Donic Baracuda

The Baracuda is a tensor rubber from Donic available in 3 thicknesses and 3 colors. I have used only the blue colord one, so my review is only valid for the blue rubber.

It is a relatively quick rubber with a moderate amount of catapult. Quite a bit bouncy for the short game, but it also depends on the blade. With technique it is a tamable rubber.
It's spin levels are rather high, but not extraordinarily high as some suggest. It is above the average rubber's spin, but not in the very high levels. It is easy to generate that high spin with the great amount of grip that can be found on the topsheet.
It is a light rubber with a relatively high throw, so can be used with heavier blades.

Some players have suggested that is has a high durability. I have experienced the opposite, for me it is broken after 2 months, I have lost half the grip. It is highly spin sensitive, but not surprising given the high spin capability. In high humidty and dusty places the rubber's performance drops quite a bit, so should be cleaning regularly.

The Donic Baracuda is one of the greatest rubbers I've ever tried. It can generate very good amounts of rotation, but it lacks a little bit of speed. It is a very bouncy rubber with a high throw angle.

I've used this rubber quite long ago (probably around 2011), it was second in my list of potential Tenergy 05 substitutions that day. Used it on a BH side for approximately 6 month, replacing it with a new one every 3 month. Blade: Timo Boll Spirit

I could play with it and it was better than the one I tried as T05 replacement before (Palio Macra Era 47.5 was a complete disaster for me). It had quite a high throw, not as high as T05, but not bad, just enough I didn't miss about T05 throw angle. It was quite good at blocking, pushes, and close to the table game in general (probably due to high throw and its small speed)
But I often go to the middle zone and trying looping from distance wasn't good for me. Moreover looping in general was far from being perfect: first of all it lacks speed and I wouldn't call spin extraordinary. Combining those two resulted that my bh loop was not as dangerous as I used to. And the worst thing about it was that sometimes ball was simply falling of the racket without any apparent reason and going to the net. Usually I feel quite well a part of stroke that failed: either it was body position or wrong attack angle or wrong wrist movement or wet rubber or anything else. I always know what I must change in the next ball to make it work. That was the only rubber where I didn't: I thought that my position is right, that racket angle is good, wrist doing right movement: everything was good, maybe not perfect, not sure, but definitely good. And as a result ball goes well into the net. Every other rubber I've ever tried would produce normal trajectory, maybe slightly lower than ideal one, maybe not as fast as usual, but good enough to go over the net for sure. That not always happened to me, just let's say 1 out of 5 would be that weird. But still that was really frustrating (so frustrating that I decided to write a review 9 years after I stopped using it )
Also recently I had ~10 training sessions with a guy who uses Baracuda on his bh too, but on Korbel blade. And it looks to me that he has very similar problems. He has problems with the first loop regardless spin it has and he simply doesn't understand why. If his first loop goes into the table then he can produce 2-3-5 without problems. But the first one is a disaster, like if he hits 1 out of 3, then it is a great result.

It was not that bad as I might described, definitely not bad enough to force me to order something else just after 1 training session and even good enough for me to give it a second chance (which didn't work unfortunately). Maybe rubber is not that forgiving for my bh, maybe it simply lacks catapult (and probably nowadays I would try to use some booster first before switching to another rubber), but switching to Acuda S1 made me happier those days

Good BH rubber, using max on Tibhar Stratus Power Wood. Not very impressed with the speed, but control is very good. Good for defensive play, no doubt. For fast offensive strokes - well, I may be missing some things. Will continue for some time though as trying few things defensively. Probably, will go to Sriver (was very impressed with the EL version 2.1 max on Donic Waldner Allplay).

Hi All!

I have read many reviews on this rubber and I saw many people like this rubber big time. So I bought one myself. Baracuda product line from Donic was the first answer to the famouns Tenergy 05 and 05 FX. This first generation of ESN tensors really did the trick. The overall speed is one tempo slower. The spin with the throw angle is just like T05. The rubber is a bit less spin sensitive. Nowdays I can compare this feeling with the JOOLA MAXX series, which has a bit less speed and spin, but generally a very pleasant looping rubber.

