Not long after the 2023 IBF World Championships ended in October 2023, I received an extraordinary allegation from a person who plausibly could have knowledge of the situation. The allegation included a picture of a PURPLE HAMMER with a serial number that didn’t look normal. The person told me the ball actually was an illegal ball — a PURPLE HAMMER that was unintentionally made illegally soft in 2016-17 — and the serial number had been altered so that it would appear to be...