality. What matters is that her paddle failed the test. Just like the grit issue, it will be incumbent on the players to ensure they are not playing with a paddle that will fail a deflection test. There can be broader discussions as to whether players having to self-police their paddles is the ideal system, but it has to be better than no system as the entities work to create better and more reliable paddle testing standards.

We’ll provide more information if more news trickles out over the next couple of days. Sarah Ansboury could very well be the unfortunate sacrificial lamb for a paddle she was innocently playing with. We’ll probably never know. Nevertheless, players are officially on notice that stricter paddle testing is here to stay and the system is not going to care whether it is their fault or not.

Update (12:48 am EST, April 23): Sarah Ansboury and Jillian Braverman put out a video statement on Instagram you can watch here. Ansboury says all paddles for players in the quarters were tested and her paddle was approved prior to play, but both their paddles were challenged after. They failed the post-match test. She says it is not a delamination issue but it is within that realm. Short takeaway, it seems problematic that a player can be defaulted for a paddle that was tested and passed literally right before the match was played. There is clearly more to be fleshed out with the paddle testing situation.

Update (12:40 am EST, April 23): Here is a Lucy Kovalova and Connor Pardoe update as FYIs:

🎥 @koopynation

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51 thoughts on “Sarah Ansboury Defaulted as Gamma Paddle Fails PPA Tour On-Site Testing

  • April 22, 2023 at 8:55 pm
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    This is a really good (and well written) summary/analysis. I agree that Ansboury’s disqualification will likely send shockwaves amongst the players, and reinforce that the ultimate responsibility lies with the players. I wonder if a player can request that his or her own paddle be tested on site before a match to ensure it is within the guidelines.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 3:42 am
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      This was tested beforehand and passed and then failed afterwards which I think is not fair to the player. They went out with a genuine belief their paddle as valid which it was at that point in time.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:18 am
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        That would be the case on the face of it but there may be more to it in these circumstances.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 12:46 pm
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        Braverman said it correctly, “The players are caught in the middle of this”.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 11:17 am
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      There’s more info coming out and we’re working on getting a complete picture. It does not appear straightforward

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  • April 23, 2023 at 4:36 am
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    1). Glad that testing is happening

    2). With that said, if your paddle passes testing before the match, it’s absurd to be blamed for your paddle failing a test after the match. Is the takeaway here that wear and tear is illegal?

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    • April 23, 2023 at 6:37 am
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      Pros change paddles frequently, so “wear and tear” shouldn’t be an issue. If it is, it is up to pro players to demand that their sponsors (paddle manufacturers) provide quality equipment. Passing a test prior to a match with a paddle that breaks down after a match is on both the player and the manufacturer that is providing the paddle. “I was just along for a ride with my friend, but I didn’t know he was going to rob a bank” isn’t a valid excuse. Find better friends.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:20 am
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        But you didn’t rob the bank, you got out of the car and called the police so you should be clear of all wrongdoing. She followed the rules. It’s the system that is broken. “You’re going to vote, but the closest polling station is 250 miles away, but that’s your problem for living so far away from the polling station.” So, your fault. You should have bought a house closer to the station.

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        • April 23, 2023 at 1:15 pm
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          Yes, you knew you were far away from the polling place so it’s up to you to get to said polling place. You don’t get a pass for personal decisions.

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          • April 23, 2023 at 11:21 pm
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            And you knew your friend was going to rob the bank because he was wearing a mask (or you just know your friend). Same, a personal decision. But these scenarios have nothing to do with what happened. Sarah went into the match thinking/knowing she had a good paddle. End of story.

            What may have happened, the testing was crap before the matches, just poor standards. When they get called out, the testing is much more in-depth… Maybe.

          • April 25, 2023 at 11:03 pm
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            The deflection tests conducted on the 240 paddles in Daytona seems insane. They are increasing the force applied until the paddle face deflects a given amount. In some cases that was over 90 lb force. The average was 62 lbf. That is like a small human standing on a paddle that is designed to hit 1 oz ball. This is potentially a destructive test that could be injuring paddles. Even if they passed, executing the test could decrease the time to failure. Imagine Sarah gives them a good paddle. They do the test and her paddle is now injured. She plays the match and it tests over the limit after the match. Why would we conclude it’s only the act of hitting the ball that put the paddle over the limit as opposed to the ridiculous amount of force applied to the face to execute the test? I don’t think we know for sure that it is the same test, but it was used at MLP Daytona and suggested that The 30% ADF threshold would be used going forward.

