Heavily overshadowed by other Hexers thanks to Andro themselves. Andro tried promoting this rubber by means of durability which is the biggest mistake ever, and official ratings were also complete BS. In fact depending on the players/blades this is still the best Hexer contender alongside even the latest Hexer Grip/Powergrip. It's also one of the top 3 Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubbers in my mind alongside Joola Golden Tango PS and Tibhar Hybrid K2 (the latter one might be rare but I can guarantee it's good), although Duro does give quite a different softish hitting feel from the other 2.
Spin: The mild tackiness of this rubber isn't only for durability as Andro suggested, but also helps Chinese-style brushing strokes / spinning, and believe it or not this still has the best surface grip among the Hexer series. Even Grip/Powergrip you would have to sink into the topsheet/sponge a little bit to get the grip while Duro doesn't require such. Although still a bit offf from spinniest Chinese rubbers like Hurricane 3, Battle 2 etc, the overall spin level is still higher than even my Omega 7 Pro for my current backhand which is already real spinny. Short games spin potential is unquestionable (better than Grip/Powergrip), and it's even a bit spinnier under harder impacts as the ball sinks even just a bit deeper into the 42.5 sponge. The mild-tacky topsheet/soft sponge combo surprisingly works here despite this is usually the recipe that fails Chinese topsheets.
Speed: Low catapult but by no means slow. Still faster than Hexer Powersponge at least. A bit bouncy at lower gears if comparing to Chinese standards I would say it's closer to medium/medium-slow Euro rubbers' standards. You wouldn't want the sponge too fast anyway with the topsheet which favors Chinese-style strokes when it comes to spinning. It's worth noting however that the sponge doesn't easily bottom out, which has always been the strength of Andro (even for their 37.5deg sponge), so there's more speed than you expected once you drilled through the 42.5deg sponge a lot under very hard impacts. Behaves a bit like Chinese rubbers in that regard if you ignore the extra amount of sponge compression in Duro's case.
Power(Spin+speed):
If considering purely from rubber perspectives then ultimate power would be lacking when compared to Chinese Provincial rubbers such as Battle 2, Sanwei's Target National and a boosted H3 due to the medium-soft sponge, so ultimate spin/speed are a bit below the likes of above, however Duro offers better power at softer strokes. Hard strokes it's more comparable to Hexer Grip while Grip would ultimately edge out with its noticeably faster sponge. For reference Grip is even easier to generate power at medium impacts.
However Duro is more geared towards hard spinning than speed, so having a fast stiff blade can make up some of the power disadvantages.
Arc / Throw:
By general standards it's closer to the range of Medium to medium high depending on the blade chosen. However deadly low-arc topspins can be executed at will.
Control: Always been best aspects about Hexers, even till now there're hardly any rubbers that can match Hexers' forgiveness when comes to (counter) topspin games. Some Chinese rubbers maybe even better at short games due to much lower bounciness but Duro is still very good at that, even flicks are easy as hell despite 42.5 sponge, and overall controllability wise Duro is easily one of very best in the market right now.
Weight: At not even 43g after cutting Duro is very light for a rubber which resembles Chinese rubbers' behaviors. Even Grip/Powergrip weighs close to the 50g mark and only unboosted non-Neo H3s can come just a bit closer to Duro's weight. Most other Chinese rubbers (even without boosting) easily go beyond the 50g mark or above. If you don't have beastly arm strengths of the pros then the weight savings from Duro might make quite a profound difference in actual match play.
Hexer Duro may not have the best power of top Chinese rubbers but there're other strengths (such as control and easily extractable power, comparing to Chinese rubbers at least) which makes it an (almost) top-performing Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubber which performs like nothing else on the market, even when comparing to Tango PS or Hybrid K2. I personally don't pay much attention to durability but I'm on my 3rd sheet of Duro and I can say its durability is more than good enough, if not best.
Suggest pairing Duro with blades that have still top ply to facilitate sponge engagement for spin/power. Duro is also a great backhand choice for those who have good looping techniques on backhand and meanwhile want do things with great safety and not too fast. If u're used to other European rubbers for backhand u shouldn't have difficulties with transitioning to Duro thanks to its hugely forgiving nature as well as retaining Euro-type feedback when impacting the ball.
