(Sports Focus) Players, manufacturer blast at "untrue" New York Times report

Players and the manufacturer who provides the official ball to the Olympic table tennis tournament accused a New York Times report of being "exaggerating and untrue" on Sunday.

The Aug. 12 report "A Rio Table Tennis Lament: That's the Way the Ball Crumpled" cited players as criticizing the official ball made by Chinese equipment brand Double Happiness as "subpar".

The report quoted Li Ping, a former Chinese world champion who plays for Qatar, as saying "this ball is very bad" and also cited Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov, the winner over Li in the men's singles event, as complaining that the match ball "makes it almost impossible to compete."

"It's not true," said third seeded Ovtcharov. "I never gave this interview."

Li Ping admitted being interviewed through an interpreter by a New York Times reporter but said he was misquoted.

"Yes, I talked with that reporter for about 15 minutes. I said the ITTF's (International Table Tennis Federation) changes to equipment had affected my play but I didn't complain about the match ball. I have got used to this new plastic ball," he said.

"What the reporter wrote about was untrue and he is unprofessional."

The ITTF changed the material of the ball from celluloid to plastic two years ago in an attempt to reduce the speed of the game and make the sport more viewer friendly.

Double Happiness, the match ball producer, was not happy.

"The New York Times is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. How could they exaggerate things, make up quotes and use a fake photo?" said Guan Yasong, the company production chief, pointing to a photo of crumpled balls on the report.

"Look, these balls are not official match balls and most of them were trampled by someone, not hit broken by players."

China's newly crowned men's singles champion Ma Long and second-seeded women player Feng Taiwei from Singapore said the official ball was "consistent" and "of high quality".

"I broke only one ball in my singles games and haven't broken any in five rounds of team competition," said Feng.

"I didn't break any in the games," said Ma Long, adding the bounce and trajectory of the ball are "normal".

ITTF president Thomas Weikert told reporters that the Double Happiness ball is up to the ITTF standard. "Otherwise it would never become the Olympic match ball," he said. Enditem