          • April 26, 2023 at 10:54 pm
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            We don’t know enough about the science to respond to this one.

      • April 24, 2023 at 12:17 pm
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        “‘I was just along for a ride with my friend, but I didn’t know he was going to rob a bank’ isn’t a valid excuse.”

        If true, it is a valid excuse. Robbery is not a strict liability crime. You do not have the requisite mens rea if you are unaware of what is about to happen.

        This is the worst analogy I have ever seen.

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      • April 25, 2023 at 8:12 am
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        players use the paddle they feel most comfortable with. That mitigates “changing paddles frequently”. they play with the one that “feels right”. That’s why Sarah took a big chance and played with a paddle that was on the verge of failing inspection. She was winning with it. And she obviously felt it was giving her an advantage. Same with Tyson. He was hitting his opponents off the court with his delaminated paddle. He was reluctant to change out a winning paddle. He only changed it out when the increasing POP off the paddle made it difficult to control the ball.

        So, this is not about the paddle wear and tear. Players could break out a new paddle every match. they don’t do this. they play with the paddle that “feels right”. to say it another way, they play with the paddle that gives them the right amount of power and control. For many pros this means playing with a HOT paddle. That was Sarah’s choice. that was Riley’s choice. that was Tyson’s choice. It’s not fair that the process “catches” some hot paddles and not others. The PPA needs to tighten up the ground rules. I am sure they are working on it.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 11:18 am
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      It may not necessarily be as absurd as it sounds depending on what may have been advised when it was tested before the match. Working on gathering more intel.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:23 pm
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        And you knew your friend was going to rob the bank because he was wearing a mask (or you just know your friend). Same, a personal decision. But these scenarios have nothing to do with what happened. Sarah went into the match thinking/knowing she had a good paddle. End of story.

        What may have happened, the testing was crap before the matches, just poor standards. When they get called out, the testing is much more in-depth… Maybe.

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  • April 23, 2023 at 6:42 am
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    I’m curious if the mandatory pre match testing is for every round beyond the quarters, too, or just once at the quarterfinal stage. If it’s feasible to do it for semis and finals as well, It would seem fair to say you can’t do post match challenges on paddles that were approved right before the game. So in that case Ansboury would have played the quarters with her approved paddle, had it tested again before semis, and be told she couldn’t use it for semis. Really rough to make pros responsible for a paddle that eliminates during a match! What if it happens in the last five minutes?

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    • April 23, 2023 at 11:19 am
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      It sounds like it was just for the quarter finals and possibly the finals. But we don’t have that confirmed. It is true that when it crosses the line of legal to illegal is unknown.

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  • April 23, 2023 at 6:49 am
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    If it was tested before the match and given back to the player, then a devious player could then go do something to it to make it illegal. Not of course this situation – just pointing out the loophole. Most equipment failures during a match are obvious – cracked ball, broken handle, edge guard comes off.

    But a delamination is not going to be obvious all the time. As we saw with Salome’s test results – noise is not a reliable clue. So it can’t be on the players to “hear” their paddle is failing during a match. I went back and did the thumb press to test for air/crackling on some of my old paddles. I also did the quarter tap test. I could not tell by sound at all. But I did feel air and hear crackling in very tiny spots the size of a dime. But during play – no way I’m going to know about those tiny spots.

    The PPA did what they could in this situation but still not a perfect solution or maybe not a reliable test method. Odd the paddle would delaminate enough in one game to fail that generous 30% allowance – but maybe it was the USAP test standards being used. Carl S from USAP seemed to indicate he would be at the venue doing the testing in his Kitchen interview. For it to debond enough to fail a test in one game indicates a “bad apple” from the manufacturing process IMHO.

