"Loop beats chop, chop beats block, and block beats drive" - old Chinese table tennis saying.
Older readers will probably be aware of the old Chinese table tennis proverb quoted above. For those of you who haven't heard of this saying before, it was a widely known back in the 1970's (I believe!) and 1980's (where I first heard it mentioned).

While it seems like a ridiculous statement when viewed in the light of modern elite table tennis where speedy topspin dominates, back in the days before speed glue it was considered a table tennis truism.

The top Chinese pips out hitter/blockers were beating the European loopers, who in turn were on top of most of the choppers of the day. I'm not sure if the best choppers were actually beating the pips out hitter/blockers, but since the Chinese had most of the best pips out hitters and choppers, and many of the matches between Chinese back then were decided in advance, it's entirely possible but hard to tell.

Rock/Paper/Scissors Video Game Battles

This proverb bears a great deal of similarity to the common game of rock/paper/scissors, where rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock. The premise of this simple game has often been used in video games by designers, where they design characters in the games that have an advantage over one or more other types of characters, but are weak against certain other character types. In these type of games, individual battles between two players will be unbalanced since one type of character will usually have the advantage over another type of character, but in the overall scheme of things it all evens out as each character will play against all the other character types.

Everybody is Equal

Some game designers prefer another approach, where each type of player character is relatively equally balanced, so that the skill of the player is the main factor in determining the winner.

And so if each individual battle is fairly evenly balanced, the overall results of a character will be fairly balanced too, with skill being the deciding factor in a player's results.

Rouges are Over Powdered

Occasionally, game designers make a mistake in balancing the characters in a game, and it becomes apparent that one type of character is stronger than all or most of the other characters. When this happens, most of the players of the game will choose that character type in preference to other characters, and when the game designers notice that this is occurring, they often take steps to adjust the over powered character type and bring it back into line with the other character types, so that everything is balanced as fairly as possible.

Table Tennis Style Balance

I think it could be argued that table tennis in the 1970's through to the mid 1980's resembled the rock/paper/scissors type of video game, where certain styles had advantages over other styles, but were in turn weak against another style (i.e. loop beats chop, chop beats block, and block beats drive). While this allowed many different styles to be competitive in the overall scene, it still resulted in individual matches being a little bit unbalanced, depending on which styles were being used. Of course, the skill of the players involved was still the main deciding factor regarding who was likely to win!
Following the Swedish demolition of the Chinese Men's team in the 1989 World Championships by a score of 5-0, I'd argue that the modern game of table tennis has come to resemble a video game where the game designers have made a mistake and allowed one type of character to be over powered compared to other characters. The use of speed glue (and now boosters, tuners, and factory tuning) and modern technology in rubbers and blades have all given power looping much more assistance than any other playing style.

The ITTF actually took a leaf from the book of video game designers back in 2000, when they tried to limit the domination of the power looper by introducing a bigger ball (the ball size was changed from 38mm to 40mm), thus hoping to reduce spin and speed in the game, giving other styles more of a chance. Unfortunately, the result of this change wasn't what the ITTF had hoped for (I would argue that it actually made things more difficult for defenders, rather than easier), and the power loop has continued to dominate proceedings. The ITTF is now discussing plans to possibly increase the ball size even further to 42mm, but the exact reasons behind this possible change have yet to be explained fully.

What I'd actually like to see is for the ITTF to take the approach of trying to adjust the sport of table tennis so that the choice of playing style becomes less of a consideration, and the skill of the individual player once again becomes the main factor in deciding who wins matches. Of course, this is much more easily said than done, since it's not always possible to know in advance what the effect of a change will be (such as when the ball size was increased), and it can take many years for the full effect of a change to filter through to the top ranks of the sport. But wouldn't it be nice if the ITTF would stand up and say that they want to see a number of playing styles being represented in the top 100 players of the world, instead of 90 power loopers and a smattering of pips out hitters, a couple of modern defenders, and one or two traditional defenders!

Conclusion

Balancing a video game is a complex task, and attempting to balance the game of table tennis is probably just as hard. While I personally think that the ITTF should be attempting to balance the sport so that a multitude of styles can flourish, it is possible that the ITTF and others may disagree. But where do the ITTF stand on the balance of power between styles in table tennis? Do they want to see more styles become competitive? Or just one or two? Inquiring minds want to know.