Altough hardness of the sponge is not known it is said to be around 45-47 degrees. The rubber is average weight 0,22 g/mm2 in max thickness (like the lighter T05 sheets).

With boosting the rubber comes more lively and a bit more aggressive, the speed can be increased to match the T05. But this rubber is a first generation tensor, it truly needs VOC based glue to shine. With water based glue and boostering only the speed will increase bigtime, not really the spin.

For me it was not demanding to play with it at all. When I was testing it I was playing with MX-P. What I lacked in the boosted and the unboosted version of the rubber is the pure uncomfortable aggressiveness, which is transferred to the ball in modern short strokes with modern ESN tensors. Did comparison games with many opponents, they clearly stated, that my balls were more predictable and less disturbing with my Barracuda FH (Big Slam on BH). While on my main blade I used MX-P (FH) and M2 (BH). Usually I achieved 2-4 more points in a set against a similar opponent. With Barracuda I felt I can't attack with enough spin/speed to force an error from my opponent. Don't get me wrong I could get all balls to the other side due to the high throw, the feeling of my game vas generally good and safe, but my balls came back too many times.

It was nice to see DONIC reinventing the Acuda series (which I did not like personally), but the blue sponge definetly has it's advantage. I love the bluefire series (M & JP) so I would love to see the reinvented Baracuda series, the same topsheet with the new blue sponge... I would definetly buy one. Until then, I can only recommend this rubber to every aggressive allround player or to kids, who are still learning the technique and developing their game, because this is a very reliable rubber without insane catapult effect.

Spinny, quite slow with good control, using it on my backhand and has been useful to improve my backhand loop. It has a high throw which takes some getting used to. I have this in max, it is quite heavy which is important to keep in mind as it can make your setup quite head-heavy depending on the blade and other rubber you have.

It's a great looping rubber with good grip. To me feels better than tenergy 05 to drive the ball.
It's fast enough with 2 layers of booster, it has a linear behavior and due to my tendinitis is way lighter than a MX-P (my previous rubber)
It's a little bit spin sensitive at passive blocks put if you counter top ou usea little wrist it'll be fine.
It's specially good at near the table attacks.
If it was 1 or 2 degrees harder it would beeven better

It is my new favorite rubber for BH. It helps with the looping and even being bouncy, it's very easy to block with this rubber. It's a little bit slow compared to other offensive rubbers, but i like them that way in my BH.

I believe i found my Holy Graal for my BH and i would only change this rubber if in the future i feel i need more speed in BH.

After 2 months playing with this rubber i didn't feel much degradation.

This is one of the best looping rubbers out there with a very high grip topsheet. It is a good Tenergy 05 precursor and up to even the USATT 2400 level can replace Tenergy if the focus of the looper is on doing specific things. While it is a relatively slow rubber, it is still an offensive rubber. The benefit of relatively slow rubbers like Baracuda is that the lack of catapult makes the linearity of the response to a power stroke easier to predict. This is very helpful when drive looping the ball.

The rubber is spin sensitive enough that one still has to learn to play actively with it, but it is similar enough to Tenergy 05 in that department, though Tenergy requires a better touch because of the power of the spring sponge.

The catapult makes it harder to hit winners from behind the table and to engage in topspin rallies away from the table. However, for someone who plays closer to the table and tries to win more of his points with short game control, Baracuda is a better choice than many rubbers if the player is not practicing often enough to radically improve their touch and timing. Depending on how you play and what you do, I would recommend it to anyone with a looping stroke or who wants to loop between 1200 and 2400 USATT on either forehand or backhand. That said, it requires effort only to generate pace - the spin is easy to generate and blocking is controlled once the racket angle is set.

It also works well with some boosting though the speed isn't radically improved.