Spin: The mild tackiness of this rubber isn't only for durability as Andro suggested, but also helps Chinese-style brushing strokes / spinning, and believe it or not this still has the best surface grip among the Hexer series. Even Grip/Powergrip you would have to sink into the topsheet/sponge a little bit to get the grip while Duro doesn't require such. Although still a bit offf from spinniest Chinese rubbers like Hurricane 3, Battle 2 etc, the overall spin level is still higher than even my Omega 7 Pro for my current backhand which is already real spinny. Short games spin potential is unquestionable (better than Grip/Powergrip), and it's even a bit spinnier under harder impacts as the ball sinks even just a bit deeper into the 42.5 sponge. The mild-tacky topsheet/soft sponge combo surprisingly works here despite this is usually the recipe that fails Chinese topsheets.
Speed: Low catapult but by no means slow. Still faster than Hexer Powersponge at least. A bit bouncy at lower gears if comparing to Chinese standards I would say it's closer to medium/medium-slow Euro rubbers' standards. You wouldn't want the sponge too fast anyway with the topsheet which favors Chinese-style strokes when it comes to spinning. It's worth noting however that the sponge doesn't easily bottom out, which has always been the strength of Andro (even for their 37.5deg sponge), so there's more speed than you expected once you drilled through the 42.5deg sponge a lot under very hard impacts. Behaves a bit like Chinese rubbers in that regard if you ignore the extra amount of sponge compression in Duro's case.
Power(Spin+speed):
If considering purely from rubber perspectives then ultimate power would be lacking when compared to Chinese Provincial rubbers such as Battle 2, Sanwei's Target National and a boosted H3 due to the medium-soft sponge, so ultimate spin/speed are a bit below the likes of above, however Duro offers better power at softer strokes. Hard strokes it's more comparable to Hexer Grip while Grip would ultimately edge out with its noticeably faster sponge. For reference Grip is even easier to generate power at medium impacts.
However Duro is more geared towards hard spinning than speed, so having a fast stiff blade can make up some of the power disadvantages.
Arc / Throw:
By general standards it's closer to the range of Medium to medium high depending on the blade chosen. However deadly low-arc topspins can be executed at will.
Control: Always been best aspects about Hexers, even till now there're hardly any rubbers that can match Hexers' forgiveness when comes to (counter) topspin games. Some Chinese rubbers maybe even better at short games due to much lower bounciness but Duro is still very good at that, even flicks are easy as hell despite 42.5 sponge, and overall controllability wise Duro is easily one of very best in the market right now.
Weight: At not even 43g after cutting Duro is very light for a rubber which resembles Chinese rubbers' behaviors. Even Grip/Powergrip weighs close to the 50g mark and only unboosted non-Neo H3s can come just a bit closer to Duro's weight. Most other Chinese rubbers (even without boosting) easily go beyond the 50g mark or above. If you don't have beastly arm strengths of the pros then the weight savings from Duro might make quite a profound difference in actual match play.
Hexer Duro may not have the best power of top Chinese rubbers but there're other strengths (such as control and easily extractable power, comparing to Chinese rubbers at least) which makes it an (almost) top-performing Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubber which performs like nothing else on the market, even when comparing to Tango PS or Hybrid K2. I personally don't pay much attention to durability but I'm on my 3rd sheet of Duro and I can say its durability is more than good enough, if not best.
Suggest pairing Duro with blades that have still top ply to facilitate sponge engagement for spin/power. Duro is also a great backhand choice for those who have good looping techniques on backhand and meanwhile want do things with great safety and not too fast. If u're used to other European rubbers for backhand u shouldn't have difficulties with transitioning to Duro thanks to its hugely forgiving nature as well as retaining Euro-type feedback when impacting the ball.
). My range of toss height variations for my serves, which I often used to throw off my opponents, was also being reduced, as well doing some crazy moves during short games which was possible with Ultim but not with the Pro.
