On the Euro tour the tables are tapped using a template (you hold a ball on the template and tap it down a couple of times into the cloth using another ball) to get a consistently frozen rack. The template allows the tapping to place indentions slightly closer together than the balls can actually sit so that the balls lean in toward each other and freeze.
This technique was first used in pro tournaments in the US more than a decade ago with the patented Rack-M-Rite Racking Template that I invented with my partner Dale Craig.
I know Shane has played on tapped tables in European tournaments and I suspect Earl has either here or in Europe. Earl apparently free-handed his tapping without using a template.