    For players to always assume it is deliberate from either the player or the manufacturer is a curious attitude.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 11:20 am
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      A big question has to be reliability of testing overall. The 30% allowance does not sound like what they are using for testing. It is different but not quite sure what they are doing. But something could happen if it was very close to the legal limit and then over the course of the match became illegal

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:34 pm
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        Maybe, what happens, is the testing is crap before the matches, just poor standards and the person gets tired of testing so many paddles (Are there any standards/SOPs, is there a readout for each paddle?). When the player/paddle gets called out, the testing is much more in-depth. Maybe if Sarah’s paddle had better first testing, they may have caught a paddle going bad. JMHO 🙂

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        • April 24, 2023 at 11:55 am
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          They said they told her that the paddle may go from legal to illegal if she kept playing with it. We have confirmation from non-PPA sources that this is true as well.

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  • April 23, 2023 at 9:59 am
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    What do we know about the Gamma Obsidian other than it’s a raw carbon fiber paddle? Is it thermoformed like the other paddles that are currently under suspicion (CRBN, Legacy, Vatic, Six.Zero)? As was mentioned, Gamma wasn’t on the forefront of innovation in carbon fiber paddles (no disrespect). It would be interesting if the first paddle caught was of the more traditional (1.0) design.

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    • April 24, 2023 at 11:41 am
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      on his podcast, tyson accused riley of playing with a delaminated paddle. the same model that sarah was using that failed testing.

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      • April 24, 2023 at 12:38 pm
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        We had forgotten this but had noted Travis accused Riley of this on his podcast in our initial article

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  • April 23, 2023 at 12:38 pm
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    Interesting stuff. On the Connor Padoe statement, her paddle’s specification ‘was’ within limits when tested. You/PPA obviously are either incompetent or the system is broken (both). Now that players’ paddles are being tested before the match, why are players still able to challenge? Paddles should be tested before every match, all pro games, and then no challenges. Is Sarah Ansbourey a PPA-contracted player?

    I have zero respect for any player who challenges their opponents’ paddle after they lose. If it was so obvious, they should have challenged during the match.

    Every test should show the player, how and who performed the test, and there should be a written readout from the test for Sarah. Sure, testing is starting which is great. But if the tour groups can’t be forthcoming with all the infrastructure of testing, we can only conclude that there are no standards/SOPs set up or they are dishonest, especially the PPA. Just having two different people do the testing can make a difference. How much human error is involved? And do you really think the PPA would DQ Johns or McGuffin?

    Thank you for your time and for letting me vent on this subject. 🙂 This kind of crap that the PPA (and others) pulls just pisses me off, especially because I really like this sport and want it to progress, not regress like it is. IMHO. 🙂

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    • April 23, 2023 at 3:08 pm
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      The paddle was tested before the match and she was told that it was within the legal limits, but that is had seriously degraded and would most likely be illegal after her next match. She was given a warning to not use it, but choose to do so. She is responsible for being disqualified. Many pros have come out in support of the testing and action taken by the PPA.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 10:48 pm
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        The PPA statement changes things. We’ll have more in our takeaways.

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:37 pm
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        This is the first time I’ve heard that she got a warning. Can you offer more info?

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      • April 23, 2023 at 11:39 pm
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        Never mind, sorry. Found the info and hope it is correct.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 10:47 pm
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      There may be some flaws in the current model the way the PPA does it but there is an aspect that Ansboury had knowledge and chose to gamble. We would disagree about no respect for players who challenge opponents paddles. Also, for some context, we are pretty sure you have to wait until after the match to challenge even if you say it during the match. And you are right every result should be shown. We’ll have more on this in our Monday takeaways.

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  • April 23, 2023 at 6:28 pm
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    Very interesting that the PPA has such fine-grained data on rates of delamination.

    To be able to say that it paddle is not currently failing the test, but that a single match will likely cause it to fail the test is very impressive.

    My understanding is that most pros bring several paddles to a given tournament, so I wonder why Sarah made the choice to continue after having been warned that a particular paddle had begun to fail. Why wouldn’t she just pick another one out of the stack that gamma gives her?

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    • April 23, 2023 at 8:45 pm
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      In her statement, Sarah said she had other paddles that tested lower. So she had options.

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      • April 24, 2023 at 4:32 am
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        Thanks, that’s interesting to know. So either Sarah went to this tournament with a stack of beater paddles or even new/relatively new gammas are only good for a single match.

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        • April 24, 2023 at 11:55 am
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          Something is clearly wrong with the Gamma paddles that they are all doing this. But Riley Newman played all weekend with the same paddle. Getting all the results from testing would be best.

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    • April 23, 2023 at 10:48 pm
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      It sounds like she was told her other paddles were close to the limit as well and she played the backdraw with a non-Gamma paddle. That may be why. We’ll have to see if she says anything.

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  • April 24, 2023 at 4:59 pm
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    I have read that in table tennis they test paddles and then keep them until the match so they cannot be tampered with before they are used. I don’t think it would have solved this particular problem, but it may prevent future ones. Seems like a pretty simple thing to do.

    Also, if they were able to warn her that the paddle was degrading (and ended up being right), the testing seems pretty good.

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  • April 26, 2023 at 6:28 am
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    The Drop podcast: Dylan’s 002 paddle failed. He said he’d never know it was illegal by sound of the paddle or how fast the ball was coming off the paddle – he said there was no “giveaway”. But he was having it tested after every match because on the first test, Carl S. had warned him it was close to failing. Anna said she thought it was very noticeable with Sarah’s paddle.

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  • April 26, 2023 at 11:13 am
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    Yeah, some very interesting info from the Drop podcast.

    It seems that the best way forward (with the limited info I have) is that before some point in the tournament (as in Newport, say the quarters) everyone’s paddle is tested before each match.

    1) If your paddle passes but you are warned it might fail, then the Sarah Ansboury rule applies — you are at risk of being challenged, and if you get challenged after the match and lose the challenge, you get spanked.

    2) If your paddle passes and you are told it does not appear to be at any risk of failing, then you cannot be challenged for that match, you are GTG until the semis, when you are tested again.

    3) If your paddle fails, you are ground into soylent green. Or for the faint-hearted maybe that paddle gets ground up, and you have to submit another, until you get one that passes.

    #2 is obviously necessary because we can’t have players on pins and needles, thinking, “Maybe I shouldn’t hit this overhead so hard, it might cause my paddle to delaminate”. At some point, the equipment is Good Enough For A Single Match, otherwise it devolves into silliness, where we are testing paddles after every game? Every point? No thanks.

    There should probably have been a rollout phase before we started DQing players. I imagine many players don’t like brand new paddles, but prefer a bit of a “broken in” feel. I know this is the case for many other sports, where an athlete will get a piece of equipment broken in to a certain state that is preferred, then save it for competition, and start working on the next new piece of equipment.

    The rollout phase will allow players to see how long their paddle can last between their preferred state and an illegal state. They may find, as Sarah did, that it’s not very long at all, and they should be able to discover that information without being penalized.

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    • April 26, 2023 at 10:56 pm
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      I think they’re choosing to figure out the kinks and if some people end up getting DQ’d it’s better to have that and make sure people stop doing this. Zane mentioned something important is that before match testing means that a player could go out and modify their own paddle if they weren’t subject to a challenge. It really should just be after match testing.

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      • April 27, 2023 at 4:01 am
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        Yeah, I heard Zane mention that about pros modifying their own paddles after they’ve been approved, but I don’t think his argument was persuasive.

        First, you could have the paddles checked immediately prior to the match, leaving the pros little or no time for modification.

        Second, delaminating a paddle is not a guaranteed thing, it’s not as though you can go bang on your paddle with a hammer as Zane suggested and expect to get anything resembling a consistent result – you might make things worse. If this was a legitimate concern, we would have to outlaw Julian Arnold punching his paddle every time he makes an error, he might be delaminating it!

        Also, altering your paddle immediately prior to the match leaves you little or no time to get used to the unknown, new characteristics of the paddle. Most pros in most sports want to be very familiar with their equipment rather than discover unexpected surprises at critical times when their paycheck is on the line.

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